2015 Consumerism

I bought some nice film cases from Japan Camera Hunter (aka Bellamy Hunt) around this time last year & whilst I loved the idea I’ve found that 10x rolls is simply too much to carry in my bag. Even if I’m going on a trip for several days, I would only use the 10x cases as far as the hotel room & would then decant a smaller number into something else to actually carry around each day.

Then last week I discovered that Bellamy has released a ‘half’ sized version that holds 5x rolls! Once again, shipping was the same price for up to 3x cases & there were 3x colours so…

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They happen to be the perfect size to fit into one of the front pockets of my new Billingham Hadley Small (this one is sage fibrenyte with chocolate leather).

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Yes, Billinghams are almost laughably expensive, but so far this is the only camera bag I’ve owned that I didn’t immediately find at least one annoying flaw/niggle with (& I’ve owned Tenba, Timbuk2, Crumpler & Think Tank) so if it lasts for as long as people claim they do then I reckon it was a justifiable expense. Or at least that’s how I’m fooling myself.

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I also got a frame made for one of the shots I took at Covent Garden a few months back. I get frames from Picture Frames Express, you can order them to whatever frame/mount dimensions you want (down to the mm) which is great if you’ve cropped an image to some ‘non standard’ aspect ratio.

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Return to Covent Garden

Back in December 2011 I was in London with a Yashica-Mat 124G that I had just bought on eBay. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Mat was actually broken & of the full 12 shots I took on that first roll only half actually came out. As far as I can tell, the rest were actually shot onto the backing paper. That roll was also the first time I ever developed a film myself, so looking back at it I was incredibly lucky to get such a nice photo of the Christmas decorations at Covent Garden, which looked even better when I rescanned it when I got my Epson V600.

I told myself that if Covent Garden had the same decorations up again, I would go down better prepared with a tripod & camera I knew worked properly. Well Christmas 2014 came around & the same decorations went up, so I hopped on the train with my RB67 Pro SD, a 5-pack of Tri-X & a nice Manfrotto tripod borrowed from work. Well, not so much hopped, as it was rather a heavy setup!

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Of course ‘the best laid plans’ etc. & the shoot didn’t go quite as perfectly as I had hoped. It was quite late on a Sunday night by the time I made it out & got set up, so there were far fewer people than I had expected & the same bustling Christmassy atmosphere wasn’t really there. But conversely, because there were fewer people & the parasols were down, you could actually see from the vantage point all the way to the back of the building & the pillars across the entry. The flare from the lamps is unfortunate as well, but I’m honestly not sure how I could’ve avoided that – something to learn for the future!

I took a bunch of shots, both from the same off-centre position as 2011 & from the exact centre. None of the shots jumped out like that original 2011 shot, but there were a couple that I was relatively pleased with (click for bigger).

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Narrative Clip – Week 7

Week 7, covering the second half of November & through December.

Starting off with an early RAG Week, which of course means a copious number of purple balloons!

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Continue reading Narrative Clip – Week 7

Covent Garden at Christmas [Re-scan]

I rescanned the Covent Garden photo I took back in 2011 & originally scanned with the CanoScan 9000F, this time using the Epson V600 & producing a much better result. Whether that’s because the Epson is actually better or I simply chose more appropriate options is open to debate though!

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Canon

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