Tag Archives: photos

My Favourite Photos of 2019

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I started the year being very organised and made a folder to save my favourite photos in preparation for this post. Then somewhere along the line I either got waylaid or gave up, I am not sure which. So I decided not to bother. Then I thought…wait a minute, Instagram. I post all my favourite photos there and tag the details. So if I look back at the last year I should be able to choose my favourites. Simple. Except now I have to take screen shots and include some Instagram formatting. Oh well, I am not perfect. Maybe it will spur me on the make better decision in the future.

With that said, here are my favourite photos from 2019. They are not in any order, I wasn’t able to choose that specifically.

Silver birch taken on a victorian large format camera with 4×5 sheet film

Greylag goose taken with a Nikon d750
Photo from a cosplay photoshoot at airoute studio taken on my phone a huaweip20pro
A tame baby crow taken with a  Nikon d750
A view of Nidderdale in North Yorkshire while I was out camping, taken on my phone a huaweip20pro
A view of Lofthouse in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire taken on Prinzmastermatic iii with ilford xp2
A photo of a staircase at Hive cafe in Blackpool while attending Unframing Identities exhibition, taken on my phone a Huaweip20pro
A view of Blackpool Tower from the Hive cafe while attending Unframing Identities exhibition, taken on my phone a Huaweip20pro

Despite the flaws in the film, I still love this portrait of my father, taken with a Mamiya C2
A photo take in my local pub carpark with my phone camera a Huaweip20pro
A photo of my sister taken at Camden market taken with chinon ce4 with ilford hp5plus
An image from Doncaster light night taken with my phone, a Huaweip20pro using the night mode
Photo from a cosplay photoshoot in an abandoned castle taken with a Nikon d750

Actually, I think the last one might be my favourite. It was the first time I took a photo and after processing it was exactly as I envisioned when I took it.

Lots of these photos were taken on my phone, which proves the adage, the best camera is the one you have with you.

Plus I think I love the one of my sister because of the time we spent in London more than the actual photo. We went away for my birthday and it was a super weekend.

Next year I think I will forgo the folder idea and stick to Instagram. So much easier.

Pinholes with expired Svema

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Continuing with the photo posts, I have tried my pinhole cameras again. This time with Svema 125 film from around 1990. The first camera I reused was the Ondu. Each of these were exposed for 2 minutes, on a tripod of course. The film was developed with ilfosol 3 as that is all I have right now. I presoaked the film for 5 minutes, then developed for 14 minutes at 20 degrees. I found that over developed the film, so will try 10 minutes next time. I used water and a few drops of vinegar as a stop bath, then fixed it in the regular way.

The photos are very grainy. I have a love/hate relationship with this pinhole camera. I think the actual camera is beautiful, but am struggling to love the images it produces. The one where I shot straight into the sun had a black hole where the sun was, I deleted that so the rays would be more of a focus.

The next camera, and only other pinhole I tried was the Diana F+, the multi functioning toy camera. I mainly stuck with the 2 minute exposures except the ones inside. One of them is 4 hours long. Now to be fair, I screwed this film up royally. I HIGHLY do NOT recommend trying to thread an old film onto a developing roll in a dark bag when it is hot and humid. I just could not get it to go on. It just kept getting stuck, bending and I was touching it all over the place. I did not have fun!

But you can see the Diana is not as sharp as the Ondu. And if I do bother with Pinholes again that is the camera I will choose. But why, it is just not my thing. I would prefer to put the film in the Kiev 88 or another medium format camera.

I hope my next post has much sharper photos 🙂