A weekend away in Benidorm?

 At my last birthday, my son gave me a birthday card and said your present is inside. I opened the card and there was a piece of A4 saying "Holiday in Benidorm".  Thanks, I said.

Now Benidorm is a destination that carries some baggage with it. It is the destination of choice for those Britains' who really want Blackpool with good weather and even cheaper lager. Benidorm is famed for full English breakfasts, with English sausages and a mug of builders tea. There are plenty of sports bars serving all the English brands of lager, like Stella Artois and San Miguel.  There are also several Irish bars serving genuine Guinness.

There are also the same fast food brands that you'd find in any UK city or town. The ubiquitous golden arches, the chicken from Kentucky, pizzas named after a pub game and more.

So not so much an experience of a different culture, with local fresh food and dancing, more of a home from home. Globalization has much to answer for.

Back in the 1960s, my maternal grandparents were early adopters of the Jet powered package holiday. They had been holidaying abroad before by using the train and ferries and then train again to their final destination. But when air travel became affordable, they jumped at the chance to board a BAC 111, the charter flight aircraft of choice, and arrived in Ibiza to find local fishing villages, fresh seafood and local entertainment (bullfights, flamenco etc) all washed down with plenty of local wine and sherry. This was long before the commercialization of many Spanish holiday destinations, or, as many think, the ruination of these destinations.

So I was with trepidation that I, tentatively, looked forward to my weekend in Benidorm.

The weekend got off to a bad start. The post 9/11 paranoia, that still exists at Airports nearly 25 years later, proved to hold us up for longer than necessary. The security operative had clearly used Midnight Express as a training video rather than entertainment.  The delight with which I was asked to accompany him and went through my suitcase and carry on bag, was palpable.  

By the time I wheezed up to the boarding gate, with my heart about to give up the unequal fight with my age and my painful feet complaining, they shut the gate and wouldn't let us through. Bastards!

This is the downside of modern travel, negotiating the security systems that were put in place for our security but which are intrusive and are designed to make the traveler feel like Billy Hayes.

My son got on the phone later in the day and the holiday company agreed that we could fly the next day, Saturday, and we could return on the Tuesday. A quick email to my boss to ask permission to change my holiday dates, resulted in an enquiry of such depth that it made the Watergate investigation look like a call to directory enquiries. Eventually permission was granted but with the mini lecture that I must be more organized in future.

After all the nonsense of the previous day, The day of the flight went perfectly. We arrived at the airport and, in contrast to the previous day, we were sat in the bar drinking a beer less than an hour after leaving my house.

The flight passed, not exactly pleasantly, but quickly enough that it didn't really matter and we emerged at Alicante airport ready for our transport to our hotel.

Arrival at the Hotel Olympia, in Benidorm Old Town, was a real delight. The hotel has an old world charm. The quiet entrance is in a street off of the main pedestrianised area. You step into the reception area and are greeted by a member of staff who welcomes you to the hotel and efficiently does the admin to check you into your room without looking myopically at a computer screen for half an hour.

We dropped our bags in our room and ventured out to find some dinner. Time was moving on and it was about 10pm, but we found a lovely little family run restaurant where a simple meal of Spaghetti Bolognese for myself and a freshly cooked  pizza for my son. From out table we could watch the kitchen staff spark into life and cook our food,  The food was delicious and reasonable price at 35 Euros for both of us, include a couple of beers each.  This was a venue that we'd return to during our brief stay in Benidorm.

We then repaired to a bar and sat outside enjoying a drink and a chat.

The next day we ventured out early following an enjoyable breakfast. I'd brought along a Polaroid Flip camera and four packs of film. Getting the film through the security at the UK airport was a nightmare as it can't be X-Rayed or CT Scanned. At £17.99 a pack, you don't want the film ruined!  So I'd calculated on using 2 packs a day during our stay.

Now I have to say that Benidorm Old Town is relatively unspoiled and lacks the gaudy, noisy, dreadful attack on the senses that you get a couple of hundred yards down the coast. The streets are a great place to take contemplative stroll post breakfast and the early morning air is fresh and welcome.  The shops are a mixture of local crafts, butchers, bakers, and shoe shops.

The Benidorm castle is easily accessible but there are only foundations still to be seen and a modern viewing area is built over the top, with perspex windows to allow viewing of medieval foundations and stonework.  The view of the coast and sea is at it's best here.

