I Capture the Castle – not only a pithy blog title for a post which includes a Polaroid photo of a castle I captured, but also a marvellous book which I’d forgotten all about (and MUST read again asap) – almost every sentence is worth quoting.
Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
When people say to me they are thinking about trying film photography and aren’t sure about what camera to get or where to buy one I tell them this;
Mention to everyone you know that you wish you had a film camera – bang on about it quite a bit – and then sit back and wait for the deluge.
Taken using a LC-A and 35mm film
In the same way that everyone today seems to have at least one digital camera per household, so it was in the day with film cameras – they were coveted and saved-up for just as their digital cousins are today so they tend to get squirreled away in attics and under-stairs cupboards rather than being thrown out.
Taken using Lubitel 2 and 120 film
I would say at least half the vintage/film cameras I own are ones that have been gifted to me by people who think I am doing them the favour by taking them off their hands. They don’t feel ‘right’ throwing them away or donating them to an unknown, possibly cruel fate – but when they realise they’ll be sending them to a good home where they’ll be cherished and used; it suddenly becomes a very attractive proposition. Everybody wins!
Taken with Pentax K1000 and 35mm film
I was recently given a bag full of camera goodies by some friends at work who are (unsurprisingly) trying to clear as much room as possible in their home. It was so exciting rummaging through that big plastic bag – better than Christmas even. The highlights of this particular haul were definitely the Holga (I’ve always wanted a Holga) and a Polaroid (and Polaroid film – you know I love Polaroids)! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Taken with Diana F+ and 120 film
So yes – my message to you if you’re thinking of taking up film photography is talk about it incessantly to everyone you know – and even to people you don’t know. The worst that can happen is you’ll be branded a geek and not invited to parties any more, but it’s got to be worth it on the off chance you might hit the camera jackpot!
If you look at old family snapshots from the 60s/70s/80s you’ll notice how colours have shifted and faded. Blacks are rarely jet-black and whites are almost yellow – some have a colour-cast across the whole image, others have one particular colour fading faster than any of the others. I love these photos!
1. 70s Family, 2. Family Photos, 1960s, 3. Late 1960s Early 1970s KUMPF Family Vintage Photos KUMPFS Pennsylvania Americana Christmas (35), 4. scan0034 david, 5. World Trade Center in the Mid-1970s, 6. vintage 1960s christmas dad photo
A simple way to emulate this effect and therefore give your modern-day digital photos a ‘vintage’ feel (sorry for over-using the whole ‘vintage’ thing, but I can’t think of a better word) is by using one simple but often over-looked tool in your Photoshop arsenal – the ‘Selective Color’ adjustment layer.
‘Selective Color’ allows you to alter the properties of the colours in your image one by one; creating subtle or startling effects depending on how far you push it. It was originally developed for people who needed to alter hi-res scans in preparation for CYMK printing – for example, you could adjust the amount of yellow ink in the greens of your image without affecting the yellow inks in the red areas.
With your layer selected create an adjustement layer – and choose ‘Selective Color’ – depending on your version of Photoshop you should see something like this…
The dropdown will show you all the primary colours as well as whites, neutrals and blacks. For each of these you can adjust the CMYK sliders. That’s all there is to it really – start sliding!
I start with the ‘Neutrals’, then ‘Blacks’ then ‘Whites’ then the all the other colours. When you look at older photos like those above you can see the blacks never look really black and often have a reddish or blueish tinge to them – this is easy to achieve using this tool.
Before
After
This isn’t something I can really give you definitive settings for as every photo will be very different – it’s one of those tools you need to just use by eye and play around with.
What I would say though is that it’s a good to start with ‘Neutrals’ – there will be more ‘Neutral’ hues than any other (followed by ‘Blacks’, then ‘Whites’). Even if you had a photo of a field af grass, you’ll get a bigger effect changing the ‘neutrals’ as opposed to the ‘Greens’.
You can save your settings if you like, but I tend to treat each photo individually – no two are likely to be entirely the same. And of course this is an adjustment layer so you can go back and fiddle with the settings, turn them off or copy them at any time in the future. Great stuff!
before
after
For such a quick and simple to use tool it’s pretty effective, don’t you think? Oh, and it’s also very useful for correcting colour shifts back to how they should be, of course!
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
So, the future – what does it hold? Truthfully? I don’t know – not yet anyhow.
I’ve been waiting for some paternalistic, authoritive being to decree what my future should be; to tell me what it is I’ll ‘be’ when I grow up. This is ironic as I have a tendancy to do the opposite of what anyone tells me to do.
I’ve never really been encouraged in any one direction in life and have needed to feel everything out for myself – it’s got to a point now though that enough time has passed and experience has been lived through to deal me a ‘sort of plan’. There’s a problem though – the ‘sort of plan’ has been presented to me in jigsaw-puzzle format – I have all the pieces but no clue as to how they fit together or what it is I’m required to create!
I think I’ve got the corner pieces sussed;
That last one - recognition - I realise it sounds a bit self-centred. I was going to change it for something else, something that didn’t sound quite so me, me, me – but, well, you can’t cheat on this sort of thing, can you.
Yes, I yearn for a slap on the back and a well-done now and again (I would imagine we all do). To be honest I don’t remember it happening very often during my formative years which is probably why I hanker for it so much now. I’m not so self-centred though that I think I deserve any of this without doing something to earn it. I’m happy to work hard – I love a challenge!
So that’s what I’m up to; sorting all my puzzle pieces. Slipping the obvious, easy pieces into place; the photography, the blogging – wondering how I’m going to deal with that big blue area of sky (my day job) and seeing if I can’t work out what the heck the big picture is supposed to be!
For the first time in my life, ever, I am going to make a plan!
