Lunch in Crickhowell with a Fuji X Pro-1 and 18mm

Today I travelled up to meet my good friend Bob as he traversed Wales on his way west to Cardigan. We’d agreed to meet in Crickhowell and lunch at the Bear Hotel. He sold this prospect to me with the recommendation that they had given his wife food poisoning ten years earlier. I decided to give the faggots a miss.

The desolate landscape as I came up the Heads of the Valleys road might have made a better subject, with its picturesque dusting of snow on the mountains. But you are not getting that because they would be very dull in comparison to these thrill filled pictures of  Crickhowell’s buildings and, if you’re buying that, I’ve also some very reasonably priced evaporated water you may like to purchase.

I arrived a little early for the meet so had a quick stroll around what is a very pleasant small town. A man in a funny hat with a camera is wisely given a wide berth and a wary glance by the locals although I imagine they are quite used to this kind of thing in the summer months. Given more time I might have wandered further afield, but the clock was ticking so I returned to find Bob outside The Bear.

It was good lunch; Fish, Chips and Mushy peas for me, while Bob had the Belly pork. Fine grub it was too with the old fashioned pub ambiance turned up high. We put the world to rights in about 90 mins so sleep easier in your beds tonight.  I then headed south once more while Bob went on westwards .

Here are the snaps taken with  a Fuji x Pro-1 and 18mm then given the Yesteryear treatment in Lightroom.

Poppit Sands with a Fuji X Pro-1 and 18mm

We went west, this weekend, in a chain of red tail-lights that diminished in length as each pair peeled off to its weekend destination. We were headed to Cardigan to see Paul and Shevaughn, in order that my wife could enjoy a ‘boozy birthday lunch’ on the Saturday while James and I would sample whatever other delights Cardigan had to offer.

Saturday, it turned out, was a fine day and, once the celebrating ladies had taken their leave, Paul suggested we head to Poppit Sands, a short drive away.  The children of the party – made up of James, Elsie and Penny – did not show much enthusiasm for the outing and, with my flute playing not to the standard of the Pied Piper, a ‘sugar buzz’ had to be promised to maintain discipline.  It was a lovely clear day and, with our heads bowed into the biting wind, we chased the retreating sea.

A game of wildebeest and jackals followed, in which David Attenborough’s voice could be imagined describing how a larger group of 7 year olds might have brought down the bigger animal by sheer weight of their numbers.  Intervention was only felt necessary when clubs were obtained from drift wood in order to beat the unfortunate prey.  It was proper fresh air and exercise of a kind that would cure many an ailing soul.

We returned home to await the return of the lunchers.  Time passed as Wales succumbed to Ireland; followed by Scotland to England; and the reading of the football results.  It can be concluded from this that a fashionably long lunch is not just the prerogative of thespians, BBC executives or the French but a tradition also in West Wales.  In the eighth hour since departure, the party returned and, being far too much of a gentleman to go into forensic detail, I will only say that a good time had clearly been had by all.

The following day the tired revelers were in good spirits and we made preparations to head home.  It was only later that the last information James imparted before departure about the Romans’ use of the Vomitorium became significant.  We sped through the winding roads for 45 minutes when a voice from the back seat announced “I feel sick”. There was barely time to wind down a window before a full re-enactment of that old Roman tradition began to take place in the back of my barely 3 month old shiny new car.

To be fair to James, he did get most of it out of the window; I suspect to the huge enjoyment of those following us.  We stopped to clear up the worst of the mess and proceeded on to a service area to wash up.  James, having lost his breakfast, was feeling a little peckish and suggested a burger might help fill the void…..oh. how we laughed!

Images from Poppet below taken with Fuji X Pro1 with 18mm. Tweaked in Lightroom.

Snowy Penarth with a Panasonic GF-1 and 14mm f2.5

As predicted it snowed in the wee small hours so I took my Panasonic GF-1 and  14mm lens out when I went to get bread. It was a wet slushy kind of snow and still falling lightly in the swirling wind. The roads were unusually quite and the cars using them picked their way carefully.

I choose the Panasonic GF-1  because I didn’t care about it getting wet as it’s been superseded by my love of Fuji – having an optical finder is a big plus in my book. On a snowy day though, when the LCD is easy to see, it’s a really great camera as no one really notices you’ve got it. This is as close as I get to street photography and while a bit lame they’re not bad for ten minutes work.

