Barcelona Colour?
Five colour street images, taken in Barcelona and shot on Kodak Portra and Ektar. My favourite is probably the “Refugees Welcome” image, as this represents two of the main issues for the city at present.
The Ruins
Leica M7 with ZM 1,4/35 and yellow filter on HP5+ developed in HC-110 1+63 at 27c. The fast 35mm lens is wonderful for these kind of ethereal scenes.
Residence
An old mill (?) which has been restored and converted to apartments in Margno, Italy. It is a beautiful setting, but it reflects the sad trend where in Europe almost seemingly every change is towards property investment, tourism and upmarket coffee shops. Leica M7 with ZM 1,4/35 and yellow filter on Ilford Delta 100 developed in DD-X 1+4 at 24c, with noticeably less grain than the previous HP5+ images.
If a tree falls…
If a tree falls…?. The first of a new sequence of black-and-white film images, and also a new posting format with daily film shots combined with a longer pieces at the weekend. Taken with the Leica M7 with ZM 1,4/35 and yellow filter on HP5+ developed in HC-110 1+63 at a rather too hot ambient temperature of 27c. While I like the tree, for these images I am not a great fan of the grain that I am getting with this combination of HP5+, developer and temperature. Unfortunately, it is not easy […]
Barcelona Still?
Five images of Barcelona, shot on colour film and developed at home with some rather expired chemicals. These were test images, taken out of curiosity to compare the old Minolta X300 with a cheap 35-70mm f4 zoom against the M7 with the Zeiss 50mm. The only conclusion I can see is that image quality wise, it is almost impossible to tell the zoom images from the prime lens. I also attempted to shoot some street photography with the X300, but this was much less successful than with the Leica thanks to […]
Gone Hiking…
These were some of the areas that we hiked through to take the photographs in Catholic Imagery from the Italian Alps. Most of these were taken in the stunningly beautiful Val Codera, close to the Italian-Swiss border. A welcome antidote to the current chaos and pollution in Barcelona.
Catholic Imagery from the Italian Alps
A set of Catholic Images taken from path side shrines and buildings in the northern Italian Alps. These are often found in dedicated stone constructions, built specifically to house frescos, statues and – more recently – photographs of significant relics such as the Turin shroud. There are also numerous painted frescos that adorn the sides of churches and houses. It is tempting to refer to these as “icons“, but I am sternly informed that most Catholics would insist that they are not – even if the depictions and function appear very similar to […]
Barcelona: Manteros, Tourists and Luxury Yachts
There are few more poignant symbols of the problems in Barcelona than photographs taken around the newly redeveloped harbour area between Port Vell and Barceloneta. Here, tourists newly disembarked from cruise ships or disgorged from the flood of incoming flights to El Prat walk past rows and rows of “manteros” – illegal immigrants selling fake designer sunglasses, handbags, shoes, hats and numerous other dubious goods. In the background is an exclusive private marina where multi-millionaires dock their luxury yachts. The blankets (mantas) are usually linked to ropes attached at each corner, so […]
Review: The Leica M7
This is an incredibly late review for the Leica M7, which was released in 2002. Mine is an early version bought second-hand, and I have used it extensively for the last two years over which time I have shoot an average of about one film per week and traveled with it in Europe and the Americas.
Milano
Three images from Milan, Italy. These were actually the last before the problems here wiped out all the projects and planned travel for this year. That said I am gradually trying to get back to more focussed work and am now gradually getting through some processing backlog. All three images were taken with the M7 and 50mm C-Sonnar on HP5+ exposed at box speed and developed in HC110 1+63.
Convergence
Three images with converging lines. Converging lines are rare in nature, and as here are often symbolic of transport and travel to a distant destination. Even if it is just the bottom of the stairs.
United Kingdom
Not desperately pleased with the UK at the moment, and this short narrative explains something of that. I hope that I am wrong.
Bubbles – Film Photographs with a Modified 50mm Lens
Almost all the cameras we use are chosen for their performance and image quality. But sometimes clean images are not what you see or want when interpreting a subject. For this set of images we have used a modified Centon 50mm lens, mounted on an old Minolta film camera. The Centon was an ultra-budget lens, badged and sold by Jessops in the 1980’s and about as far from a modern Summilux or Otus as you can imagine. It turns out to be very easy to unscrew the mounting for the front element, and re-install it in a […]
Barcelona Green
It is August, hot and everyone is on holiday. A few highly non-artistic and random shots taken on a walk up to the wild green hills hills above Singuerlín in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Unfortunately, a strained leg meant that we did not get as far as we wanted. There is a lot of interesting insect life here – the mantis was very unexpected. At some point it would be interesting to come back specifically to take some insect macro photographs.
Week 22 :: Sant Boi
Six images from Sant Boi de Llobregat, on the outskirts of Barcelona. An interesting town just on the edge of the Garraf, and easily reachable from the centre of Barcelona on the metro from Plaza España. This will be the last of the weekly sets, as it is getting to difficult to juggle the conflicts between temporal and thematic aggregation – so this will switch next week to a mix of single image posts with occasional longer posts on a single theme.
Week 21 :: Angels and Daemons
Five more black and white images, taken in and around the touristic centre of Barcelona. These were all shot with the Ricoh GR II and converted from RAW to black and white in Capture One.
Transient Eye 