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I thought I’d follow yesterday’s post with the digital photos I took during my visit to the boat graveyard at Pin Mill. A very different look - so colourful and crisp but you can’t deny there’s still a beauty in decay!
Click on any image to see it larger.
Photos taken on 24 March 2022
Pin Mill is a popular location for East Anglian photographers. It’s home to a boat graveyard - a spot along the edge of the River Orwell where lots of wooden vessels have been left to quietly rot away. Decay is almost always photogenic and this spot had long been on my must visit list.
Through the wonders of social media I’ve got to know lots of other pinhole photographers so on this occasion I met up with Andrew Keedle, who lives not far from Pin Mill in Suffolk. We spent a most enjoyable morning exploring the wrecks together, figuring out what would suit this slow medium best.
With an ultra wide focal length, it pays to get really close to your subject with pinhole cameras and I played with just how close I could get to some of the boats without sinking into the mud!
After a spot of lunch Andrew took me to one of his favourite locations, the Orwell Country Park which runs alongside the river. Here I crept beneath the canopy to capture a vertiginous view of the trees above, as well as photographing an amazing ancient oak tree.
Photos taken on 24 March 2022.
In my last post I shared some digital images from my birthday wander along the beach at West Wittering. While I was there I also spent some time taking pinhole photos to bring out some of the movement in the waves. Pinhole photography is so good at this - you can capture whole chunks of time in a longer exposure.
The following morning I drove down to Aldwick, arriving just in time for low tide. I wanted to photography the chunk of the D-Day Mulberry Harbour which lies on the beach but the only time you can get close is when the sea is out. This enormous chunk of concrete escaped en-route to Normandy back in 1944 and has sat here ever since.
On this particular occasion the tide wasn’t especially low and the blustery wind was whipping up the waves. Sometimes you can walk right around it, but this time I had to keep a sensible distance so as not to get swamped!
With a couple of frames left on my film I used them to catch a couple of other watery scenes before retreating to my car to avoid getting soaked by the incoming rainstorm!
Photos taken 9 & 10 March 2022
Back in March I happened to be travelling to Sussex on my birthday, ready for a music course the next day. I never pass up the opportunity to visit the seaside so I decided to take a birthday stroll along the beach at West Wittering.
While I was there I spent some time taking pinhole photos, which I’ll share in a separate post, but I fancied some instant gratification too, for which my little Fuji X100 was perfect!
Photos taken on 9 March 2022
After my darkroom workshop with Andrew Bartram back in April I was keen to put my new founding film developing skills into practice. About ten days later I took myself off to Audley with my pinhole camera to take some photos, with the intention of developing them when I got home.
I found plenty of photographic inspiration and had no difficulty in completing the 12 shots on my roll of film. Once I was home I light proofed our our downstairs toilet with the blackout cloth I’d bought for the job. As a room with no windows it’s only a case of sealing the tiny slivers if light which sneak in around the door - the perfect darkroom! Loading the film took a couple of attempts but once it was done I spent half hour at the kitchen sink developing, fixing and rinsing my negatives.
When the film emerged from my developing tank I was very relieved to find I had photos, but disappointed to discover I’d made a bit of a horlicks of loading the film on the spiral. It had stuck together in a couple of places, so a handful of the shots were lost. Just as well I’d gone somewhere I can easily return to in order to recreate the same photos another time!
Overall I’m pleased with the results though and since then I’ve been careful to make sure I don’t make the same mistake. Even better, each roll of film costs me about a fifth of what I was paying to have them developed commercially so that leaves me more cash to buy film!
Photos taken on 14 April 2022
Hot on the heels of my pinhole photos from our Northern Ireland holiday, I’m back with my digital images. I travelled light for this trip, taking just my little Fuji X100V, which has a fixed 23mm lens. Some people might find this limiting but I’ve known for a long while that I ‘see’ best with a prime lens - it just makes me work harder to seek out compositions.
My photographic explorations began before we’d even left England, taking a few photos from my seat on our aeroplane, including a view of Hatfield Forest as we took to the skies.
Our first view of Northern Ireland - so green!
When we arrived we went for a jaunt around Castlerock, the village where we were staying and after a rainy start the sun came out!
The next morning we explored Portstewart, where we found some great street art, including a small painting which may or not be a Banksy…
A duo of digital images from the Mussenden Temple to complement the pinhole photos I took there. It’s amazing to think that once upon a time you could drive a horse and carriage right round this building!
Looking across the harbour at Port Rush
My main photographic focus at the Giant’s Causeway was my pinhole images, but I did take a few digital photos on our walk from the visitors’ centre.
Towards the end of our holiday we visited Derry City but chose to take the train rather than driving. The views across the river estuary were glorious so I took some minimalist photos of the landscape as it whizzed past the train window.
One of Derry’s most striking landmarks is the Peace Bridge, crossing the River Foyle which runs through the centre of the city. I love its curvaceous lines - so photogenic.
The Peace Bridge, crossing the River Foyle in Derry
While the lines of the Peace Bridge seemed to call for a monochrome treatment the rest of Derry was too vivid for me to remove the colour!
On our last day we took a diversion to the Titanic museum in Belfast. Such a wonderful structure and it was astonishing to see SS Nomadic, a tender which ferried some of the passengers to the Titanic when it moored just outside Cherbourg Harbour.