There was no sign of panic buying in the well stocked bakery but I felt a twinge of guilt as I bought two loaves. I resisted the temptation to say ‘Look I’m not in a panic, this is just normal weekend usage,  nothing to see here’.  I was reminded of my 2012 moment in this vein when with petrol shortages raging I needed fuel for the lawnmower. I was very self conscious as got out of the car with my 5L container amongst the queuing motorists. ‘Look at that bastard not needing to fill up his car but just stocking piling’.   Once more I resisted the temptation to begin a casual conversation about how ‘the break in the rain meant I could MOW MY LAWN..hoarding good Lord no’.  Not that you should draw from this that I’m in anyway paranoid; just sensitive to the needs of others.

Anyway, I strolled home taking a few more shots from the hip  while realising that my shoes appeared not to be waterproof in any meaningful sense. Oh and I  bought doughnuts, of course to share, who do you think I am Homer Simpson?

See my efforts below which are grayscaled and tweaked in Lightroom for your viewing.

Walking in Penarth with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and 35mm f1.4

The clouds parted briefly in the New Year and, with school approaching, it was time to tire the boy out enough that he might actually go to sleep before midnight.  Naturally the prospect of being disconnected from the global network was not met with much enthusiasm, but the possibility of ice-cream was dangled and the bait taken.

We wandered as always with me striding off and James, his hood up, following in a manner that suggests to an outside observer that I will be his next mugging victim. We strike up a good healthy dialogue normally, as he tells me I’m old and stupid and I counter that he is young and knows nothing.

We then spend the rest of the time negotiating the length of this shared pleasure and whether killing things all day long might have a detrimental effect on the mind of a teenager. To be fair to him, in his games he’s always a mage or a healer and surprisingly moral considering he has such a dissolute father.  He tested me on some Walking Dead (it’s a game) plot lines once and it turned out I might be a bit of a liability in a zombie apocalypse situation.

We did the full circuit of Penarth seafront but sadly the ice cream vendors had their feet up at home. I was forced to promise ice-cream on our return as we trudged up the very steep climb home.

Here are some more efforts with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and 35mm f1.4 with the usual Yesteryear preset in Lightroom.

The End of the Year with a Fuji X-Pro 1 and 35mm f1.4.

It was new camera time this Christmas as Santa brought me a shiny new Fuji X-Pro 1 while my son kindly gave me his cold.  The former was great, the latter not so much fun, as we had to hit the road to distant relatives. I suffered in stoic silence as I always do, remarking only that a large mausoleum containing my great works would be a fitting tribute in the event of my demise.

I ate drank and was merry as best I could, while firing off some shots to test the camera.  When viewed later their quality suggested that perhaps a small child had been handed a camera for the first time and shot randomly at a cup, a door and an obviously very interesting floor. They were not fit to carpet the cutting room.

On Boxing day I was able to get outside between the regular rain showers and shoot in the fading Sussex light. The X-Pro 1 proved a fine camera especially the view finder. The fact that all the important controls are on the outside  and not buried in some menu is a distinct bonus.

It reminds me most of the  Japanese rangefinders that companies like Yashica used to produce in the 70′s and 80′s. It’s not as robust as a Leica but it’s a similar shooting experience while not being a rangefinder at all. I used the 35mm f1.4(that’s 50mm in old technology) and a damn fine lens it proved. The jpg’s straight out of the camera are excellent.

For those concerned for my health I’ve shaken off the cold and am ready to rip the head off the year 2013.

Samples below tweaked in Lightroom with a Yesteryear preset.

Exposing Penarth with a Leica MP and 35mm ASPH

This week, ignoring the pressing demands produced by an approaching Christmas, I ventured out for a walk to Penarth Pier.

I have been fondling my Leica MP these past months, a camera which my talents do not deserve but which my 50th birthday made possible. What better way to pass such a mile stone than to have a camera that might well be the last in the line of beautiful analogue tools produced by Leica.  The future is digital and a manual film camera in this day and age is going to go the way of the sabre-tooth tiger and the dodo. I fitted my Leica 35mm f2 ASPH which means that almost all you see through the beautiful viewfinder will appear on film.

I decided to walk to the pier in Penarth, not expecting much but the joy of hearing the shutter click. Photography is like Christmas shopping though, once you have made your first purchase the next comes much easier. I declined the road to the pier and followed the back lanes, an area I have trawled much, so was really just expecting to repeat myself.

The world though is always turning and changing so while it may be subtle, even these unloved back lanes evolve. A new garage door, a fresh lick of paint and a new graffiti tag;  all these and of course the light is never the same. It dresses the stage a little different each time and I quickly found my self in that world I see with a camera in my hand.

