Hope you’re all having a spooktacular halloween! In England we apparently now ‘do’ the whole trick or treating thing so I have been handing out gummy-eyeballs most of the evening. I’m glad they’re nearly all gone as they look as gross as they sound!
Oh, and I have a hauntingly creepy article in the Lomography magazine today – it’s a graveyard smash!
Meteorologists have been saying that when autumn finally gets started then the mild weather we’ve been having should mean it will be a very colourful one, leaf-wise.
Well, I think it’s finally got started and it is indeed looking spectacular – I went for a wander with the Mr, my brother and niece. Look at us all with our camera gear – watch out trees, you’re about to get ‘papped’!
It’s rather handy having a National Park full trees on your doorstep…
And not just any old trees, no, this here is the tallest tree in England – even taller than Big Ben apparently…
But it’s not just the trees though, there are also some amazing fungi…
And of course there’s the New Forest ponies, including this blonde beauty…
But mainly it is about the leaves. So many leaves and so much colour – I love it…
All photos taken with my Canon 5D MKII
I’ve almost exhausted my supply of Lake District photos (you’re probably glad to hear) – it was such a fantastic place to visit, a photographers dream!
Here’s a selection from the cross-processed roll of film I took with my little Olympus XA2.
I’m feeling wistful – I need to get planning my next mini-break!
All taken with my little Olympus XA2 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film (cross-processed)
Do you use Adobe Lightroom? If you do you might want to have a play with this preset I’ve created – it’s called it Autumn Nights as it’s quite cool and contrasty with dusky black hues (plus it’s night time and autumn right now and I couldn’t think of a better name).
Here’s some before and afters so you can see what it’s like – it won’t be brilliant for all photos, it works best on ones that are quite ‘flat’ to start with and obviously you can tweak the settings to be less extreme once they’re applied – but give it a go; that’s the good thing about Lightroom though, no photos ever get hurt.
The before picture is first followed by the ‘after’ (with the preset applied)…
Have you had a lovely weekend? I have – it’s been one of those ones where you don’t do much apart from read papers, drink coffee, wander your local streets and chat.
Obviously (for editorial puposes) I am choosing to omit all the drudgy bits – the scrubbing of the funny smelling salad drawers from the fidge, picking out all the hair from plug-hole of shower, etc etc. No one needs to hear about any of that.
All photos taken with Canon 5DMkII and 50mm f/1.4 lens (my version of travelling light).
I had the afternoon off work today, it was lovely – a long, lazy lunch, sunshine, fresh air and photography!
The trees are mostly still green but you can tell they are about to change – I don’t wanna shock you or anything, but that means autumn is acomin’ !
As I wandered round our little city wildlife-centre (which some might uncharitably describe as a small park full of weeds) I realised, I feel so much more comfortable and sparked into creativity when I have to seek out beauty and work at getting the best photo.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore visiting stunning locations like The Lake District and taking photographs there. When I do though I feel a certain amount of pressure to do the magnificent scenery justice and take photos that are interesting and un-clichéd. Hmm, as far as being stressed goes, this is probably the best sort to have!
As most of my time is spent away from jaw-dropping natural phenomena I don’t have to worry too much about this particular type of stress in my life – luckily for me, there are plenty of weeds and trees to keep me occupied when I do bunk off work early!
These are some of my favourite things to photograph if I need to just relax and let go. What do you like to photograph to ‘de-stress’?
Nowadays, if a school teacher insisted on taking lots of unofficial photographs of all the kids at school he would (at best) be looked on with some suspicion. This hasn’t always been the case though – thank goodness – let me introduce you to George Plemper.
To the south east of London lies the new town of Thamesmead – built on reclaimed marshland, it consists of a huge, brutalist sink-estate, created to house the working-classes (if you’re UK-based and have ever watched ‘Misfits‘ on E4 – this is set in Thamesmead). This experiment in social housing meant that it was a community in isolation, even though they were just a few miles from London – the Riverside School must have been one of the few social hubs available there.
At this school is George – a young teacher. It’s 1978 and he’s got his first job teaching science. He introduces photography as a way of engaging with pupils and demonstrating ideas – and at the same time takes portraits of the children.
For a good 30 years the photos followed George through various house moves, mouldering in carrier bags. Then, with the emergence of photo-sharing websites and an urge to make available his social record of a now by-gone era, he uploaded all these wonderful faces to flickr for us all to see.
