Blood and Thunder Double Roller Derby Bout

Yesterday we went to a double bout which was the finale of a Blood and Thunder boot camp (Blood and Thunder is an American roller derby magazine) in Birmingham.
Both bouts were awesome obviously, and sitting in suicide seats, I had more of a chance of getting better photos than at the Shove and Marriage bout between Severn Roller Torrent and Bedfordshire RollerGirls last month.
Because of it being at the end of a boot camp, it was players from various leagues playing together as teams so I don't know exactly who belongs to which league etc.

Praktica MTL 5

I got this lovely camera from my grandad, along with some other photography stuff such as film, it must've been about a year ago at least. It needs a new battery for the light meter but it's impossible to open it up to get it out, so I'd never really tried to actually use it properly.


Anyway I finally decided I would so I printed off an exposure chart for guidelines on what settings would be best for the weather and went out to start the test roll this morning. Although I found it difficult to load (someone really needs to make a video of how to do it properly and put it on youtube - even the instructions people have written confuse me too easily because it's different to any camera I've loaded before), it all seems to be working well so I should hopefully get some nice photos back once I've finished the roll.


To make things easy for myself I made a note of what settings I'd used on each shot so I can see how they come out when I get the roll developed. I wanted to write them somewhere where I'd remember them and not throw them away, and then I remembered I have these really nice Cath Kidston notebooks that I got as a Christmas present from my nan...

New film developed

I've had a roll of normal 200 ISO film sitting, all used up, in the most basic of my 35mm cameras (there are literally no setttings to choose) for almost a year, not being developed.

I finally took it to be developed today since I went to town and didn't have any to get developed for college or anything (yay) and I like the results.

My favourite from the roll was this photo of me and my two best friends on our last day of school in June/July last year. I thought it might be on there because I asked my other friend to take one on this camera, and my Holga, but the Holga one came back as an accidental double exposure, so I'm really happy this one has come out so nicely.

The rest on the roll are from December last year I think, of the snow. These are the other ones I like the most but the rest are on my lomography in case anyone wanted to look.

Matthew Brandt

I came across this photographer when I was looking through one of those excellent websites I sometimes find, that are kind of like agents for photographers, this time it was from M + B Art.

His series 'Lakes and Reservoirs' caught my eye in particular because of photos like these:

Then I read the artist statement and biography which explained them a bit more. The best quote from this that sums it up, in my opinion, is 

 “…Whether silkscreening his own photograph of Half Dome in Yosemite—an iconic image of the American West—with Cheez Whiz, Mint Jelly and other pedestrian condiments, or leaving photographs of lakes soaking in the water of their source, his subject matter visually and physically informs the work…”

These are examples from the series 'Taste Tests', the one on the left Mint Jelly and the right Peanut Butter and Jelly.