Through the dunes

Bambrugh castle - the wider perspective

Sand and camera equipment. Not a good mix to say the least but sometimes you have to take a chance and hope that sand doesn't get into anywhere vital. Just getting to the location for this shot was hard work: its quite a steep climb getting from the beach to the dunes. No pain, no gain as they say.

With me i had my trusty Benbo Trekker tripod which i normally don't carry - it usually stays in the boot of the car. I'm not much of a tripod user to be honest and on this dune expedition it didn't get used very much either. Always useful to have with you though but just a pain to carry everywhere.

This is another digital shot which, at the time, I thought were pretty average when i looked back at them. Using digital viewing screens in bright sunlight is virtually impossible - its difficult to tell what you've got at the best of times. I'm definitely going to try and look for a better screen protector/sunshade.

The rest of the shoot was done using the F5 loaded with some Ilford FP4. It'll be interesting to compare results of the different formats. Film vs digital....oh no.... not that argument!

Place of legends

Bambrugh Castle, Northumberland, UK

You'll have noticed that its been quiet on the blog these last few days which was all due to my trip up north to Northumberland near the Scottish border. It was a great four days and although i wish i could have spent a few more extra days there, i managed to photograph pretty much what i wanted.

Northumberland has a rich, colourful and rather violent past. The amount of battlefields marked on the map is staggering and most reflect the violent relationship that the English had with their Scottish neighbours during the medieval period. Bambrugh castle is a monument to that struggle and was an important strategic point for the English in a period when Northumberland was regularly invaded by the Scots.

It's worth mentioning that the image is a digital shot converted to black and white. I've read various photography blog postings recently that state that digital cameras cannot produce really excellent b&w images - something i think is completely ridiculous. I hope this shot of Bambrugh castle proves that strong B&W digital images are possible.

A timeless classic

Tiger Moth coming into land at Burnham thorpe Airfield, Norfolk

I've noticed that we've had Black and white images posted since the end of July so...enough of the moody black and white, lets have some colour!

This encounter with a Tiger Moth flying from a small airfield was just a case of luck and being in the right place and the right time. The only setback was the light, which was flat and lifeless thanks to the overcast cloud. Oh how i would have liked some sun and blue sky to appear but you just have to work with the light you're given. I do like the timeless feel that this image has.

Norfolk has loads of little airfields scattered around the county, mainly due to the flat nature of the countryside that makes it ideal for flying. The airfield at Burham Thorpe is used mainly at weekends as a fly in meeting place for pilots and their families.

Digital was the format choice for this shot and is ideal for this type of work; you just shoot, review the images and re shoot if need be. I must admit that my camera panning was a bit rusty but otherwise the images came out OK.

Imagekind art

Brancaster Staithe - 2004

I took this photograph of a moored yacht a few years ago but I think its a good representation of my black and white work; the use of light and dark tones is typical of my work.

The image was taken using a Yashica 124G 6x6 camera that i picked up a few years ago when i was a student - the camera cost me about £100 and I still use it for a lot of my 6x6 landscape work.

Art prints of this image and others featured on the blog are now available to buy from Imagekind

Perfect place

The lifeboat ramp at Sheringham

It was VERY windy when i took this shot and quite frankly you wouldn't have thought that it was July....then again with British summers maybe you might!

The sea was a lovely 15 degrees C and a few mad people ( all approaching their sixties i might add) were taking a swim under the watchful gaze of the lifeguards. If I'd turned up on a hot day, the beach would be packed out with families having their seaside holiday but most of the time the Norfolk beaches are pretty much deserted and the perfect place to have a think.

Another angle

Access ramp to the sea for Sheringham fishermen

This image was taken looking down towards where the last posted photo was shot and shows the access ramps, used by local fishermen, that are located at points along the sea defence wall at Sheringham.

Although we tend to think of holiday resorts as purely tourist based economies, many UK seaside resorts still have a fishing fleet, however the numbers involved in the fishing industry have decreased drastically over the last decade or so.

This image was taken of Ilford HP5 rated at 800asa which has been my favourite speed rating for this film for years.....BUT.....I'm going to try a standard 400asa rating and see if the film produces better results for grain and tone when its not pushed. The differences may not be that noticeable but its something to try.

I've been thinking about my film use this year and i've decided to make the ratio of slow to fast film more even for next year's Norfolk work. It'll be around 50% Ilford FP4 and 50% HP5...with a few rolls of 50asa Pan F thrown in for luck!

Finally if you have a bit of time to spare, have a look at the Viiphoto website where there are some great documentary images.

Available light

Sea front at Sheringham, Norfolk

I'm currently going through the long process of creating an online presence - essential for any photographer who wants to show their work and maybe get some commissions too. The amount of websites set up for the pro and amateur photographer to access is mind-blowing but one of the best is lightstalkers.org.

Lightstalkers offer a place for like minded photographers to show their work and get feedback but for some reason its a website that seems really difficult to use. I've just spent an hour or two trying to upload some images to my gallery....with no result. The site just won't let me do it. I suppose I'll have to try later but a website should be easy to use and for me, lightstalkers ain't!!

The shot of Sheringham above was taken with my Nikon nikkor 35mm f2.0 lens which is a typical photojournalists lens - fast and sharp. 35mm lenses fall into the area of the wideangle but without the distortion you get with 28mm and 24mm wideangles. I use fixed lenses quite a bit but I'm also recognise the huge benefits of the zoom lens.

I love zoom lenses - modern zooms being far better than the older types of twenty years ago. Some photographers still believe that a zoom is inferior in quality to a fixed lenses (i.e 50mm or 135mm) but i think that's no longer true thanks to modern lens design. The Sigma and Nikon zooms i use with my cameras are pin sharp but i still use fixed lenses like the Nikon 35mm f2.0 simply because they are fast and can be useful in low light conditions.

An interesting experiment to do with a zoom is to keep it set on ONE lens setting, say 28mm, and photograph everything you come across by moving YOURSELF and not the lenses. you'll certainly learn a lot about perspective and framing images....its fun too!

Post Fifty

Boy fishing in the harbour at Wells next to the sea, Norfolk

The first post for August and the fiftieth post for the blog. Yippee!

Hopefully you'll have liked the way that this blog has developed over the months and my aim is to carry on and give my perspective on everything photographic - from the technology to the image making itself. I'll also throw some of more of my images into the mix too.

I think a blog for any photographer is essential these days, even if its just used as a diary/therapy. Where else could you put images and the stories behind them ....and show them to the world! There's probably a good argument that there are too many photography blogs on the web but the way i see it is if a blog is any good then people will look at it and hopefully come back for more.

So how am i going to develop the blog further? Well I want to make the posting more regular and broader to cover a wider range of photographic issues. Documentary work will always have its home here though and I'll continue to show whatever images i think should be out there for people to see. Next year i want to update from the 'field' so that images are posted minutes or hours after I've taken them. More importantly I KNOW that the blog has increased my output of photography because i now have an outlet for it; the blog acting as a portfolio, a scrapbook or an online publication.

The next few months will see some more images from Norfolk but I'm also going shooting in Northumberland this month, although this will be a purely digital exercise... Well..OK..maybe the odd roll of film....here and there. The landscape will be completely different to that of Norfolk and the weather can be a bit unforgiving at times too but the castles, windswept beaches and rugged landscape will more than make up for it.

Finally any comments that you may have about the images or articles you've seen on the blog are always welcome.