The early morning light was excellent and a contrast to the dull, dark conditions at home.  I pulled out the Polaroid Flip and shot some pictures,

The Flip is a beautifully simple camera. I borrowed the Flip from Dave Whenham (@daveinelland) and he has borrowed my Polaroid I-2.  The I-2 has lots of features and can be a bit complex to navigate.  The Flip is much simpler and works better for it.  I quickly shot the first film and reloaded.

In the Old Town there are plenty of subjects to shoot, but my preference is for double exposures and I was not left wanting. We walked and walked until it was lunch time and a delicious luncheon was enjoyed, again in a street bar.  The temperature at the end of January is 18 degrees Celsius and so the ability to walk around as it it were a cooler summers day in the UK was possible.

More walking in the afternoon took us along the coast toward the opposite end of the beach. There wasn't much along here but the walk was pleasant and we popped into a bar about 3pm for a restorative beer.

By the time we wandered back to the Hotel, I'd shot all the film for the day.

Following another meal at the restaurant we'd been in the previous night, we had a final drink in a lovely little bar about a 100 yards from the Olympia, sitting out until about 1am.

The next day, and nursing a bit of a hangover, we had a chilled day that included 3 meals, beer and more Polaroid photography.

We were collected at 06:20 (am) the following morning for our flight home.

I was surprised and delighted by Benidorm Old Town and I think that it was well worth a visit and made a nice weekend break.

Mind Your Own Business

Why is one photographic  process more valid than another? 

Digital photography may have many benefits but for whom? 

Undoubtedly the commercial photographer can reduce costs and overheads and get images to market quickly by using digital cameras and computers. 

Most of us are not commercial photographers.

How I shoot is, ultimately,  my business.  I earn my money honestly and no one has the right to tell me how to spend it.

If I want to use a cheap plastic cameras from Hong Kong, that's my business. No one else's.

If I share my work and others enjoy my work,  and they do, who is to say my photography is invalid in some way?

Anyone who has views like those suggested are usually trying to validate their own decisions for spending lots of money on Digital equipment. 

Ultimately its the final image that counts not how it was made.

For the hobbyist photographer, more involvement in the photography process gives more personal satisfaction than simply pressing a button will ever do.

If your digital camera takes superb photographs (and they do),  then why worry about what others do?

That you have a process that works for you, does not give you the right to criticise the process others might use. Mind your own business and create work that you are happy with.

The problem with digital cameras is that people often confuse "technically excellent" photographs with the lack of personal satisfaction of having made that image. Digital photos that are boring or dont engage the audience can be blamed on equipment rather than a lack of personal skill or artistry.

So often this situation results in more equipment being purchased without a resulting improvement in the ratio of keepers to those which can be binned. Cheap storage just means that terrabytes of crap are being stored. 

Think about this, AI is being trained on that crap...

The Polaroid I-2 - Multiple Exposures

 I will caveat this post by saying that I am by no means a Polaroid Multiple Exposure expert, but I dabble.  There are others on the 'net that are much more into Polaroid cameras and all the good and interesting things that the cameras do. There is a chap called Will Malone who has made multiple exposures a real art form and tried, with some success, to formalise this with some science. It is this kind of geekery that really interests me.

I am not going to reproduce the formalisation here, but, as we all stand on the shoulders of giants, I shall, and have been, be using his work as inspiration for my own.

A multiple exposure is, as I'm sure you will know, the practice of making two or more exposures within one frame and the result will be two pictures (if you take two exposures), somehow mixed together by the universe in a way that is not entirely predictable. The result is random, chaotic even, but wholly unpredictable.

This photo, for example, shows two pictures that have blended in a way that relies on the unpredictability of the film, the camera and the scenery.

Now it is possible to reduce chaos, impose some structure or form and end up with something reasonably intentional.

This was created (Ha Ha!) by taking the first exposure normally then turning the camera through 180 degrees and taking the second image of the same subject as the first.  This technique introduces symmetry, while retaining a level of randomness that is pleasing to the eye. Or at least my eye.

This picture was created  using a technique of taking an exposure of something in shadow (here the tree) and then the second exposure will appear to be bounded in the trees form.  It's weird and random but pleasing nonetheless.

On balance the multiple exposure offers much for the creative photographer. The ability to experiment, see the results "on site" and able to try again if needed really does make for an enjoyable experience.

And after all that is what it's all about, experience.

