boss_kitty

(An) Apple (a) Day

Went to the Apple Day Festival at Mary Arden's Farm in Warwickshire (one of the "Shakespeare's houses"), armed with my new colour gels and an x-pro film. Error number one was using such a slow film with the gels (which block available light in some spectra, depending on colour of gel), despite it being a glorious day. Second error (this one not foreseeable) was that the chems I use for developing are now showing their age (OK they've pretty much died), so I ended up with very underexposed images. That said I am very pleased with 10 of the 12 shots, the colour shifts are weird and the pictures (partly due to subject, partly due to the underexposure allied to the cross-processing) look enigmatic. And there was me thinking I'd wasted a film I'd actually paid for (which is a rarity). Click pictures for biggerness.

Folky minstrel types (lime green gel)

Staff (in period costume) dining in the cottage garden (green gel)

No idea (one of 2 fails - one of which will be Rhi in the dovecote with gelled flash)

Flowers in the cottage front garden (no gel)

Farmhouse windowsill (green gel [lime green?])

Beth and Rhi in farmhouse/cottage garden (no gel)

Haystack in farmyard - rested under here awhile in the sun (did I mention what a lovely day it was?) (Blue gel maybe?)

Worker in the field preparing for the Goat "Grand National" (purple gel or none - unsure)

Sun through bare branches (yellow gel)

Field before duckdog display (purple gel)

Entrance to farm next door (the one Shakespeare's family actually lived in for a while during the plague, much to the National Trust's embarrassment) (orange or no gel)

No idea #2.

I likes on the whole.

Scratch Acid

Last of the hol pics, promise creeping up the dark stairs slinking into dark stalls

Light leak strobe lights pump and flicker

Heart Genndy they're sneaking out the back door

So there you go, nice set, shame about the fucking scratch along the middle of it chokes on dry tears can you understand?

Last of the International Holiday Pix

So here they are in glorious square format. Brief descriptions underneath, click for embiggerment.

Last picture of our beach at Noja. It was very hot and crowded, hence the first picture on the roll was blank as I left the lens cap on. At least I realised.

View across to Bilbao from the ferry (hadn't started yet). Got some nice shots here (nice light leak in this one too).

The bar on the ferry before we set off on a 25 hour journey home. I love the French flag btw.

Long exposure (bulb setting) of the wind turbines on the mouth of the harbour. Vibration of ship made blurryness inevitable. Like the colours though.

Unfinished dome in harbour complex (Bilbao) and sunset.

Wind turbines, cranes and sunset. Bilbao.

Turbine shot, repeat of pic a few above but on normal shutter speed.

Sun sinks into the sea

Long exposure (25 seconds-ish) back of ferry and wake. Was properly dark.

...and so 25 hours later we arrive in Portsmouth (another light leak on second one there).

And that's your lot from the holiday eh? (Answer = no as I've found another unscanned film from the holiday so that'll be next).

More 'daze

As in more from my holly-daze...ahem

Here we go, short descriptions follow pics, click for bigger:

OK, OK this was meant to be a panorama of Playa de Cuberris (and surf school in action) at Ajo. It was lovely, but I was a bit woozy as cycled a bit far on not much fuel, so took the pics back to front, corrected now. Will probably stitch them together for putting on the photostream.

Old abandoned church on way out of Ajo. Terrible terrible picture (again due to knocking or bonking badly - cyclists will know what I mean)

Church of San Miguel de Meruelo nr Bareyo, don't like the look of those clouds (it was OK)

Road between Arnuero and Barrio San Pantaleon, conky! More than it looks

Old church near Arnuero, like a Spaghetti western it were

Church in Santoña. I'm not really churchy but there was something magnificent, understated, defiant, rugged and old about all these.

Multiple exposure of spooky gate to big casa on outskirts of Noja. Very pleased with this one

Gate to public gardens in Noja. The couple coming through the gate would've looked nice but for sprocket and test stripping :-s

Boardwalk (is that what these are called?) Santoña

Nice graffiti outside Noja football stadium. I love Cartoon Network's 90s output and Dexter's Lab was always one of my faves (Genndy Tartakovsky is very underrated I think) with me being Dexter and FJJ being Dee Dee...in my head likes

View of Noja town from Helgueras

"Our" beach at Noja view #1

"Our" beach at Noja view #2

"Our" beach at Noja view #3 Beth and Rhi left of centre

"Our" beach at Noja view #4

View of our trailer trash "street" :)

I love holiday :)

Cliff!

More pictures from our holiday in Noja.

For some reason the "42 clicks wind on" is not quite enough for my Holga anymore hence burn-in.

Pictures from skatepark by "other beach". Would have loved to take more pictures there as excellent graffitti and really interesting landscaping, but there were lots of kids using it and I feared being added to the register and never allowed into northern Spain again :-s

The vista from the road just outside Santoña. Realised after first go that didn't need the road furniture so retook it. Breathtaking (and not just because I was on my bike).

Statue on the boardwalk, Santoña. Shame focus is errant.

Prison complex - doesn't really come out how grim and imposing, and out of place it was.

View across to Laredo from Santoña boardwalk.

Weird bindweed type stuff wth bright purple flowers, couldn't get over the fence to get closer. Doesn't represent what it was like to be there I'm afraid, amazing riot of colour.

