Accordion Player, Venice, 2007

Hello again, moved away from pinhole pictures for the moment. I was also taking pictures with my rangefinder camera, small, light and with only the single 40mm lens to worry about photography becomes simple.

Julie and I were wandering around the back "streets" of Venice, about as far away from St Marks Square as you can get with the crowds mercifully left far behind. We walked past this guy only to sit down bt a canal for a break a few minutes later. Always a sucker for such photos I went back and put some coins in his hat and asked if it was alright to take his picture. He nodded so I made a few exposures.

The first print was made on Ilford Multigrade Resin Coated paper just to see how well it printed, I have made some 12 X 16 prints since and toned the highlights slightly to give an overall warm feeling to the image.

Why take photos?, why continue to use film, "old fashioned cameras" and, most strange of all why lock myself away in a dark room with only a red light and an I Pod for company??? Themes to return to I think.

Pinhole Venice Study 1

Pinhole photography has rather a cult following these days, just visit sites like http://www.f295.org/ or http://www.pinholesolutions.co.uk/ to get inspired. Pinhole cameras can be made from shoe boxes, biscuit tins, matchboxes, infact anything that can be made light tight and can accept either photographic paper of film.

You can of course do what I did and by one!, not only is it a lot easier there are some wonderful wooden, handmade models made by companies like Zero Imaging http://www.zeroimage.com/ and it was from Zero Imaging that I bought my "2000" model. This little gem takes 120 size film that giove you 6cmx6cm negatives.

I took my pinhole camera with me when my Wife and I went on a Birthday/anniversary trip to Venice in August this year and although I got some funny looks the sheer unpredictability of pinhole photography combined with the liberating freedom of not having to worry about fstops and shutter speeds (if you use proper manual cameras that is) was really fantastic.

Venice has lots of these drinking fountains and they seem to be running all the time, which on the face of it seems a bit of a waste.

Hope you kile the photo.

More soon

Morris Minor, Northern Ireland

This is quite an old photo, taken on a business trip to Northern Ireland probably 10 years ago. I can't remember exactly where I was at the time.

The camera was my OM-1n (still in use and is a fantastic manual camera to use) with a 28mm lens.

The image for scanning was printed on Ilford MG resin coated but I have since made some 12X16 fibre prints for hanging.

I rediscovered the negative the other day when pottering around in my darkroom looking for some "new" (ones I have,'t had a go at printing) negatives to print when I came across this and visualised it as a 12X16 fibre print hanging in the hall way.

The photo was partially bleached until the highlights were just about affected, washing with clean water then halts further bleaching.

I made up a mix of warm brown "sepia" tona to tone the highlights only - the toner works by replacing the bleached image tones.

A 10% solution of selenium toner bath then deepened the shadows slightly.

If you like any of the images you see on this blog and would like me to produce a 12X16 fibre print for you just drop me a line.

All for now

Canada House - Canary Wharf

I've recently been going back to some old negatives to reprint a portfolio, at the same time I've been printing family photos for a little scrap book project I'm working on. The former takes time, the latter is quick and easy!

This photo was taken over ten years ago when Canada House stood alone and domiated the landscape, I think there are three other buildings that are nearly as tall now.

This scan was made from a toned resin coated print. I've just started playing around with toning again after a break of a few years and it's really interesting and almost never ending the vaiety of tones that can be had. For this image I made up some ferri bleach from raw chemicals and bleached the highlights only then toned to light purple using a combined Thiocarbamide and Sodium Hydroxide mix (also from raw chemicals) - a final tone in selenium deepens the shadows somewhat. All of these effects work much better on traditional, fibre paper and less so on the resin coated used for this blog photo.

To come up to date I've just returned from a family holiday in Menorca, shot about 5 rolls of black and white film but not developed any yet.

All for now

Dungeness Beach #2

Not much of a fishing industry left these days.

A few boats along the coast still seem to make a living but I don't think there are that many fish left now.

These old huts still seem to be used to store fishing stuff in, the wood is worn and eroded by the constant battering of the elements and the texture comes through really well in black and white.

Not an ideal day for photography, the sky was empty and the light a bit too direct for my liking.

I've just developed some more rolls of film shot on the beach a few days later and these look much more promising. I'll post some for comparison in due course.

Dungeness Beach #1

Over the years I have often photographed at Dungeness Beach, this strange, "other-worldly" place of shingle, fishing boats abandoned, old and new and fisherman's huts. There's still a small smoke house on the road that leads down to the light house.

