Photography

August

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A random(ish) set of images from August, in no particular order, taken while travelling in Northern Italy. This summer, it has been difficult to walk much because of the heat. Most of these were therefore taken on short walks, the most ambitious being a hike around the Lago di Alpe Gera in Valmalenco. One of the images above shows a mountain-scape in which there are a few small fragments of remaining glaciation, with copious water pouring out. 100 years ago, that scene would have been almost entirely ice. It has […]

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Nature

Castelmezzano

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A short set of images take while hiking earlier this year at Castelmezzano, a mountain village in the south of Italy. Although the town is trying to promote mass tourism (in the form of zip wires, sledging runs, and quad biking), go there when out of the main season and you will find abundant natural beauty and plenty of quiet walks through the villages and hills. Pleasant memories to try to forget the chaotic furnace that is Barcelona right now. All images were shot with the Q3, with cropping to […]

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Photography

Matera

Matera City
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A set of images from Matera and the surrounding area. Matera is a unique city in southern Italy set on the edge of a deep gorge that cuts in to soft limestone in which there are many caves both natural and excavated. The unique setting, architecture and long history, with continuous settlement dating back to the Paleolithic have earned the city UNESCO World Heritage status. Much of the modern part of the city is familiar territory to anyone used to exploring Italy, with its mix of chaotic, dense construction and […]

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Photography

Postcards from Napoli

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A short set of images taken on a trip to Naples, Italy. This was very much a sightseeing trip, but there are still some interesting contrasts to be drawn and lots of very photogenic scenes, of which these are only a small subset. The images were mostly shot around the Quartieri Spagnoli and surroundings, using a fixed-lens 28mm compact camera which worked excellently with the subject matter. Processing used DxO PhotoLab 8.2, with FilmPack for a slightly modified Kodachrome emulation and ViewPoint for the some geometry corrections.

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Black and White

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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Culture

Bootstraps

Walking the Dog, Barcelona.
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It has been almost two years since the last post. COVID took a pretty heavy toll on going out to take street photographs, and it has been difficult to summon up enthusiasm to post new content. This post is an attempt to bootstrap the blog-writing process again. The intervening time has seen many changes. Aside from the pandemic, there is the continuing fall out from Brexit with its catastrophic economic, social and political effects, the war in Ukraine which impacts and threatens everyone, and the continuous unfolding disaster that is […]

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Black and White

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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Black and White

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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Black and White

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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Landscape

August

Sunset and yacht on Lago di Como, Italy.
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  A short set of Italian alpine landscape images, which seems appropriate for the time of year. These were shot in several locations, from Vall di Mello to Lago di Como, and are a pretty good summary of what August should be like. Unfortunately for us, August is going to be a busy month, and I am putting the blog on hold now until things settle down in September, when it might also be cool enough to process film again…

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Film

Italy: Wide and Normal

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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 […]

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Photography

Postcards from Padova

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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 […]

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Landscape

Gone Hiking…

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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.

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Photography

Catholic Imagery from the Italian Alps

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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 […]

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