Photos taken in June 2022
One of my resolutions for 2022 was to spend money on education rather than more camera gear - a plan I’ve more or less adhered to! One of my educational outings was a two day workshop with Andrew Bartram, doing some pinhole photography and learning to develop my own film. I’ve written about the workshop and what I learnt over on my Inspiration and Education page but I thought I’d share the resulting images from the day in a post here.
Alongside my pinhole camera I took a Holga 120N, which I’d recently bought for the princely sum of £21 on eBay. This simple plastic camera has just two apertures and one shutter speed (1/100 of a second) and a basic zone focusing system but it’s capable of surprisingly sharp and characterful images. Even better, it weighs almost nothing which is a joy compared to some of my digital gear!
I had some fun with my little Ondu 6x6 too, especially at the decaying house Andrew took me to. I’ll definitely be coming back to spend some more time here when I get a chance as I think this old structure has lots more to offer.
Many years ago I heard Charlie Waite say during a talk that every landscape photographer goes through a ‘shed’ period, photographing barns and sheds in the countryside. The Cambridgeshire Fens offered plenty of opportunities for me to follow his example!
Photos taken on 4th April 2022
Back in June we flew over to Northern Ireland for a holiday and for the first time in nearly three decades I took a film camera with me. I chose to take my little wooden 6x6 pinhole camera - about as simple a machine as you can use for image making. Getting the film to our destination was a tad stressful, not knowing whether the scanning machines at security would be old fashioned X-rays (which are ok with slower film) or the newer CT scanners, which will wipe your film before it’s even been developed! Fortunately all was well and the fact that you’re seeing my photos means they made it through unscathed.
The beautiful sand dunes at Portstewart Strand
Our destination was a cottage on the north coast, at Castlerock, which gave us endless places to visit along the coastline. One of our early ports of call was Portstewart Strand, a beautiful sandy beach, with dunes stretching as far as the eye can see.
Just a couple of miles from our cottage was the charming Mussenden Temple, a Georgian gem. Once upon a time it stood far enough inland that it was possible to drive a horse and carriage right around its circumference. With coastal erosion this is now far from possible and one wonders whether it will ultimately fall into the sea, or perhaps steps will be taken to dismantle the Temple and move it away from the precipice.
On the same site, but further inland stands Downhill House, another Georgian building which hasn’t survived as well as the Temple. During World War II it was used to house RAF servicemen and women, but all that remains today is a shell - it’s amazing how quickly a building can be reclaimed by nature if it’s left untouched.
Kevin kindly loitered in the doorway to create a human silhouette for me here
One of the places at the top of our ‘must visit’ list was, of course, the Giant’s Causeway. I’ve seen countless images of these amazing basalt columns but it was even better to see them firsthand. I took a leap of faith and used only my pinhole camera to photograph the causeway, trusting that the slowish exposure times would blur or remove many of the tourists. I’m so pleased I did as the resulting photos are more atmospheric and characterful than anything I could have made with a digital camera. Naturally, I received some curious looks from the other tourists as I climbed around the rocks with a wooden box atop my tripod, but I’m used to that now!
Do click on the thumbnails to see these larger - it’s worth it!
A Giant’s Causeway selfie with a difference - we had to remain as still as possible for ten seconds!
Views of the Causeway from our walk back to the visitor centre…
My final pinhole location of the holiday was the magical Dunluce Castle, just a few miles west of the Causeway. Standing on a rocky outcrop and reached by a bridge, it’s astonishing that building such an impressive structure here was possible in the early 16th century. It must have been an imposing sight in its heyday but today it remains as a decaying shell.
Photos taken in June 2022
There are some types of light which just cry out to be photographed in black and white - particularly sunny winter’s days. When I visited Bosham back in February there was low winter sun in abundance, creating a glorious contrast of light and shadow in the church.
This sort of light is guaranteed to get my photographic juices flowing and everywhere I looked the church was bathed in a wonderful glow.
Click on any of the images to see them larger.
As I walked back through the churchyard to the car a couple more small scenes caught my eye, also enhanced by the winter sun.
Photos taken 25 February 2022
It’s been a long while since I posted anything here but I’m back! Over the coming days and weeks I plan to catch up on posting some of the photos I’ve taken this year. I’ve been out there with a camera, but my working life now includes so much more time on the computer for my music work that sitting down to write blog posts in the evenings has had less appeal. Of course, there’s no reason why I can’t let the photos speak for themselves a little more though and I’m keen to have an outlet for my images beyond Instagram. So let’s get started!
A couple of weeks ago I was back in mid-Wales for a music course and I was able to steal a morning of me time with my camera. Getting anywhere in Wales seems to take at least an hour so rather than heading for a big destination I stayed local and went into Llandovery. I had no specific idea what I was going to take photos of but gradually a theme emerged - colour. Even on a grey day Llandovery is quite a vivid place - lots of painted house in every colour of the rainbow so I simply followed my nose and snapped whatever took my fancy.
Looking back on my images, there are ones which stand alone, and others which seem to naturally fall into sets according to their colour palette so I’ve decided to share them that way here. Any of the thumbnail images will come up larger on your screen if you click on them so I hope you enjoy the colours of Llandovery!
Perhaps this one doesn’t quite fit the colour theme, but I was curious about the story behind the banner over what appears to be a private driveway!
Colour and texture…
Who can resist a brightly coloured front door?
Photos taken 14 October 2022