The Polaroid I-2, more discussion

In the last post about the Polaroid I-2, I discussed the frustrations that I had with the camera and the film. 

I suppose that I should say that the Polaroid I-2 is the flagship camera for Polaroid and is the most expensive and feature laden camera that is currently available. The camera alone is £500 and then there is film on top of that.  The Polaroid Now+ camera at the time I purchased the I-2 was the second most expensive Polaroid camera at £149. Other Polaroid cameras, for example the flip that came out this year, are £200. 

"This camera is the replacement for the SX-70!", they exclaimed.

The I-2 is more expensive by a huge margin and so expectations from this camera were high.

Initial use of the camera produced results that were not in line with expectations set by the high price and cornucopia of features. I shot a pack or three in the camera, each with increasing frustration until I discovered a forum for the I-2 that suggested the firmware might be out of date.  Now call me "Mr Old Fashioned" but surely a newly manufactured and shipped camera should be delivered with the latest firmware. But no! More to the point the camera hadn't been on the market for long so a major firmware update being available was a surprise to say the least.

I connected the Polaroid 'phone app to the I-2 and blow me if the app didn't say the firmware was out of date.  The app does the download of firmware from the 'net and pushes that firmware to the camera for installation.  Bit of a faff but now I had the latest firmware installed on the camera. Now I could be the best Instant photographer in the world!

But hold on, not so fast. This is where the inconsistent film (remember that from last time?) chucks a huge nut loosening tool into the mix. So another couple of packs of film later (at £17.99 this is getting expensive) and I'm beginning to suspect that someone at Polaroid is laughing at me. As Johnny Rotten asked the audience at the last Sex Pistols gig in America in 1978, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?". Well yes Polaroid, I do.

I am not a new photographer where either normal negative film or Instant film, in the form of Instax Wide, are concerned. My Chroma Snapshot, Instant Edition with LomoGraflok back is a completely manual camera. This requires me to take a meter reading after entering the ISO of the film into the meter, transfer the aperture and shutter speed to the camera and take the photo.  And Instax Wide is consistent and the ISO is the ISO!

See what I mean? Nothing wrong with my ability.  

It is absolutely infuriating to have an expensive camera, and even more expensive film, not behaving itself. You question yourself "Is it me?". Your confidence slips. It's not nice at all!

So having watched every YouTube video about the I-2 and it's, alleged, capabilities, I decided to have a break from worrying and being frustrated and decided to try some double exposures.  When you put the I-2 into multi exposure mode the camera does everything automatically, so if auto doesn't work then I'm writing a stiff letter to Polaroid in the land of the Dyke.

Well, left to it's own devices the camera did a sterling job of being an automatic camera.  At this juncture in proceedings, strong oaths were sworn, Anglo Saxon phrases used in public and the parentage of the designer of the camera firmware was brought into question in no uncertain terms! Still I had a working camera, so lets consider this turn of events a win!

The Polaroid I-2 and my ups and downs.

 Last Christmas, I bought a Polaroid I-2 camera. There was an offer on, drink was involved and the big boys made me do it (you know who you are!).  I started the year, 2025, with my new I-2 and resolve to become the best instant photographer in the world. A plan with no downsides, I thought.  And it would have gone like that too, if talent and the small matter of temperature hadn't got in the way.

The astute reader may remember that I have a LomoGraflok, Instax Wide back for my Chroma cameras and have had some success with that. In fact, I have never given temperature a second thought while using Instax Wide film. Middle of winter, no problem! Mojave desert in summer, also no issue. No color shifts or delays in developing happened.

There is a reason that Polaroid discounts it's cameras in the middle of winter, because while the cameras work just fine, the film packs do not. Polaroid film packs work over a narrower range of temperatures than Instax Wide. Too cold and the results show a green/blue color cast, too hot and you'll get a red/orange cast.  Cold temperatures mean really long development times with polaroid too.

Let me also tell you that the ISO of polaroid film is a moveable feast, depending on temperature, prevailing winds and the shipping forecast for Dogger. It's written on the film packaging. "ASA 640. Film speed may vary, allow for (plus or minus) 1/3 stops"

Using the first half dozen packs of film with my Polaroid I-2, I fell foul of the less than consistent results from the Polaroid film.  Given that you only get 8 photo's from a pack of Polaroid film, if you get a couple of frames that don't work, it's an issue.  For me also the Black and White film is less consistent than the color film. So my start with my brand new and shiny, flagship, Polaroid I-2 was marred by the experience and made the camera seem like a bit of a white elephant.