 

Some views taken at the quiet end of "our" beach. Cloudy...disappointing.

Fin.

Holiday Pics/Album experiment

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Étant Donnés (but without the nudity) thought about showing views through a made aperture (here cardboard from the film box). Was originally going to use people filled scenes, and may come back to that, but decided to use the beautiful coast of Noja where we've holidayed the last 2 years. Pictures are OK, if I were to do them again would have used a sunnier day (but was sunbathing if the weather was good), but otherwise think it works pretty well.

Overexposed "bulb setting"

"Bulb setting" - needed tripod

Left on "bulb" by mistake, hence blurryness

Must say in finishing, thanks to Dimitris for the film swap for the Ektachrome Elite - much appreciated:)

Cover Colour Experiment

Experiment for Gary and Mark - possible album cover project. Gets a bit samey looking at them all together, but not really any way round that and not the way they'll look if used anyway. Can be chopped 'n' cropped as desired. Not really possible to exactly replicate but reshoots of particular colours/patterns may be possible.

Moto GP weekend 10-12/06/11

Went to Silverstone on the dates above and forgot to upload the pictures which were slightly disappointing but OK (absence of a zoom was a limitation and the weather was mostly poor). Weekend was great, I'd like to repeat it next year but apathy from others seems to have scuppered plans somewhat...we'll see. Here they are anyway, click for bigger pictures (worth it I think).

Companions for the weekend Roni, Rhi and Flik...lovely ladies :)

Long exp of Luffield corner - meant to get trails of the bikes but they "melted", the colour oversaturation effect is nice though.

Moto 2 qualifying

Rhi, race day, out of order...very cold but excited :)

More Moto 2 qualy

Mark Marquez Moto 2

125s race day

Man of the hour Bradley Smith celebrates coming form 28th on the grid to finish second.

Early in the Moto 2 race Steffan Bradl (eventual winner) leads Scottie Redding (who's disappeared somewhat since...chances of a premier class ride next year looking very remote now I'd venture.

First lap main race, Dovi from Stoner from Simoncelli from man of the weekend Colin Edwards (superb drunken "meet the riders" performance [see here contains swearing and tequila if Julian is to be believed] sealed it before the 3rd place finish)

Moto GP race..Nicky Hayden leads Alvaro Bautista

Dovi (or maybe Stoner??) leads Marco "Super Sic, Sideshow Bob, Mr £80 sweatshirt" Simoncelli. Still gotta love the big thick Italian.

Building a project

Decided to go out and shoot a roll of film with some sort of plan which I (kind of) stuck to (see below). So first are pictures of some lovely buildings here in lovely Leicester which are wrecked by having generic shop units placed on their ground/lower floors. Several people mentioned when they were watching me taking these that they'd "never noticed that building in all my years here, isn't it lovely?". The project was inspired by the building that houses JD Sports by the clock tower in Leicester city centre so it was ironic it was being refurbished on the day I took the camera out for this. Anyway I'll get a photo of it some other time as I think this'll be an ongoing series. Not going to name the buildings, see if you can ID them. Used the film Ali found at ATP (lovely Kodak Portra - q expensive I believe, well done and thanks chap).

This one's easy and a bit of a cheat as there's no generic shop at the bottom, but lovely nonetheless

Anyway as intimated above, did take some other pictures too (as you can see it was a big 36 exp film). So here are they.

This was an old Polish guy and his mate who were getting quietly hammered on a break from working in a garage by the Great Central railway. He asked me to take his photo, and while I think he was miffed to find I had a film camera so he couldn't see it (how times've changed) I must track him down to show him it. It's a long exp (manual), very pleased with it. They were very nice :)

Another long exp of the fountain in town hall square. Balanced Holga on a bin but still some shake. Still nice though?

Plaque detailing location of Leicester's High Cross (hence pub and shopping centre name) by the High Cross pub. The manager was having a fag break while I passed, and said once they've cleared out the cellars I'm welcome to come and view the holding cells that are still underneath it (it's the old magistrate's court apparently). All that sounds more sinister than it was...

View of old burned out Pat Keeling model agency building by All Saints' Church first photographed (from the other side looking at the new shopping centre) on this film. Like the graffiti, and the view.

Grave of "Abstinence" (again first photo'd on this film), looks nice with the colour.

More graves, All Saints' Churchyard

Burned out warehouse/knitting factory, Frog Island, taken a few of this before here.

Using the film up with a partial double exp of the canal and the "gentleman's retreat" down the way from us ("Diamonds - Come bling with us"). Disappointed with the colours if I'm honest as Diamonds is a very lurid pink...leave it.

So there you go, most pleasing film for a long while, let me know what you think.

Party Fears 8

Beth had some work friends over (and a few non-work too). I took some pictures...this was before I realised how bored I was/am with snaps like this (see previous post). Anyway here they are (sigh):

Is that the Fonz?

Should rescan this as it has potential, just not in this scan because I rushed (see below)

Like this one

Quite like this double exp too (colours and faces)

So there you go, not sure what happened with that last one. In fact not so happy with these, so rushed them through the scanner to get on with something I wanted to do.. Do like a couple though, and always learning (though not how to point and focus).