Back in October last year I used Blurb to produce a book based on the content of my photoblog. Having been very pleased with how it turned out I decided to do one every time the blog contained enough material. A couple of weeks back I had enough material to produce a second book. Here it is:
A couple or so weeks back I finally got the chance to put a roll of Fuji Provia 400X through my new Diana+. It's taken a while to get the images processed (strikes on the part of the Royal Mail partly got in the way, but I was also slow doing the processing at my end too) but I finally have the results up on my website:
I'm very please with the results. I've only published 11 images from the 12 shot, and the one that I've left out was my mistake. I'd attempted to use the Diana+ in its pinhole mode but took a wild guess at the exposure time and got it wrong. From what I could see the image looked from the point of view of how well the pinhole performed, but it was very over-exposed so I decided to leave it out. At some point soon I'll give the pinhole mode another try.
Back in May this year I finally cracked and joined the ranks of people who use "smart phones". For a while I was seriously thinking about going for an Apple iPhone (especially after seeing Elizabeth Gordon's early shots with CameraBag) but, in the end, I was tempted by Android and got myself a HTC Magic.
One of the first things I did after I got it, following the lead of Elizabeth Gordon and James Beston, was to get a posterous account. At first I used it as a place to post ad-hoc photos but, pretty soon, I started to treat it as a more (insert hand-waving here) "serious" photoblog.
It's been running for a few months now and I'm rather happy with the content. So much so that I've decided to let it have its own domain: www.seen-by.me.uk.
Also, recently, I finally cracked and won an ongoing battle I've been having with Blurb's Booksmart (the battle is all my own making — I just don't "get" that software) and made a book of the blog: seen by davep v1.1:
The content of the book starts a couple or so months into the blog (hence v1.1 rather than v1.0, there's technical reasons why v1.0 didn't get created first) and ends a couple of weeks ago. At some point I imagine I'll make v1.2. I currently have a copy of the book on order (I only really made it for myself anyway) and will post about it here when it finally turns up.
Recently I put another two rolls of Fuji Provia 400X through my Holga 120GN. They've both been processed and scanned (once again thanks to to my friendly Scottish landscape photographer for the scanning) and the results have been uploaded to my site:
After my very quick test of my new fisheye conversion lens the other night, I was impatient to give it a better test. Last Saturday afternoon had great weather and great skies so I put the fisheye on my EOS 400D and took a walk up to Birthorpe and back.
Ever since I got to play with one back in the 1980s (using it on my Zenit 11), I've wanted a fisheye lens of my own. Trouble is, they're generally expensive, especially given the limited use they have.
And then, a couple or so weeks back, while browsing for something else on Amazon, I stumbled on the Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens:
It turned up yesterday and, last night, just as the sun was setting, I managed a very quick walk around the village to give it a quick try:
My initial reaction is very favourable. There's very obvious fringing as you move away from the middle of the image (which I expected), but the sweet spot is very sharp and, overall, it's nice and easy to use.
For a long time now I've wanted to have a go at creating a video slide show. While I did have a quick dabble with Animoto a while back, and while it was fun, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.
I've wanted to be able to take a piece of music, ideally an instrumental, and try and weave my images around it. To this end I've spent some time, over the months, looking for instrumental tracks that I love and which are also licenced in a way that would permit using them as the backing of such a video. That was the really important part, that I was legally permitted to use the music.
And then, last week, one of my favourite singer/songwriters released a couple of instrumental versions of her songs via her newsletter. She also said that anyone was permitted to use the music in other works as long as full and proper credit is given.
One of the tracks was the instrumental of I'm Yours. I *had* to do something with that. And so, last Saturday night, I fired up Windows Movie Maker and started having a dabble.
Even better, if you're looking for instrumental tracks that are licenced in a way that let's you use them while passing on the news, why not join her mailing list and keep up with what she's doing?
PS: If you didn't click through to the original song, and you're done watching the video, have a listen to the original here:
Yesterday I finished uploading the results of the first film through my Zero Image 2000. I'm very impressed with what I've got out of it on a first go.
That was another roll of Ilford HP+ 400 and, once again, I'm very happy with the results. I think I'm probably more keen on sticking with Fuji Provia 400X in the future, mainly because I feel, for some unknown reason, that colour does the Holga more justice.
The postie came today, carrying a parcel from 7DayShop:
The main thing being that I've now got some film to use with my Zero Image 2000 so I'm all set for when I've got the time (and the weather is playing ball).
And, as you can see, I found a dinky little case and a nice soft bag to keep it in when I'm wandering about, or when it's in storage waiting for its next outing.
Today I took delivery of a new photographic toy. A Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera:
I've been considering a pinhole camera for a while and I'd decided that, given that I already own a couple of medium-format film cameras anyway, a medium-format pinhole was the obvious choice.
I probably won't get to use it for at least a week as I've only just ordered some film for it. I'm really looking forward to trying it out.
Last night I finished processing and uploading images from the latest roll of film through my Holga 120GN. The photographs were taken around Sleaford and Grantham:
Once again I'm really pleased with the results. The Holga really is a great little camera and all kinds of fun to use. The more I use it the more I'm glad I cracked and got one.
I've just finished processing and uploading images taken on the first roll of Fuji Provia 400X that I've put through the Holga 120GN. On the whole the results are okay. Some of the shots were a little over-exposed (I've "rescued" them with a little extreme and "Holgaesque" post-processing) but that's to be expected if you head out in bright sunlight with ISO 400 film (even at f/13). Those with a keen eye will note that there's only 11 images in the sets that follow rather than 12. One of them is a family photo so doesn't go on the site.
A little departure from the norm for me. A set of photographs, but not taken with any of my cameras. I decided to start a series of still life images using my ageing flatbed scanner as the camera. The result is Objects In Space.
Last night I took the EOS 400D and the Holga 120GN out for a walk up the road to Birthorpe and back. Along the way I managed to capture some fairly dramatic skies. You can see the 400D results over here — you'll have to wait for the Holga results, obviously. :-)
It started a week or two ago. Over on twitter I saw Elizabeth Gordon reply to something written by Kevin Day about how he was going to have an article about his photography in his local paper. I added Kevin to my follow list and, later on, caught the pointer to a photograph of the article.
I got to thinking that this was a good idea — local newspapers doing features on local photographers and/or artists in general — and half seriously mentioned it to @GranthamJournal. I got a reply of "yes" (which surprised and delighted me) and "let's do you first" (which surprised and horrified me, in a good way).
Fast forward to today and this is what I find in the paper:
I'm a little freaked to see a photo of me there, and I think I'd have picked a different selection of images if I'd known that they were all going to be reproduced in black and white but, overall, it's a great article, Bob's written some good text to go with it.
It's the first time I've ever had my work shown off like this. While I've had photographs in magazines before (mostly astronomy magazines) this is the first time I've had my general work shown off. It's kind of nice. :-)
Now I'm looking forward to seeing who else is going to be featured in the series.
Some photography happened this last weekend. First off, on Saturday, I found myself sat waiting in a car park in Grantham and I had my PowerShot G9 with me so more shots for my Life in a Car Park series happened:
Finally, later in the afternoon, I decided to take a walk up to Horbling. Partly because I'd not taken any photographs there, but also because I wanted to go find some more shots for the Evidence theme that I'm also toying with at the moment.
Last weekend was a long weekend here in the UK and, as normally happens on a bank holiday weekend, the weather was pretty awful (yes, mostly sunny week with rain most of the weekend). However, despite the lousy weather, I did manage to get some photography done: