A short set of images taken walking along the banks of the Hangang river in Seoul. This was a particularly rainy and wet time and there were few people around, often giving the illusion of an abandoned city – an illusion that is easily broken if you are just a little higher and can see all the traffic! I am still finding my feet at the moment and I will write more on Seoul and Korea when I have had enough time to understand the region better than I do […]
A set of eight images from the eighth month of the year, shot while on vacation in northern Italy. As always, fragments of life seem to make the most interesting images. As usual, there are always the shrines: And bizarrely, I found a number of different houses with Disney characters outside. I am not sure why Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is so popular with mountain communities. I also tried some artsy fragments of scenes, with mixed success. There should probably be a lifetime quota for shots of aging […]
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 […]
A set of tourist snapshots captured while on a short trip to Berlin. It is a fascinating city with a rich, complex and often tragic history, and it would be interesting to have time to undertake a more in depth photographic project there. All images shot with the Leica M10 and 50mm Summilux. I did take a wide-angle lens as well, but never used it because 50mm always just seems right.
A short selection of images taken while visiting friends and family in Italy over New Year. For some unknown reason, these were all taken using older Zenit film cameras. The first set were shot with the Horizon 202 panoramic camera – a camera that begs to be used but which still needs more time to figure out how to get the most interesting results (compare, for example, the images with massive distortion vs those that look entirely undistorted – the result of simply tilting the camera a few degrees and […]
A short set of rather random images taken on a recent visit to Madrid.
This is the first of an occasional series of photo essays on Brexit, looking at the potential winners and losers as the UK proceeds to leave its closest economic and political partners.
A few travel snapshots from a brief trip to Munich. A very beautiful and cosmopolitan city, but bitingly cold at this time of year!
A short set of images taken around the piers in Brighton, during a rather stormy period. I have been meaning to try to take some pictures of the old piers for some time, although the original intention of making some long exposure sea-scapes was largely thwarted thanks to a slight aversion to the gale-force winds that were seemingly laced with sleet for much of the time…
A photo essay contrasting mass tourism in Asturias and Cantabria against city life in the same region. This reflects the growing tensions between increasingly wealthy and mobile tourists and and increasingly impoverished local population that sees little benefit from the tourist industry.
A short set of images taken along the River Thames, mainly following the Thames Path. These were taken to test out a newly acquired 90mm Elmarit-M lens, which despite being more than 20 years old seems to be working amazingly well. The lens is extremely sharp, but lower-contrast than most modern lenses – although this is easily corrected when processing the images.
A set of landscape photographs taken along the coast near Lynton and Lynmouth from a rather cold and wet weekend trip to the UK. It is not exactly Cannes, but the slightly less than hospitable weather makes a nice backdrop for the black and white imagery. All images shown here taken with the M 262 and 50mm Summilux, processed in Capture One 11. These would have worked very well on Delta 100 film, but it would have needed a heavy tripod to deal with the lighting and wind. At one […]
The first of two sets of high-contrast black-and-white travel photographs – in this case taken during a rather damp and cold day’s walk around Exeter. These were shot digitally and processed in Capture One. The results are very different from the usual film images, but for short trips such as this there is a lot to be said for the convenience of a digital camera.
One of the unusual architectural features of Salamanca is the unusual calligraphy, which is used to mark buildings and entrances in the street. Typographically, I am not quite sure what to make of the lettering style. There are numerous sources online for fonts that reproduce the basic letters, but the kerning is consistently somewhat eccentric.
A slideshow of images taken on a recent trip to Padova, Italy. This was not really a photographic trip, although it was a chance to put the M262 (camera, not aircraft) through its paces following the six week long repair in Wetzlar. Padova is a fascinating city that is a microcosm of Italy. There are many contrasts: the old town and new developments, exemplary classical art and modern graffiti, young and old. You could easily spend weeks observing and photographing in this town, and still not run out of new […]
A short set of images showing a different side to Salamanca, balancing the green and gold posts, and a reminder that even if this is a UNESCO site, it is also a large active city. These were all shot with a micro 4/3 camera system, and I would defy anyone to get better results from a Leica. In fact, things like focus accuracy and overall image sharpness at slow shutter speeds are reliably better than Leica digital thanks to the fast AF and image stabilisation. The shooting experience may be very […]
Transient Eye 