Racing Cars

Now and again, I enjoy going to motorsport events. I'll take a camera with me and see if I can get close to the cars.  I enjoy the design and engineering work that has gone into the cars and I try to capture some of the design choices with my photography. These photographs were taken on 35mm film. Fomapan 100, if memory serves.

In Praise of Compact cameras

There are times when you want a camera that is a serious tool to take properly exposed, beautiful negative frames. However all of the technical activity to get a properly exposed, nicely developed negative makes the whole process really slow. If you are having a trip with a friend to London, for example, as I did recently,  you cannot make your friend ( a non photographer) slow down and stop, while messing around with meters, f stops, apertures and shutter speeds, not to mention intentional composition. No, you want to point and shoot and crack on with enjoying the company of a friend.

Bit shonky due to an expired roll of film that was (accidentally) exposed both sides.

Luckily the trajectory of camera and photographic refinement made much of the technical work automatic, allowing even non photographers to take some nice photographs. Non photographers don't buy SLRs or Medium Format cameras, they buy a little automatic compact camera.  In the early 1980s there were loads on the market and the improvements in automation carried on until the 1990s.

Japan produced some lovely compacts such as the Olympus trip or the Nikon L35AF. 

Here is a trip down memory lane.  In 1991 I bought a Canon Telemax Sure Shot 35mm film camera as a tool for making family memories. The camera we (read my wife) already had was appalling. While I can immerse myself in technical detail and the finer points of photography, my wife wasn't interested. She wanted to make snaps of the kids, our days out and our holidays. We'd send our film off to Truprint for processing and get back negatives, 6x4 prints and a free Truprint film.  The Canon was perfect. An automatic camera with film auto wind, really sharp lens and perfect metering. The Telemax also had a two position zoom, 38mm or  70mm.  The DX encoded films allowed the cameras internal brain to configure the ISO of the film in the camera and use that to calculate the exposure and meter the subject. Finally the camera used a near infrared beam to assist with the focusing of the lens.

It was a great camera and served us well. Interestingly the resulting photographs and negatives are still in the photo albums.

The files from the digital cameras that replaced the Sure Shot in the early 2000s have all been lost. Not one of them still exists, even though they were backed up. The backups I still have but the format cannot be read. (why do I hang on to them?).

It is a matter of regret that the camera was not looked after and was consigned to a drawer. Even after I returned to film photography, I ignored the camera. And then it got lost in a house move.

Looking online today nice examples fetch £100 (but I'm digressing. again!).

The point being that a decent compact film camera will serve the user well and allow nice photographs to be taken without slowing down any social interactions/walks/trips/holidays etc.

It was with this in mind that I took my Lomo LC-A to London.

I won't repeat the information that you can look up on the internet.

Here is a link to save you using Google,

Lomo_LC-A

The LC-A is a compact camera that produces decent results. Not top flight, portfolio ready photographs, but decent pictures. It's automatic and is very quick to use.

The LC-A is becoming a favorite as a walk around camera. I took this with my LC-A at a location local to my home in Somerset.

I'd recommend an LC-A to anyone looking for a dependable, compact automatic camera.  The controls fall easy to hand, it's zone focused, which I'm happy with, and the meter is really accurate. It would make a nice travel camera.

The Efficiency Myth

Many of the devices that we routinely use in our daily lives were sold as being more efficient and our busy lives required efficiency. It is, we are told, more efficient to use Google than go to a library. It is more efficient to drive rather than walk. It is more efficient to use a washing machine than spend a day doing the washing.  There are thousands more examples but you get the picture.

I was recently thinking about a compact camera that I bought for my family and how it really did its job and no more. The camera served us as a family well. This line of thought directed me to consider how devices that we use in our lives, on the basis of efficiency, all do more than one job.  It seems to be a "sold" benefit that my phone can be a camera and a navigation tool and a music player and an e-reader and and and.

I must live in Utopia, right? 

But there has been an insidious change in our devices.  My Canon Sure Shot TeleMax only took photographs. It didn't send me notifications, it didn't advertise stuff to me, it didn't demand a monthly subscription to use it. Crucially the camera didn't distract me!

Maybe that's the reason that I like film cameras? Sure I enjoy the tactile and involving process of using film and old cameras, I certainly enjoy the chemistry side and the processing of the latent negatives to permanent negatives, myself. But when I use an old ( but could be new ) film camera, I am not distracted by notifications, adverts, or the promise of a better experience if only I'd sign up for a subscription. I can use the camera in a mental space that is free of that noise.  

The noise of incessant notifications, adverts and reminders for subscriptions has got louder and louder with each passing year.

I am interested in current affairs, what is going on in my country and how the lives of the population is affected.  I want to get my news from a reputable source and not someone on TickTok voicing an opinion from a position of ignorance or racism. But you see a headline from a traditional newspaper organisation, on Google, and you click through. Bang! There is a subscription demand to read the news!

I pick up my phone to use the light meter app and suddenly I'm reading an update on BSky or answering a WhatsApp message, or I've been distracted by a video of a young lady feeding her animals on her Dads farm. I've certainly been distracted from taking a photo and enjoying the environment that I am in.

It wasn't that long ago that I bought an Amazon Kindle E-Reader. It was paper white and allowed me to download books and read them. It didn't send me notifications or advertise anything or ask for a subscription to use it.  Now I attempt to use the Amazon Kindle app and run the gauntlet of notifications, adverts and subscription reminders

The modern phone is a distraction machine that wants our attention and money. It even distracts us from sleep. even when it's in "Do Not Disturb" mode, it's malevolent presence is a siren call to us. And we deliberately avoid sleeping in case we miss out. 

The intrusion is such that I've started to read physical books again.

I like technology and I think that it can be a boon to life in the 21st century.  But cut out the bloody adverts, distractions and begging for a sign up to a subscription!

The problem is that all the apps we use all play the same game. They all notify us, distract us and advertise to us. But the cumulative effect is one of overwhelming the 'phone user. Or at least it overwhelms me at times.

How can it be efficient for me to feel like this? The truth is that the efficiency that we are told that we need only benefits those who are selling efficiency.

So devices that allow all that noise to be cut should be sought, if you feel the same as me.

Here are some points about this.

• Choose a device that does not and cannot send you notifications.
• Choose a device that does not and cannot advertise to you
• Choose a device that only does one thing.
• Choose a device that does not distract you from the task for which you picked it up for in the first place.

To be clear I am not suggesting that anyone dumps their smartphone and gets a Nokia 6110. I am suggesting that you limit notifications, block adverts and try to use the smartphone on your terms.  Now and again, if you need a break from the noise, maybe choose a digital or film camera, an E-Reader that only allows you to read books, a notepad, a music player that only plays music or maybe just sit and do nothing with your smartphone locked away. Maybe buy an alarm clock and leave your phone downstairs? (I need to do this one!!!!)

Cornwall, a land of drama and mood

Cornwall is a beautiful landscape, from Lands End to Liskeard, there is always something new to discover.  But the light in Cornwall does have an eerie quality and the sea mist will often create a mood. A boiling sea crashing over quays and the wind howling off of the Atlantic, makes an invigorating walk. I love Cornwall in the Autumn, when pubs have their fireplaces lit and an afternoon looking out of a window as nature envelops the landscape. The Cornish beers are great as well and match well with a decent lunch. This selection of photos were all taken on a 6x9 Camera while I was on holiday. We did have a couple of nice days but it was mostly dramatic weather.

Redscale - Variable results.

 Redscale is an experimental technique and therefore the results are highly dependent on the following

• Film Stock
• Expiry date of film
• ISO that the film is shot at

Looking at the ISO, assuming fresh, in date, film there are several exposure methods

• Underexposure
• Correct exposure
• Overexposure

Redscale film is a method of reversing the film so that the back of the film and red emulsion layer are exposed before the green and blue.  Because the film is exposed the "wrong way around" you need to compensate and allow extra light.

Redscale - Wikipedia

This is where the concepts of over, correct and underexposure can be brought into play.

As an example, suppose the film stock is normally rated at ISO 400, exposing at ISO 400 would give a hugely underexposed negative. 

• Underexposure - 1 stop extra light (ISO 200)
• The resulting photograph should be Dark Red
• Correct exposure - 2 stops extra light (ISO 100)
• The resulting photograph should be Orange
• Overexposure - 3 stops extra light (ISO 50)
• The resulting photograph should be Yellow

Much of this will depend on your camera and it's ability to change ISO from frame to frame.

The experimental nature of this technique means that you shouldn't be too precious until you have dialled in a filmstock with a camera, i.e. you've experimented.

Note the predominantly orange tones.

Note the overall yellow tones.

As a post script to this, I have made a roll of Harman Phoenix colour film into a roll of redscale. Harman do this themselves and sell it as Harman Red 125.

Harman Red 125

They suggest an ISO of 125, which is two thirds of a stop for best (their suggested) results.

My camera, the Lomo LC-A just has ISO 50, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, so I'll set ISO 100 but I can try 200 and 50 as well. Thats the beauty of experimental techniques, you can experiment!

London - A work trip

 My working life has always included national travel. There was a piece of work that came up recently that meant I needed to go to London for 3 days. While there I took the opportunity to play hooky for an afternoon. My work colleague is a metal detectorist and someone who takes deep dives into history.  The afternoon in question, meant that we had completed the work but our train tickets were booked for the following day (a money saving technique by our employer). So rather than sit around in our hotel or spend the day in a pub (not at £8.75 a pint thank you very much!) we decided to have a walk around London to see the stuff that normally gets left out on guided tours.

Here are a selection of my photographs from that walk.

St Alphege Church near the City of London Wall

St_Alphege_London_Wall

St Bartholomew the Great Church

greatstbart

Smithfield Market

smithfieldmarket

St Bartholomew the Great Church

greatstbart

St Bartholomew the Great Church

greatstbart

Old Naval College

police-call-posts

St Alphege Church near the City of London Wall

St_Alphege_London_Wall

Redscale - A follow up post

If nowt else there is a blog post on the perils of expired C41.. Sometimes you hit the jackpot but other times...

Dave Whenham

When carrying out photography using experimental techniques with expired film and a LOMO LC-A camera, the results are definitely not guaranteed. Recently after rediscovering some Redscale negatives in my archive, I decided to write a blog on how to make Redscale film at home. 

Redscale-film

As I had a trip to London lined up, I compounded the folly by rolling some Redscale and loading it into a LOMO LC-A.  The first roll was expired but boxed and otherwise "new". This first roll was a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400.  Crucially, as it turned out, the provenance was known.

The second roll was a "found" roll of Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. This roll was vintage 2008/9 and was purchased from 7dayshop.com.  "Found in a box of junk that had all sorts of stuff added the day I moved house. It turns out that the Fujifilm had been exposed normally before at some dim and distant time in the past.  I then made a roll of Redscale out of it.  The results were, um, "interesting".

So beware of rolls of film of unknown provenance.

Or as Dave says "Crimp your shot 35mm"

Thanks to Dave Whenham for providing the processing and scanning services for the C41 films.  His patience is appreciated.

In any case, keeping records might prove useful.

Enjoy the Keepers from the UltraMax.

Natural History Museum

South Kensington with a genuine London bus

Natural History Museum

Street photography in Redscale

Tube station overground