A unique look

If you’ve been following my photography for a while now you’ll know about my interest in pinhole photography - perhaps the oldest and simplest form of the genre. From time to time I dabble in another lo-fi form of photography too, using a plastic Holga camera. This simple machine has a plastic lens and a single shutter speed (around 1/100 of a second) but somehow the lack of bells and whistles means you have to work harder to find images.

Back in February I had a work trip to Somerset and decided to go old school with my camera equipment, taking just a Holga and a pinhole camera with me. One morning I stopped off at St Andrew’s Church in the village of Old Cleeve and decided to use the Holga to capture a collection of images here.

The Holga has an interesting look. The centre of the lens is surprisingly crisp, but the sharpness towards edges of each frame falls off quite quickly, creating a beautiful, dreamy effect. I’ve never used the camera in a church setting before (at least not indoors), so I wasn’t sure quite how well it would work. I mounted the Holga on my tripod but then realised I’d forgotten to bring my shutter release cable. Ah well, so be it - I just needed to do it the old fashioned way, using my finger on the shutter button, but taking care to keep really still and not jog the camera mid-exposure!

A selection of smaller vignettes from around the church - click on the images to see them enlarged.

I love the soft light inside an old church like St Andrew’s - so atmospheric. Towards the end of my visit the sun finally came out and illuminated the end of the choir stalls.

Close focussing isn’t a particular strength of the Holga, but I was lucky enough to judge my distance just right for these ornately carved characters on the ends of the pews.

Overall, I was delighted with the results from my lo-fi photoshoot at St Andrew’s - definitely a worthwhile experiment and one I’ll try again sometime. I guess it just goes to show that expensive gear isn’t always necessary - a £21 eBay bargain can sometimes do the job just as well!

Photos taken February 2026

Farewell to Dillington House

For the last fifteen years I’ve had a the pleasure of teaching at Dillington House in Somerset. Sadly it was announced earlier this year that 49 years of history would come to an end and the house is being handed back to its owners. While I was there for my final course in May I took the opportunity to capture a few photos of this wonderful place - I shall miss it terribly.

St Audrie's Bay

Have you ever had one of those days when you can’t quite decide where to go? I had just that experience in Somerset earlier this month and my solution was to open up Google maps and see what jumped out at me. AS luck would have it, this led me to rediscover a pin I’d dropped in the app last year marking St Audrie’s Bay as somewhere I should visit - problem solved!

My reason for saving the location was the waterfall which tumbles off the cliffs there. I’d seen photos which had piqued my interest so I parked up at the caravan part on top of the cliffs and began picking my way down the steep path to the beach. It’s a private beach, but the owners of the caravan park don’t mind welcoming visitors and on this winter morning I pretty much had the place to myself.

The only access from above is a rocky pathway down the side of the cliffs so I was amazed to find a lot of man made structures (albeit in an extreme state of weathering) dotted along the beach. I can only assume the raw materials must have been brought in by boat many decades ago in a futile attempt to tame the sea.

The waterfall comes from a stream which runs down the hillside and simply falls over the edge to the beach below. During the summer months it often disappears entirely, but the recent rain ensured a steady flow of water, which I made the most of in my pinhole photos.

The beach was riven with streams of water, heading for the sea, so I was very pleased I’d put my wellies in the car. To get this photo I was sitting on a small man-made stone wall with my feet in a stream, while shooting in the opposite direction across a rock pool - I couldn’t have done that if I’d be wearing shoes!

I was fascinated by the rock strata breaking through the beach - a very visible glimpse into the way the earth’s crust is pushed and pulled by the forces beneath.

This may look like a deep chasm, but it’s only about 4 inches deep - the magic of getting down really low and really close with a pinhole camera!

I’d brought my large format pinhole camera along too, which gave me a different perspective on the beach’s features, both natural and manmade.

Photos taken 3 February 2023