I wish I could put my finger on what makes these images so totally amazing. It’s simply incredible looking at those teenage faces full of hope, happiness, sadness, worry, joy and puzzlement – they are haunting and wonderful.
Having our photos taken is a common, almost daily occurrence for us nowadays – back then though, to have a formal photograph taken which wasn’t for a special occasion must have been very much out of the ordinary – which is one of the reasons these vignettes of everyday teenage life seem so emotive, so very compelling.
When I look at them I feel we haven’t changed at all and at the same time are so totally, totally different. And it’s all there to see in black and white. An amazing legacy. Thank you George!
All photographs in this article are © George Plemper
Check out George Plemper’s flickr photostream where you can see the full collection of Thamesmead photos – many of the images have details about who is in the photo and why it was taken and some of the the children in the photos have recognised themselves and left comments!
One of the (many) cameras I took away with me to The Lake District was my little Diana F+ (a 120 film toy camera).
I diligently ensured it didn’t get left out amongst its bigger, flashier cousins and that it got its fair share of snapping time. I’m nice like that.
There was a problem though. When I was gathering up all my film for a trip to the lab I knew things weren’t right with the film in my Diana – instead of being tightly wrapped like it was when it went in, it was all baggy and loose round the spool. Uh oh!
I was very close to binning the film there and then – chalking it up to experience; give yourself enough time to load up your film carefully in the future, don’t wait till you’re halfway up a mountain and wearing mittens.
As I was going to the photo lab anyway I thought I’d risk getting it developed, and I’m so glad I did!
The ones near the centre, the ones I took first were were almost perfect, but as the roll progressed there were more and more light leaks and, most excitingly, the numbers and print from the film backing paper became exposed onto the film.
I love the numbers! These photos look like I’ve gone crazy adding textures and colours in photoshop but it’s all ‘real’.
Have you had any happy accidents photographically speaking (not just with film)?
All taken with Lomo Diana F+ Edelweiss and FujiColor Pro 160NS film
Cross-processing (or x-pro if you’re down with the kids, like me) is addictive and makes film photography an even more exciting adventure than it already is, I love it a lot! Want to know more?
Zenith 80 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film
The most familiar and popular format of colour film you can buy; the sort you can pick up in your local chemist or supermarket, is colour negative film – this film is processed using C-41 chemicals.
Another less common format is colour slide film (also known as colour reversal film or colour transpareny film) – this is processed using E-6 chemicals.
Because negative film is so widely used, most photo labs will only process using C-41 chemicals – however, what you can do is get them to process your slide film using these negative chemicals and you will get what is referred to as cross-processing. Ta-da!
Olympus XA2 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film
Processing film using the ‘wrong’ chemicals can give very dramatic and often unexpected results – the most obvious effect being the shift in the colours, but there is also the increased contrast and grainyness that all adds up to increased awesomeness!
Olympus XA2 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film
Different makes of film will change colour in diferent ways (and the mix of chemicals from lab to lab will make a difference too). I can’t guarantee that you’ll get the followimg colour casts, but these are how they apparently usually turn out with fuji films:
Some people find that images can look over-exposed when cross-processing slide film – if this is the case for you then you can ‘trick’ your camera into under exposing your shots by one f/stop by telling your camera the ISO speed is double what it actually is (so, if you are using ISO 200 film, tell your camera it is ISO 400).
Zenith 80 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film
X-pro works the other way too – you can process regular colour negative film in E-6 (slide film) chemicals, but the results aren’t half as dramatic, although you do get a nice shift of the whites (the clear areas) to a salmony colour. Also, it can be trickier (and more expensive) to find labs who process using E-6.
I have a wonderful photolab near me who are more than happy to cross-process film – you may find that high-street chemists/supermarkets and even some some labs may not offer this service (cross-processing can create lots of ‘gunk’ in the chemicals).
If you’re really struggling to find a local lab to do this for you there is bound to be someone online who will do this – hooray for the internet! Lomography now offer photo processing including cross-processing.
Olympus XA2 + Fujifilm Velvia 100 film
There are lots of reasons why I could love cross-processing but the biggest reason for me is the surprise – film processing is aways surprising anyway but ad in all the whackiness and unexpectedness of x-pro and you’ll definitely need to be sitting down when you open that chunky, chemically-smelling envelope from the lab!