The camera gods played a neat trick on me as they always do, as half way down to the pier, the meter battery  ran out of juice thus removing one of Leica’s few concessions to the modern age. The rest of the shots had to be done with me guessing the exposure which after swallowing hard and grabbing hold of  ’sunny 16′ like a drowning man I carried on.

I read that  Paul Strand said once that it takes eight to nine years to become a photographer and 2012 marks my seventh year,  so maybe I’m getting close. It is a measure of my progress that the two rolls I shot came out of Ilford HC with me unable to tell which the camera had chosen the exposure and which were mine. I confess a little jig of delight escaped me when I saw the negatives for the first time.

As for the pictures, among the dull shots of the pier (again) were also some shots of Penarth that won’t make the tourist brochure but they are in the town somewhere if you care to look.

These were  shot with FP4 with a yellow filter. Processed in Ilford HC 1+47 @ 20degrees for 9mins.

West Sussex in the Rain with a Fuji X100.

We left a sunny Wales on Friday for a wet English South Coast. If only the rain had come earlier it might have drowned out the awful David Starkey on  Radio Four’s  Any Questions, a man for whom the expression ‘he likes the sound of his own voice’ was coined.  Instead it hammered on the roof of the car as a far more interesting science fiction tale Landfall unfolded for our listening pleasure. It was difficult to follow the finer points of lateral evolution as our heroes went from being a grumpy cadre of misfits to a celestial forest or something like that.  Nothing speeds a journey more than an imagination taken elsewhere.

The road became a confusing series of hypnotic water splashes as I tried to keep the car between the barely visible white lines. I hunched over the wheel and the thought of Amy Johnson bravely battling through clouds in her Gypsy Moth came into my mind, that is until my wife handed me what remained of the Snickers bar I had been consuming. The devils dancing on the roof continued till we reached our destination and their music may well be how the Summer of 2012 will be remembered. Of course, it was climatic conditions like this that helped usher in the French Revolution;  lucky then that we don’t have a bankrupt state and corrupt politicians to contend with.

On the Saturday I dragged my son for a walk and much to his delight we were driven back by the rain. We consoled ourselves with a hearty meal at the Old House pub which judging by the number of canine creatures is a must for hungry dog lovers. The food was most pleasant and in sufficient quantity to have me slumped in an armchair dreaming of chasing cats for most of the afternoon. Oh no, that wouldn’t have been me.

I awoke with the rain, now barely a spit, but failed to summon any enthusiasm from the rest of the party. Apparently they had ‘the wrong shoes’ or there were leaves on the line or some such excuse. I set off for my favourite old barn which I’d noticed had been tidied up. To what end I have no idea, as it is still a crumbling ruin but clearly someone likes it as much as me. The road had turned into a river and I discovered that there is indeed something to this concept of the wrong shoes.

I squelched on as best I could and discovered I could take pictures inside the barn if I shoved my camera through a hole. Rather disappointingly the Famous Five were not being held captive nor was there any evidence of recent witch coven meetings. In fact give it couple of hours on a DIY rescue reality show and you could probably turn a tidy profit.

I continued through the muted summer colours struggling to find many more subjects as the rain fell with renewed intensity. The landscape with its cornfields lent itself to panorama and its tone to that of the film ‘The Go-Between‘. I half expected to see a small boy running messages between Julie Christie and Alan Bates. These days they’d be sending each other texts and the small boy would be at home on his computer much like my own and the story would be lost in a blizzard of inconsequence.

My own contribution to the chatter are these photos below taken with Fuji x100 and  adjusted with an ‘Aged’ preset in Lightroom. This is England in the glorious summer of 2012.

At the Lazy Bishops Festival with a Fuji X100

I mentioned recently that my badly refinished ’63 Fender Jaguar had been dropped off at Joe White Guitars for him to restore to its original sunburst;  so, with news that the job was completed, I roared down the M4 to Surrey for the weekend.  This provided the opportunity to visit my good friend Bob Machin, with whom I could share the joys of following England v Sweden in Euro 2012 and take in The Lazy Bishops Festival in Farnham on the Saturday.

I was slightly nervous as I parked up at Joe’s, as to what the restored Jaguar  might look like but, as you can see from the photograph, it is a thing of beauty. It had been stripped to a natural look by one of its previous owners and while it looked OK it didn’t really shine.  To me the grain and character of the wood look much better with this nitro finish and as it wears I think it’ll look even better.

I sped round to Bob’s to show off the new beast and indulge in a relaxed jam before the main event of the evening, the England game. The original plan to watch in a pub, came undone when Bob failed to persuade the landlord to reorganise the pub’s seating arrangements so we had a decent view of the telly. On this basis we wolfed down a hearty supper and headed back to the comfort of the couch, where the game unfolded along traditional stomach churning lines.  As England’s early lead disappeared in the minutes after half time, we knew where this agony was headed but low, the introduction of Walcott brought about a minor miracle and all ended happily with an England win.  Which of course we’d never doubted for a moment.  It is a shame that Italy proved us to be a King without any clothes several days later, but these days we know the script and our hearts are harder.

The next morning after a high protein breakfast and strong coffee we headed for the Lazy Bishop Festival with one eye on the clouds scudding across the sky. It was once known as the Secret Garden Music Festival and it’s easy to see why. You step off the main street down a short path and appear to have been transported to the heart of the country side. In fact when we emerged many hours later it was quite a shock to find ourselves in the center of a small town.

There were two small stages and through the day a succession of pretty darn entertaining acts passed before us; my favourite being Hillfolk Noir who play American roots music with a swagger and panache. Their entrance coincided with the arrival of a gale and rain, so they began with the crowd along way off sheltering under canvas.  They were strangely saved by the power going off, which they ignored and continued to strum acoustically.  The audience moved as one out into the rain to the front of the stage, so they could better hear what was going on and. once so positioned, miraculously the power came back on.  I never realised that the  ill wind saying could work quite so literally.  They performed a fine set and I even bought a CD afterwards.

With Bob and I beginning to feel the effects of wandering around a field for several hours we watched our final act The Arlenes.  The interest in this for me  was that a virtual Facebook friend Tom Bowen who I’d never met was playing guitar and doing it rather well.  It was good to meet him afterwards and discover his Welsh accent and that he hales from Cardiff.  So while the virtual world can do much, it is very poor on communicating accents.

It was a very fine weekend and I sped back to Wales all the better for it.  I had taken some pictures  with the Fuji X100 but in a halfhearted way so as not to intrude on anyone else’s fun.  I really thought they’d be rubbish and didn’t look at them for a week.  Finally I forced myself late one night to download them into  Lightroom to see what I had.  Well, I was pleasantly surprised because while Cartier-Bresson may not have cropped, I operate under no such constraint and took a bloomin’ great chopper to them.  Thus hewn I really came to like them and felt compelled to blog them, so here they are below.

A Villa in Spain with a Fuji X100

I’ve been meaning to post these for a while, but our return from a Spanish holiday coincided with the start of Euro 2012 and I have been distracted.  The latter stages of the tournament are upon us now and, with England’s exit at the hands of Italy, normal service can be resumed.

Our usual cheap airline to Faro had pulled out of Cardiff Airport, so we were forced to select another destination which I was told would be Spain.  I nodded my delight while inwardly thinking that learning about a new country was going to be at odds with my desire to avoid all adventure.  The villa selected looked mighty fine on paper  which somewhat assuaged my trepidation.  So, with the rain falling on South Wales, we jetted off to enjoy the clear blue skies over Barcelona.

The villa proved the devil’s own job to find,despite my fore thought at downloading Sygic, a Slovakian  Sat Nav app for my phone.  It had proved adequate, if not brilliant, in Florida but when faced with the labyrinth of roads above Sitges it flunked it.  I can think of no circumstances under which the instruction ‘Turn left and do a U turn when possible’ would be considered helpful.  I find at these moments, when technology proves rather less than perfect,  swearing and shouting  is the most satisfying response.  I believe if interviewed my family may think otherwise and possibly why my career as  a computer engineer is now over.  In the end it was that old analogue technique of following your nose that proved the most effective.  Hot and bothered, we finally made our destination.

The Villa Olivella proved every bit as good as its online images and the view from the balcony was both spectacular and tranquil with vineyards stretching towards distant hills.  The big sky, the landscape and my good self with a glass of red wine proved an excellent triangulation point. There are several other places on the globe that have met these requirements, my favourites mainly being in Australia or Ireland and, of course, my own back garden.

It proved so  pleasant a spot that we ventured no further than Sitges and some local supermarkets during our entire stay.  I read the excellent Headlong by Micheal Frayn which, as we were in a Dutch owned villa in Spain, filled me in on Breugel and the bloody history of the two countries during the 15th century.  I finished Levon Helm’s autobiography of The Band ‘This Wheels on Fire’ which I can highly recommend unless you are Robbie Robertson, in which case I’d give it a miss.