Do you have a plan?
Photos taken with my Polaroid SX-70 (always part of the plan) and 600 film.
(Recognise that bottom one)?
OK, so let me try and describe Dungeness to you. Lovely, weird Dungeness – Britain’s only official desert.
It lies, forsaken, on the Kent coast and you have to drive through miles of marshland to get to it. There’s something uniquely eerie about marshland, don’t you think? Not quite belonging to the land or to the sea – it seems temporary and at the same time ancient and neolithic. Full of secrets.
As you pootle along in your little car you notice more and more electricity pylons grouping together and ploughing their way through the marshes to the coast. They are three-abreast at points; eagerly rushing to suck up all the nuclear-generated electricity that is created at Dungeness power station.
Seeing them reminds me of the apocolyptic nuclear-meltdown nightmares I had every night as a teenager. I think everyone had those dreams in the 80s.
So yes, there is a nuclear power station at Dungeness (two, actually) – nothing weird about that per-se, but it does add a certain frisson (or should I say fission) to the ambience. Oh, I’m so funny!
This piece of land belongs to a person (not sure who) – you have to drive through gates to get to it. It was a wise investment – it has to be the only stretch of British coastline that is actually getting bigger (rather than eroding). This is made very apparent when you observe the numerous lighthouses (well, two) that have required erecting to keep up with the edge of the shore. It has extended about half a kilometer in 60 years, which is pretty epic in geological terms.
They have a railway station. This railway seems to be of a gague totally unique to the rest of the British Isles and only special little steam trains can use it. (By this point nothing is suprising me). (And please note, I’m no railway expert).
Many of the little dwellings (you really can’t call them houses) that are scattered randomly over the shingle have been constructed from old railway carriages – plus any other stuff that has been washed up onto the beach. Some are a bit more substatnial and built of wood – like Derek Jarman’s little cottage which I wrote about yesterday. I think you’d need to be a certain sort of person to want to live here – reclusive doesn’t even begin to describe it. You would need to not need people. You would need to want to only have your brain for company.
They do have a pub. A scary pub. It was the only amenity I could see (apart from a post box). The pub was closed, of course. There’s also a little wooden walkway that led to nowhere – why would it? This is Dungeness.
I don’t think I saw another human there, just crows. Crows and starlings. Where is Mr Seagull?
This should be Land’s End (the actual Land’s End in Cornwall is more akin to Scratchwood Services). This should be the end of the world.
I’d love to hear if you have any weird or eerie places near you – I think I’ll make a bucket-list of similarly odd places to visit around the world!
When I visited the ‘end of the world’ last week (aka Dungeness – which I have written about here) one place I knew about already and was very keen to visit was the late Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage.
Anyone living in this environment is going to have a challenge on their hands, so you’d have to be very determined and creative to establish such a beautiful garden in this wilderness. It’s a little neglected and over-grown now, but you can still see the shapes and structures and some of the hardier plants are still thriving. I would love to have seen it in its heyday, I think I might try and get hold of his book about the project and his life (there’s also this very moving article by Howard Sooley, who took the photos for the book in The Guardian).
It was also very exciting to be shooting with my Polaroid SX-70 again and using proper 600 film- I don’t have much of this wonderful stuff left now but this little cottage was definitely worth a shot or two – so pretty.
There is raised wooden text on the side of the cottage depicting selected lines from John Donne’s poem, The Sun Rising:
BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
I knooooooooooooow it’s March. I know! Here though, at last, are my February favourites…
Look at this…
…it’s the most perfect fairytale castle ever, don’t you think? This is Bodiam Castle in East Sussex – it’s one of the places we visited earlier in the week during a (much needed) mini-break. Do I sound a bit ‘Bridget Jones’y calling it a mini-break? It’s what we call them!
East Sussex isn’t really all that far from where I live – any of you who live in vast countries – even medium-sized countries – will probably think it’s rather amusing that I consider somewhere 120 miles away to be worthy of needing overnight accommodation and military planning! That’s what happened though – it was great!
On this little island you only need to travel a handful of miles to be in a completely different sort of place, and this is very apparent when you’re in East Sussex – so one day it was all fairytale castles and medieval architecture, the next it was Dungeness.
Oh, Dungeness! There needs to be a whole post on you, yes, definitely. I can’t sum the place up here really, suffice to say it should be called Weirdsville.
Then a few miles more and you’re at Beachy Head – again, jaw-dropping.
We took in lots of other spots in the area too and obviously I took lots of cameras with me, so expect quite a few views of East Sussex coming up in the next few days – it was very photogenic and I took over a million photos!
Well, here we are then – the one-hundredth day of winter (actually, today is day 101 – I’m running late with EVERYTHING at the moment – yikes)!
I’ll admit it was sometimes an effort to stay positive and inspired when darkness fell not long after lunchtime and the cold winds blew, but I feel that viewing winter as a photographic opportunity and actively seeking out beauty in things that were uniqulely wintery definitely helped me stay positive and entusiastic throughout the season.
What I loved most of all though was viewing the winter experiences that others were having – some things looked familar – other things looked wildly different but they all look beautiful!
1. Sheep watching…, 2. muskoka, ontario, 3. Day Sixty, 4. 39|365, 5. snowstorm, 6. Untitled
These are just a few from the flickr group – thank you to everybody who contibuted, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did – and here’s the best news of all…. it’s now spring! (Apologies to southern hemisphere… although as you get better weather in the winter than we often do in the summer (certainly here in UK) I hope it means you can forgive my gloating)!
What was your favourite thing about winter? I think mine was the watery, distant sunlight – a bit like ‘golden hour’ but all through the day, all be it a short day.
Oh, and the hot chocolate :)