Denbigh Flower show 2011

The great thing about shooting inside a marquee is the diffused light . I have purposely over exposed to burn out the background

Photos are of blooms at this years Denbigh Flower show . I have left them as high  res at they make interesting desktop backgrounds

Fun with Fisheye ....... And home developing

All the above images were taken with my Lomography fisheye camera , developed using a Paterson Super System 4 developing tank , then scanned in as I do not as yet have the time / space or knowledge to make actual prints ...... But that is to come I hope when I get more of the above

It seems sometimes that people are finding hobby photography less accessible as they feel that they need to spend £1000's on equipment to get the right image ( Usually fueled by the countless photo interest magazines that claim the new camera as featured will change everything .)  That is totally untrue and if you are obsessed by equipment maybe Photography should not be your thing. The above images were very inexpensive to obtain and develop and they may not be the best quality but I had a lot of fun making them

My philosophy is as long as you are having fun doing what you are doing then if you have no money to spend or £1000's then it doesn't matter . I personally enjoy the challenge of getting interesting images from old / cheap equipment ( When I get time I hope to experiment with some pinhole cameras )

Ah well. I've left the images as fairly large files . As usual click to enlarge

Baby Wabbit

Baby Rabbit

Baby Rabbit focus

Met this little fluffy friend today hopping down a small back road on the edges of Clocaenog Forrest . To be honest if the breaks on the car weren't up to scratch he may well have become just another rabbit roadkill  statistic 

Both of the bottom images were taken from the same distance but the first image is only a few mil out but what a difference in quality

Developing Black And White Film 2nd attempt

My Nephew

Talacre Beach Lighthouse

Black and White neg scanned as colour neg

Fisheye Lomography image using remote flash for alternative light source

I think I'm getting to like waking up on Sunday mornings and hitting the car boot sales ! Not very cool really but I don't care . Got myself an Epson 3490 scanner for £5 today so now I don't have to go in early to work to scan my negs ( well 35mm negs anyway )


This is the 2nd time I have ever developed my own film . Cue sweating worse than a sauna under 3 layers of duvet because the sun was shining through the blinds when I was trying to transfer the film to the developing tank  ( 2 of them with a winter rating tog )


I would like the images to be sharper and less muddy but this is definitely a steep learning curve and I am very much enjoying it ( Trying to forget about feeding the film onto the reel in the dark, it probably shouldn't take half an hour and quite so much cursing and swearing ), I'll try and cut that down next time ....... Well I suppose the quicker I get the film on the reel the less swearing will be needed


Rather than just develop for developing sake I have tried to capture some certainly not award winning but  I hope semi interesting images

Thumbs up good people of Liverpool

The day after the idiots rioted I went to Liverpool . When I got there although there was an atmosphere it was good to see the sun was shining ( rare this summer ) and people were just going about their business 


Big thumbs up to all the good people of Liverpool

I hope the small group of people who thought there would be no repercussions to their mindless actions have not ruined much of the goodwill and positive marketing that the Capital Of Culture created

Airshow August 6th 2011

Battle of Britain fly by Hurricane and Spitfire recon craft

RAF Falcons throw some shapes exiting the aircraft

 Yet again  the show did not disappoint . Great to see big crowds on the seafront in Rhyl to watch the show 

Borrowed a 300mm lens to get a bit closer to the action . Great to have but not very discrete to get on the train from Prestatyn to Rhyl 

Shame about the summer rain .......................... 

UPDATE : Over 130,000 people attended over the weekend with NOT EVEN ONE public order arrest .

First attempt at developing Black And White photos from my Coronet 1930's film camera

Today I have achieved something that I have wanted to do for such a long time . I have actually taken pictures and developed my own film ..... Quite an achievement for someone who has learned all he knows about this process from the internet !

 Any professionals in film developing really should go look at something else about now because I will probably cause you to be sick in your mouth and be really annoyed at my poor slapdash approach to doing this .


As you can see by my washing line I took the advice of drying the negative in a " dust free area" awesome except my missus was pi ..livid annoyed that she could not put any more washing out

As I do not have  a film scanner the following photos are photos taken with a Canon SLR of the negative then inverted in Photoshop ( Original on left and slightly light adjusted in Photoshop on the right 

White sports socks that were drying on the line came in very handy in keeping a negative white background although you can see the material on a couple of the pics


Never really had a darkroom either so I changed the reel under 2 duvets ( This was the 1st time I have ever used the developing tank so no chemicals have ever been in the unit ) . Any tech buffs out there I'm sorry but I don't know the Tog rating of the duvet sheets but I can tell you that they sufficiently blocked the light in order to transfer the film to the tank . ( I was however slightly hindered by my brother laying on my head and punching me in the kidneys whilst I was trying to get the neg on the film feeder reel )... TOP TIP lock your doors to keep all unwanted family members out of the way until you need their help 



Other than that I loosely followed what I could remember on from the internet . ( My brother at that point did admit to trying to open my camera to have a look at the inside so I really was not holding out for much . Just something resembling an image would have been nice .)  Anyway here are a quick look at the results ( Not scanned photographed and inverted in Photoshop)

One , two , three ... Blink . Not light adjusted just inverted and saved as is

I'm quite happy with the results but will try and be a bit more professional next time........maybe