Most famously the late Derek Jarman's weather boarded house, complete with sculptures of "found" beach objects draws the knowing visitor.

The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Narrow Gauge Railway terminates at its end, a peculiarly English tea shop awaits the day trippers with cups of tea and cake.

I spotted this particular old boat, sitting alongside unlikely looking railway tracks, the railway tracks were used to move things up and down the beach I guess.

It wasn't an ideal day to make photographs, I try to avoid bright sun and cloudless sky or if I am forced then choose a time later in the day when the sun is lower and try to exclude as much of the sky as possible.

For those that are interested I used my Olympus OM1n camera with its OM 28mm lens for this photograph, the film was Fuji Neopan 400 and I developed it in good old faithful ID 11 diluted 1+1

I managed to get a whole afternoon and evening in the darkroom last weekend and rattled through a few of these shots, I also found negatives from the early 1990s of Dungeness Beach that I will reprint for posting.

Camera Club Competitions

Moving away from Prague for a little while.

This shot was taken some time ago when I used to belong to Rayleigh Camera Club in Essex. I cannot for the life of me, remember where I was at the time of taking.

I remember the process of taking the picture though, would have been with my OM1 with a deep red filter - you can tell if you look at the odd bit of blue sky, the red filter turns blue to black by allowing more red to pass through it whilst holding back blue elements. (think that's the right way round).

A wide angle low viewpoint specially designed to do well at our local camera club.

The main reason I no longer attend camera clubs is because of the on-going focus on competitions, competitions with Judges that have all read the same "how to judge competitions in camera clubs" book! - I soon realised what it was they liked and began churning out to a formula.

Bad news....

I still like the final printed image though.

Is it still like that at clubs?

Prague Doorway - Jan 2006

Light, shade and texture - that's what attracted me to this doorway.

Once again we see live music being advertised, this time at the "Marqis de Sade". Best get in out of the -6 degree cold as it was as we were strolling along looking for a coffee shop.

Untitled - Prague

Another "off the cuff" shot made while strolling around the old city. Looking at this image again I think what caught my eye was the suggestion that Vinyl might equal antique.

Puppets - Prague, January 2006

You really can't walk more than 100 yards in the Old Town without passing a shop selling these puppets. Some seem mass produced whilst others are clearly hand made and carry a handmade price to go with them.

I try to photograph this sort of detail, to try to convey an overall feeling of a place, never been much of one for grand views.

Been spending quite a bit of time in the darkroom over the last few weeks, mainly concentrating on these Prague photos. Been printing on to Resin Coated paper made by Ilford, I use a vertical print processor made by a fantastic UK company called Nova, this processor stays full of chemicals between printing sessions and all I need to do is switch on it's built in heaters to bring it all up to temperature.

When I have an image that I'm happy with I print on to 12X16 Fibre Paper.

Enough of the nerdy stuff.

More soon...

Underground - Prague, January 2006

Back to the Prague images.

Printed deliberately in a way to convey the emotions I felt at the time of taking this picture, there was something slightly foreboding about this apparently innocent entrance to Prague's underground system, the stairs descend into a black hole.....if you dare enter will you ever see the light of day again?

All those people walking past in the background, don't they realise the entrance to a subterranean hell is right under their noses?.....or do I have an over active imagination?

Look at the guy on the poster in the background, I wonder how his gig went? There seems to be a big music scene in Prague and you are never far away from some live music in a bar or club.

My Wife and I celebrated my 40th Birthday in Prague and we saw a fantastic Czech blues band in a timy underground club, I'll post a picture later on.

All for now, take care.

Not posted for a while, thought I'd better add a few words (even if I am talking to myself!!) - actually I had a couple of people look at a couple of scanned photos I posted on the photo.net forum www.photo.net/photos/warboyssnapper so I'm grateful to "Watermark of Merni" - mysterious huh and Ovidiu-christian cojocarita for their comments.

I've been in the darkroom a bit recently, been concentarating on some frustrating negatives from a friend's wedding, all hand held, indoors on a rainy Saturday. My Bessa R3a was loaded with Neoppan 1600 which helped.

Hope to do more from last year's trip to Prague soon, probably another 6 or so to post.

My Wife and I are taking a trip to Venice in the Autumn (that's the fall if you are in the USA) and we get to leave the kids at home, how great is that! - wandering around, time for picture making, good food and wine, heaven.

All for now, take care and God bless