A couple of weeks ago I was perusing the blogs I usually read and noticed Kosmo Foto was organizing a walk around Waterloo in London for the following weekend. I usually wouldn’t give it a second glance as train prices plus hotels would make it very expensive for me to attend…but..out of interest…what would the prices be??? The rail companies have been advertising cheap deals from the north to London recently, maybe a day trip could be possible. Plus it was on a Saturday so I could always sleep all day Sunday before work on Monday. So I looked and blow me down, I could get there and back in a day for just under £40. It would mean being on trains for about 9hours of the day, but it was doable. I would have to set off at 5:40ish and return at 10:20pm.

I got to Kings Cross around 9:20am which gave me time for breakfast before the walk to Waterloo. I could have taken the underground, but it was London and I wanted to walk. Plus I had just been sitting for 4 hours. The walk would mean I would go past the newly unveiled Big Ben and over Waterloo Bridge, a lovely walk. I arrived at the meeting place early and wandered around some lions.

I put quite a lot of thought into what camera to take with me. I didn’t want to carry a lot as I would be tired. So I chose My favourite spiderman camera and a point and shoot just in case. We were all given a roll of Kosmo foto 100 which I planned to push to 400. The spare camera proved to be vital as the Chinon jammed after 12 shots. I swapped the film over and finished the walk but not the film as it became too dark for even 400 on the point and shoot.

Actually, I didn’t take many photos and found I was a bit intimidated by the number of people on the walk and London as a whole. I had a good time and made some new friends. But I am not really a street photographer so this type of walk didn’t really suit me. The next day the tiredness caught up with me big time as I forgot I hadn’t finished the film and set to develop it. When I finish a film, I always rewind it to protect the film inside the cassette. As I hadn’t finished the film, I hadn’t rewound it. So when I opened the camera I fogged the film. I shut it very quickly and managed to save a lot of the shots.

Here are some from the CE4.

See that bloke? He approached the group and started chatting to me about cameras so I asked to take his photos. When I got back up north I told all my friends as we are under the impression that Londoners don’t do that 🙂

All joking aside, here are some of the shots from the Pentax PC35A.

On a pub stop, and there were a couple, I researched how to fix the Chinon and my own website was the first hit. When I got home it took me less than 5 minutes to fix it. If I had a screwdriver I could have done it in London. Bother. Oh well.

In the end, it was a great day, but very very tiring. It isn’t something I will be doing often. I did enjoy meeting and chatting with the other people. For me, that was the main focus of the trip and the photography was second. If I happen to be in London at the same time as another walk, I will join it just for the banter.