I can report little of Spain but that it is clearly richer than Portugal, with no obvious signs that its banks are about to succumb to the Euro crisis.  I can reveal that heading to Terminal 2 at the airport will take you on a tour of an industrial estate much like the ones you find in any big city. I explored it pretty thoroughly while searching for a petrol station and really there is nothing for the tourist at all.  One hour forty minutes on the plane means we’ll be back for a look at Barcelona soon.

I shot plenty with my Fuji x100 as I wanted to figure out how it worked when in proper use.  The discovery of the panoramic function was particularly exciting considering the landscape I had in front of me.  The images are no more than average, but you get them anyway.  I’m happy to report we got soaked walking back to the car on our return to Cardiff.

Large Format Pinhole 10×8 in Penarth

A year or two back I bought a Robert Rigby 10×8 pinhole camera, mainly because I wanted to achieve as big a negative as possible and this seemed the cheapest way of reaching my goal.  Plus it was a manageable size compared to the huge large format contraptions I was looking at on eBay.

It rather goes against the DIY ethos of the pinhole movement not to make one yourself, out of a shoe box or a tin can, so maybe that’s why I never really got into using it.  I did some experiments using photo paper as a negative but ended up with nothing that really inspired me.   The exposure calculations were complicated and I realised I needed some good light and a calm day to ease things along.

This year I resolved to do better and found some 10×8 Fomapan 100 and loaded up the dark slides I’d acquired with film. I then waited for a sunny day without too much wind and after the wettest April since records began, this week that day finally arrived.

The Robert Rigby 10×8 comes with three focal lengths: 150mm, 200mm and 250mm; plus there are three apertures to match with f stops of: f429, f449 and f480.  This is achieved by changing the size of the box and switching the pinhole you are going to use.  It is actually a very neat system and works well.

I found mrpinhole.com very useful in showing me a method of calculating exposure.  I simply set my meter to its highest aperture of f152 and, using a chart that mrpinhole provides, changed the ISO on the meter for the actual f stop of the pinhole.  As an example  with 100 speed film, the meter is set at ISO 10 for f480.  I confess I embarked on this with only a small amount of faith but the results were very good.  It suggested 8 secs given the sunny condition and who was I to argue.

I took a couple of shots of the house and then processed the film in trays. This, of course, is done in total darkness which with Rodinal 1+50 @ 20 degrees  meant about 10 minutes in the dark after stop and fix.  I still find slightly unnerving the sensory deprivation of being in complete darkness with only the indifferent voice of the talking timer to punctuate the silence.  I was willing the time to pass and tension was mounting as I reached the point where I would see if it had been a success or failure. Deep joy when the lights went on; there was at least some kind of image on the negative.  I can’t tell you the relief.  Nothing is perfect and I could see I had a bad light leak, but I also had the biggest negative I’d ever held in my hands so I had to call this a triumph.

With this encouragement I steeled myself to go out on the streets of Penarth and use up the other three dark slides – that’s a whopping six more shots.  The camera is quite light and with a carbon tripod and a small backpack for the dark slides I loaded up the car and went hunting something to shoot.  I attracted some looks as I wandered the streets and  at one point a passing cyclist shouted “Look he’s got an old camera”.  I found the process of taking a shot very simple  as you just have to line the shot up by triangulating some pins on the top of the box.  Afte a hour I had my 3 darkslides exposed.

Below is what I achieved with the light leaks cropped out of most of them. I’ve since stuck a torch inside the pinhole box and turned the lights out so I could see where the holes might be.  It seems I need to increase the rubber seals and I should be able to solve the problem.  The photos aren’t always sharp but they do have a certain evocative mood. I’ve toned them in Lightroom with an Antique Greyscale pre-set.  I’m keen to contact print them on to photo paper at some point.

I didn’t do enough research on agitation methods with trays and seem to have flows of developer across some of the negatives.  This I think can be solved by larger trays.  I used 10×8 trays for 10×8 film which is a mistake by all accounts.  Also continuous agitation seems to be important so I will try that next time with, I assume, a reduced processing time.  I’m far from disappointed by the results and am in fact encouraged to perfect my technique.

It still amazes me that a tiny hole in a box with film at the other end can produce such images.  If you don’t believe in magic, give this a whirl and you’ll be convinced.