The end of the beginning…

Already laughing at myself for setting this website up like a blog seeing as all previous attempts at me ‘blogging’ have started off enthusiastically then been quickly forgotten about, but here we are.

So we reached the end of the five week course last week, which culminated in us getting set loose in the dark room to make our own prints with the teacher on hand to help if we got really stuck.

I was worried I’d been a bit gung-ho booking in for extra sessions the previous week as I don’t have a huge amount of negatives to print from - but luckily the negatives I have of my cat are abundant so of course I still had some I could use.

During the class I was too in the flow to remember to take photos of each image as we checked them in the wash room, but I did snap a quick shot of the three I liked best at the end.

Didn’t think I’d get to the point where I attempted any dodging/burning, but the centre image of Lydia I ended up burning the top left hand corner for an extra ten seconds of exposure so there was some contrast between the image and white border.

I also used a neg holder where the sides had been roughly cut for some reason, and then left in a bit of the sprockets to see what sort of effect I would get for the top image. As ever, I like anything that looks imperfect or a mistake so this was right up my street.

Now that the course is done I am booked in for an induction to work out how to use the fancy scanner to scan my own negatives, and also hoping to work up the courage to book in for a play about in the photography studio.

I have a grand plan to try some double exposure self portraits on 120 B/W so I can develop the negs myself (and then destroy and dispose of them if they are bloody awful - haha!)

In other news I finally made it along to Tramway today to see the exhibition ‘Fonds’ with photos by Morwenna Kearsley:

(https://www.tramway.org/event/b1e2f38f-38c8-4135-b8ef-b103009c4ee4)

I’d been meaning to go for ages then realised that this is the last weekend it’s on so planned my walk home from my exercise class to include a stop in.

I really liked that you could scan the QR codes to listen to the podcasts with the people talking about the meaning behind each item in the photographs.

My other plan for my walk home involved trying to get some more photos taken with the Rolleicord so I could develop the medium format negatives myself. I had the bright idea of using my digital camera to attempt to get the exposure correct, before then using the film camera seeing as previous attempts with this camera, and the lubitel, had been a complete guess.

In theory I still think think was quite a good idea, however I experience this fun thing where my brain starts freaking out the minute I sense I may be being perceived doing a task - which I am sure is an excellent quality for a photographer to have right?

Anyway, attempting to to hold an umbrella and two cameras whilst taking photos of mundane things like bus stops with people walking past meant I think I probably took about three photos before I called it a day and went to get a coffee instead.

That aside, even if the film photos turn out to be pants, I actually quite like the ones I quickly snapped with the digital camera. Tinkered with photoshop of course as I enjoy a bit of the cross-processed look (as apparently I still think I am on Deviantart circa 2006).

I seem to have quite a few images I’ve taken of phone boxes kicking around - thought I’d see if I can use the rest of the roll in rolleicord just on phone box photos. That way won’t be too much of a tragedy if the negs don’t turn out when I develop them.