Film speed, ISO or ASA, is the element,  that as photographers, we require to be a constant. If you are going to use a manual camera and need to use a meter, you need to input the film speed so that the meter can give you a reading.  Generally speaking, the meter reading will give you a set of parameters (shutter speed and aperture size) that when transferred to the camera, will produce an acceptable result in the negative. This is even more important when using positive (slide) film.  Spot on metering is required to get decent results, but the ISO or ASA is the constant. Yes you can experiment with the settings to optimize the result but the point at which you start is the film speed being consistent from roll to roll.

The I-2 has a manual mode where you can set aperture and shutter speed. This is touted by Polaroid as being a Pro feature but my experience with the inconsistent film meant that the confidence, that comes with trusting your film and equipment, evaporated.  If the ASA of Polaroid film is not consistent the manual mode is pointless in my opinion. I am not alone in thinking this either. More illustrious Polaroid users than I have agreed with my findings and even made a YouTube video or two about the issue.  The camera is fine, it's the film that is inconsistent.

So the Polaroid I-2 was returned to it's packaging for a few months while I waited for warmer weather. Winter turned to Spring and Spring turned to Summer. And the weather went from baltic to sweltering in the blink of an eye.

The Polaroid I-2 was given a run out during the late Spring but the results from using the camera in manual mode were less than encouraging.

And then I discovered multiple exposures using the I-2 and that's where things started to look up.

The Holga gods are displeased.

 The Holga is a cheap camera, some might say it is manufactured like a toy, that is made in Hong Kong and has become something of minor obsession for me over the last 20 years. The Holga is made of the kind of plastic that is normally reserved for scale models of aircraft such as Spitfires or Hurricanes. People will tell you that they are terrible cameras, not worth your time and don't produce good results.  Those people are tweaking the ear of the Holga gods and no good will come of it.

Recently, I have neglected my Holga and it has sat on a shelf and gathered dust.  That was until Dave Whenham decided to take his Holga, affectionately known as the "AndyCam" as I gifted it to him, for a walk and he produced a roll of nice negatives.  Spurred on by this effort,  I loaded my own Holga and sallied forth to expose the film.  The results were encouraging and so a second film was loaded and on a warm February afternoon, I went out again with the Holga.

The problem was that I had caused consternation in the Holga heavens by my long lay up of my Holga and so the Holga gods plotted to teach me a lesson.

The Holga gods did their worst

Now the thing is that it would be easy to work with the Holga, with it's single shutter speed and aperture to produce some artistic, if not good, images.  It would be further exciting to understand how to use development to give control to the photographer.  Even better would be to use filters  to modify how light is captured.  At this point it would be only to easy to proclaim oneself a "Master" of the Holga.

To do so would be folly of the highest degree.

You see every film that one shoots in a Holga is subject to the agreement of the Holga gods and it is they who decide if a frame is going to be good or not.  Moreover it is they who will decide if the whole roll is to be a right off or whether you will have a couple or more of good exposures.  It really has nothing to do with the photographer and it would be good to bear that in mind.

The Holga gods are also able to interfere in the film processing department to either allow or foil any attempt at compensating for the shortcomings of the camera.  In short they get into your mind and interfere with your thought processes in the same way as they invisibly guided the photographers hand during the taking of a shot.

How many times have Holga users looked at the film and couldn't remember a frame or two being shot?  This is because the Holga gods have taken over and are using the photographer as a puppet.

Blurred and Overexposed, Ye gods!

So displeasing the Holga gods isn't a clever thing to do if you'd like some reasonable photographs from the little plastic camera.

Now to my tale...

Last Saturday I needed to collect a relative from the coach station in Swansea at 12:30. As coach arrival times are something of an elastic concept, the waiting time for collecting people is only 10 minutes and enforced by cameras, I decided to arrive early and park at Swansea Marina.  As the coach arrived I would receive a text message and drive over to the collection point.  Excellent a plan was made!

But the Holga gods had not forgotten my, almost two years, neglect of the Holga and they had nearly missed seeing me pick the camera back up and start using it again.  Worse, I started dishing out tips and advice to others and setting myself up as something of a Holga guru. The Holga gods decided this would not do, it would not do at all.

