The Power of the Crop

Much earlier this year, before me and my BFF (my mom) went to the Chinese New Year festivities, I took this photo of The Electric cinema because I was using up the rest of a 400 ISO film and I liked the look of the street.

Now I do quite like this photo but after all this time I just decided to edit it and I figured I'd make the most of those people walking along the bottom:

And I like this version much more. I also decided to do the same with the top of the photo, like so:

So not a particularly interesting post but I just wanted to put these photos on my blog because I rather like them.

More TTV (Through the Viewfinder)

A while ago I posted this blog about my first attempt at TTV photography. At the time, I just did it to have a quick mess around with TTV, (like the post says, I'd wanted to try it for 4 years) and get some more stuff to put in my photography sketch book, so it was pretty much as basic as it could've been, simply with the Kodak Duaflex resting on a stool next to the glass and fake flowers I was photographing. That obviously meant that if I wanted to photograph anything else that wasn't set up perfectly, it'd be pretty tricky.

Today though, I finally got to try it out properly (after 4 whole years!). Here are some nice examples from Flickr, by Pete Ashton who did the workshop:



So here are my favourite TTV photos I took today:

I used one of these kaleidoscope prism eyeglass whatevers to take this

And a mirror photo of me with the contraption that makes me look like an elephant:

More Experiments - Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8/50

Today I was browsing through all the filters and lenses my grandad has given me - looking through them, playing with settings, putting them up to my Nikon D40 etc.

One of the lenses I did this with was the Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8/50, and when I looked through it, I found what I saw to be pretty amazing. When I looked through it just with my eye and held my finger up in front, I could see every tiny piece of dust or dirt and every little line or groove on my skin, so obviously I then set my Nikon D40 up on my tripod to take photos of various awesome-looking things through the lens.

I used the self timer to take the photos, so I had chance to get the lens in the right place in front of my Nikon and hold it there with both hands. Even then, I still found it quite tricky to get the focus just right and the settings right on my Nikon for a good exposure.

These are some of the photos I took this way of one of the cacti in the kitchen:

And just for comparison, this is the most close up it’s possible to get with my Nikon D40 and normal lens:

Pretty darn cool I reckon. I also took one successful one of my finger which was what amazed me so much in the first place. I found that sometimes it was really easy to get the focus of everything right and sometimes really difficult. I thought a photo like these of an eye would be pretty awesome but I just couldn't seem to get it right, even when I got my mom to stand in front of it so I could see what I was doing.

I've also always liked taking photos of reflections in other lenses so I did some of that as well and got some photos I like:

Praktica MTL 5 Test Roll

A little while ago I wrote this blog about the old Praktica MTL 5 that my grandad gave me. I finished the roll the other week and got it developed yesterday. To my delight, all the photos came out nicely so everything must be working properly, and I rather like the shots!

This one of my sister in her roller derby stuff is one of my favourites...

There are also a few light leaks which I was expecting and sort of hoping for (I haven't had any for ages and I actually really like them) so that made me quite happy as well.

And some of my other favourites...

And as always, the rest are on my lomography.

The Bluetones at Wychwood Festival

Saturday was the start of the long string of Bluetones gigs me and my sister have plans to go to. They were on at Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham right by where my sister lives when she goes to uni so that was nice and convenient.

It took me ages to decide which cameras to take, but in the end I decided on my trusty Nikon D40 because I couldn't find anything that said they wouldn't be allowed at the festival. I also took my Olympus Trip 35 loaded with 400 ISO film in case it was darker than I'd expected. I was also considering taking my Praktica MTL-5 that I just started using despite the light meter not working, but decided it'd be too fiddly and heavy to take.

All of those turned out to be good decisions in the end because first we saw Oly Ralfe from Ralfe Band (which was magical as expected) in the cinema tent so my Trip was hand then because of it being quite dark. I should have those developed some time soon because I also used the film for when we saw Magnum in April.

The Bluetones were then on in the main stage at around 8pm so it was still nice and light and the sun was setting, as shown by this photo I took a little while before the Bluetones were on:

and also shown by this photo Scott Morriss of The Bluetones took while on stage: (we're in it at the front)

Obviously this meant lovely conditions for photographing, so I waited until the actual photographers with photo passes had gone to take my own. I'm unbelievably happy with the photos I got, since the light was so good and I had a good view of them from the front, (as usual) and because I've really wanted to get some good ones before the sad, sad end in September. So here are my favourites, and the rest of the best ones are viewable on my Flickr.

Skates, lovely skates.