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October

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It has been a difficult October, as most of the month has been spent in Italy with multiple trips to deal with family health problems – fortunately all now resolved successfully. This has meant that photography has been very constrained, both in time and also by the ability to carry camera gear on easyJet, so these are a somewhat random set taken with walks around the area of Sesto San Giovanni in Milan and also on a brief excursion to Como. All images taken with the GFX100s and GF45, GF55 […]

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Five Landscapes

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Five monochrome landscape images, taken in the Italian alps. These were shot using a Leica Q2 Monochrom and various colour-contrast and polarising filters. The Q2M is a monochrome-only compact camera with a fixed 28mm lens which was bought to replace an ageing Ricoh GR for travel where carrying film is no longer practical. The Q2M has the advantage of a built-in EVF, and shooting with the monochrome sensor is essentially the same process as for shooting with black and white film, only without the chemicals. Compositionally, I found the Q2M […]

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Sofia

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The first post for 2021, with some images taken on a recent work trip to Bulgaria. Street and social-documentary photography has been badly curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here in Barcelona there are heavy restrictions on all forms of movement, with both a curfew and limitations how far it is possible to move. Added to this is the expectation of social distancing, which makes conventional street photography with a wide-angle lens and close proximity with people problematic. Street photography is invariably something that feels risky, but with a highly contagious […]

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35mm

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Spain’s massive COVID spike not withstanding, it is now at least possible, if not necessarily advisable, to go out and photograph on the streets again. These are some of the images from the initial attempts to resume the Barcelona Dark project. In fact, getting back to photographing at night again is proving somewhat challenging. Having moved home more or less during the worst of the pandemic earlier this year, the surrounding area is different and needs a different approach to photography. I also feel like I have lost a lot […]

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C330

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A set of test images shot on a Mamiya C330 TLR with HP5+ film. These are from a few rolls taken to test out the camera and 80mm lens, in anticipation of a longer term project, for which I wanted a higher resolution camera that could conceivably be used without a tripod and which was not prohibitively expensive. The C-series TLRs with leaf shutter lenses and lack of a flappy mirror are a good candidate for this, and more versatile than TLRs such as the Rolleiflex thanks to the ability […]

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Dark

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A set of test images shot at night in Italy, to gauge whether or not a digital camera would be a reasonable replacement for film in the Barcelona Dark series. The bottom line is probably not. It is very hard to emulate the “glow” around lights that get with film (caused by back-scattering of light from the film base). Shooting with a diffusion filter gets someway towards the look of film, but the fall-off with distance from the light is never quite right – although it is a nice effect […]

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Signs of Life

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A short photo essay on the easing of lock-down and the (quasi) return to normal life, albeit somewhat cautiously. These images were shot on a short and cautious trip to Italy, with some hiking in the mountains both in Italy and neighbouring Switzerland. It is clear that the COVID19 situation is going to persist for some time to come, not least because there is still widespread confusion and/or refusal to take simple preventative measures against infection. Surprisingly, the flights and public transport were perhaps the lowest risk in the trip, […]

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Quarantined

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Barcelona, and indeed all of Spain, is now shut down thanks to the COVID-19 emergency. It is now illegal for people to go out of their homes other than for essential purposes such as food or medical supplies, and the police are actively enforcing the measures and fining or arresting violators.

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First shots with the Leica M-A

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This is a short look the Leica M-A film camera, from the perspective of someone used to shooting the technically much more advanced M7. The M7 has been my main film camera for more than five years now. What started as an experiment to reduce the size and weight of camera equipment has ultimately led a growing reliance on Leica M series rangefinders for most of my photography. A key advantage being the ability to keep the same lenses and basic shooting experience in both digital and 35mm film media.

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State of Independence XVIII

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Barcelona’s weeks of fire: after sentences were issued against the Catalan political leaders responsible for the events around the constitutionally illegal 2017 independence referendum and the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence, the region has been rocked by both peaceful and (as shown here) rather less peaceful nationalist protests. This is a set of images shot around the upmarket central streets of Passeig de Gràcia and Via Laietana in the centre of Barcelona.

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Barcelona Dark VI

Nighttime Street Photography in Barcelona on Film
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Continuing the series of night-time street photographs in Barcelona. This time I have tried using a 28mm lens, which has proven very difficult. You might expect that the wider angle would mean needing a lower shutter speed, but in practise if you try to get closer to the subject to compensate for the wider field-of-view there is no real advantage. Add to this the practical limitation that my 28mm is a stop slower than my usual lenses, and it is very hard to catch images successfully. With the typical light […]

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