Meandering around the Fitzwilliam

I felt the need to escape the house for my day off as I’ve been working at home all week. The freezing weather wasn’t conducive to outdoor activities, so I headed for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for a wander with my camera.

I chose it use a single lens, picking out smaller sections of the building - a strategy which also proved useful for avoiding the crowds of school children!

This corner of one of the staircases took my fancy with its elegant lines and beautiful, soft light.

Photos taken 9 December 2022.

Slow motion automotive

This summer was a particularly good one for car shows and we got to lots of events with one of our classic Minis. In early September we went to the car show in the Hertfordshire village of Redbourn and I decided on a slow motion approach to the day, with a pair of pinhole cameras.

Knowing I wouldn’t be distracted by any faster photography I took along my large format camera, with four sheets of film loaded into dark slides. For these I had to choose my subjects carefully, with only four photos at my disposal!

I love the way the crowds turn into a blur of human motion during the long exposures - that puts all the focus on the cars.

Click on any image to see it enlarged.

We had a mid-afternoon downpour so Kevin and I retreated to the car until the rain had passed. Then he wiped the car down to remove all the raindrops - the perfect excuse for an action pinhole photo!

The view from inside a rather wet Morris!

My last two large format photos of the day.

Photos taken 3 September 2022

Inside Sally B

While it’s so cold outside I thought I’d look back to a hot summer’s day when we visited Duxford. Kevin’s been a member of the Sally B Supporters’ Club for over thirty years now and one of the perks of this is being able to take a tour inside Sally B, the last airworthy B17 in Europe.

The last time we did this was one winter when she was still inside the hangar, so it was lovely to see her in the sunshine this time.

I’d taken my little Fuji camera with me (handy to have a small camera in the tight confines of an aircraft) and focused on capturing some of the details I saw around us.

Photos taken 7 August 2022

A pinhole adventure

At the camera club this week we had a workshop evening and one of the activities on offer was the opportunity to try out some pinhole photography. I took one of my cameras along, loaded with Ilford Delta 3200 film and gave other club members a chance to try their hand at taking photos with it.

We tried out a variety of scenes, including still life and some very slow portraits, and I along the way I took three shots myself. For the chess board my camera was about 5 centimetres from the closes chess piece, showing just how close you have to get with an equivalent of a 14mm focal length!

One of the other activities on offer was large format photography so I couldn’t resist take a photo of my friend Paul as he set up for a still life shot. His camera and the toolbox are sharp, while he appears blurred as he moved around setting up the camera. I couldn’t resist taking a portrait of him too, although 30 seconds was a bit too long to maintain a rock steady pose!

Photos taken 6 December 2022

The steamy days of summer

This summer was a particularly hot one, so when I had a free day in September I took a leisurely trip to Audley End with my pinhole camera and a small tabletop tripod to search for photos.

Getting really close to the succulents in the glasshouse

Inside the garden bothy, with just a hint of flare from the window.

Looking up into the branches of a huge plane tree.

In the laundry I used my little tripod to get really close to things.

And finally, relaxing with an ice cream in the sunshine!

Photos taken September 2022

Unlikely subjects

There are certain subjects you expect to make good pinhole photos, but aviation photography is not an obvious choice. When we visited Duxford over the summer, rather than taking a digital camera with a long lens, I plumped for my large format pinhole camera. I knew this would severely restrict my options but that wasn’t going to stop me!

Sally B was out on the concrete apron, surrounded by people so I set my tripod up over the fence and took a slowish exposure. This meant the people blurred as they milled around, creating a ghostly effect.

Elsewhere on the airfield the two seater Spitfire was being readied for flight so, once again, I took the opportunity to capture a sense of movement in the human element in the frame as the passenger slipped into the cockpit.

Another Spitfire, albeit one made of fibreglass, which is why I was able to get quite so close!

Photos taken 21 August 2022

The Recorder Summer School, with a difference

I always spend a lot of time taking photos at the Recorder Summer School, but mostly they’re images of the musical activities during the course. This year I decided to give myself a personal photographic project - to take at least one pinhole photo somewhere around Bishop Burton College.

I loaded up two of my pinhole cameras - one with black and white film and the second with colour so I had maximum flexibility, depending on what I found around the grounds.

The first morning it was surprisingly misty - not what you expect in August - but that made for some suitably atmospheric photos.

Driftwood sculptures in the College grounds

Colour seemed a good choice for the glasshouses.

I photographed some of the musical activities too, including a concert by the recorder quartet Palisander.

One of my wackier ideas - a stick man strolling past the wheelie bins!

Scrap metal sculpture in the walled gardens. This chap’s drums are made out of cut down beer barrels and the drum from a washing machine!

A seventeen minute exposure while I conducted the massed ranks of players one evening.

A close up of nature in the glasshouse

Photos taken August 2022

The Queen's church

During our brief holiday in Norfolk in October we enjoyed a day at the Sandringham Estate. Photography wasn’t permitted inside the house but there was an opportunity to use my camera inside the church. This is the church the Queen would attend on Christmas Day every year and you could certainly sense its royal connections from its sheer luxury.

Photos taken October 2022

Essex churches

A day off at the beginning of August gave me an opportunity to go exploring with my pinhole camera again so I went in search of some churches to photograph. I set myself a challenge by only taking my little tabletop tripod so that meant I had to find photos which would suit this low perspective.

I started off at the church in Takeley - sadly closed but there was plenty of opportunities in the churchyard. Creative limitations always make me work harder and this low perspective certainly helped me consider possibilities I might otherwise have overlooked.

A mouse’s eye view of the north door

Getting down among a carpet of ivy in the churchyard

From Takeley I took to the road again and ended up in the village of Aythorp Roding. Here the church was open, but with slow film in my camera I was looking at exposure times of an hour or more so I gave up on that idea and finished off my film around the churchyard.

Churchyard sunflare and a rusty old bootscraper. Click on any of the photos to see them enlarged.

Photos taken 4 August 2022

Exploring Essex

We may have lived in Essex for nearly a decade now but there are still plenty of places left to explore. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time down by the River Blackwater in Maldon with my pinhole camera. The Thames Barges lining the riverside provided me with lots of inspiration and I enjoyed exploring the details I found in their rigging and the quayside.

A few days later I was out and about again, on the hunt for somewhere to finish off my roll of film and I discovered St Michael and All Angels Church in the village of Copford.

Inside I found some beautiful wall paintings and with a little patience I realised I could capture a handful of images with the film I had loaded in my camera. As the afternoon light began to fade I searched for the light switches and found I needed to feed some coins into the meter to get them going. Fortunately I had some change and the added light meant my photos would take just a few minutes each, rather than an hour or more!

Of course, the unknown quantity was how many minutes of illumination my pound coin would buy me and for both these interior photos I had to dash down to feed the meter again mid-exposure!

After those two photos I decided to move outdoors to explore the churchyard as the rain had stopped and the gloomy conditions allowed me to catch some very atmospheric photos.

Photos taken in November 2022.