Before leaving home, I loaded a roll of FP4 Plus into my Holga and in doing so checked the camera over. Getting in the car, I nonchalantly threw the Holga onto the passenger seat along with my hat, a neck warmer and a magnifying glass. My causal handling of the camera did not go unnoticed by the Holga gods and so incensed were they that they decided something had to be done immediately.

As I drove towards Swansea Marina, the traffic got really bad and I inexplicably found myself constantly in the wrong lane.  Eventually I arrived at the car park and had to try every ticket machine until I found one that worked.

Then, after I put the parking ticket on the dashboard, I set off on foot to shoot 12 exposures before collecting the relative.  It was a lovely, bright and warm sunny day and I was pointing my camera here and there, using the magnifying glass as a close up lens when the shot called for it.  The familiar snick of the shutter operating was comforting and it was not long before I has just one more frame to expose.

There was a private charter embarking and the gang plank offered a unique view of the front of an old rusting ship.  I enquired if I could go down and make my exposure? Permission granted I went down the gang plank and it was the work of a moment to raise the Holga to my eye and operate the shutter.  Job done.

A normally inaccessible shot.

I wound on the film and packed the camera away as my phone was buzzing and my collection was ready to be picked up.

And so it was.

When I got home, and following luncheon of sausage and chips from the chip shop, I set about processing the film. I used semi stand development for an hour so I had some time to spare.  It was then that, to my horror, I noticed that the button on the bottom of the camera had been set to bulb. All those lovely shots would now be ruined. Oh my, the Holga gods had struck again!

As I pulled the processed film from the developing tank, my worst fears were confirmed, really dense negatives and evidence of blur due to the long exposure cause by camera shake.

I hung the negatives to dry and tried to forget the experience.

It wasn't until yesterday, Sunday, that I looked at the negatives, by now dry, hanging sadly.  I took them down and decided to scan them for the laughs, as they say.

While many of the pictures were in fact dreadful and unusable, some were not that bad and a deal better than I had any right to expect.

The Holga gods had done it again!  They had taught me a lesson that I'd thought I'd learned long ago.

Better than I could have expected!

The lesson is this; The photographs that you get from your Holga is subject to the good graces of the Holga gods and don't forget it!

You have been warned!

2024 and answering the age old conundrum?

It'll soon be the end of 2023 and the new year, 2024, will start. As is customary at this time of the year we look at the outgoing year and look forward to what the new year will bring.

I'm going to do something different and I'm going to answer the perennial question of which camera is the best?

2023 has been the year in which artificial intelligence or AI has become mainstream and has entered everyone's consciousness. Of course AI isn't new and the creators of AI software have been working for years on training their programs on big data provided by yourselves for free on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

All these social media platforms allow the posting of images or photographs as us oldies call them.  These images have been used to train the AI software so that if you want a photo of American GIs entering Berlin on a Segway, AI can produce a very convincing one.

For me the AI software remains just that, software.  It doesn't provide me with a mechanism for creativity where I can feel involved in the process.  After all AI photos could be created by using another AI program to come up with ideas for photos that don't exist yet and program the AI software that produces the photos.  No human intervention involved or required.

To return to the question posed above, the camera that is best for me in 2024 will be the camera that allows me full access to a number of tools that allow me to create photographs with full creative control.  

No AI involved. No Automation, no digital processing at the capture stage.

I recently took a holiday to Arizona in the USA. For that holiday I took my Chroma Camera Snapshot kitted out with a Topcon Super Topcor 90mm lens and a Lomography LomoGraflok Instax back.

This camera is a 4x5 sheet film camera that has an International  Graflok back to allow any accessories to be used with the camera like a rollfilm back or in my case a LomoGraflok  back.

The LomoGraflok back allows the use of Fujifilm Instax wide film.

Back in the early 1970s polaroid were busy bringing out cameras that were low cost and introduced instant photography to regular people.  My maternal Grandmother bought a Polaroid swinger camera that used peel apart pack film.  Back then it was like star trek and when my own daughter was old enough to want and use a camera I bought her a spice Girls badged Polaroid 600 camera, which she loved.

My instant photography genes run deep.

Using the Snapshot is fully manual and requires me to work out the exposure myself.

The camera only produces good results if I am involved. No auto focus, the camera is zone focussed, no auto exposure.

I took 10 packs of 10 exposures for the two weeks.  Not all were great but the ones that were really hit home.