Three Twits and a fountain..

 I once wrote on here a few years ago that I had a dream to buy a 6/17 panoramic camera like the one Wim Wenders uses. Eventually I found what I was looking for and quickly set about building a collection of panoramic images. The camera I had purchased, although second hand and more than thirty years old I might add, was in an unopened box and in pristine condition.  You may also remember that on its second outing the camera 'blew over'  thanks to  'Calumets own' light and crappy  tripod and strong desert winds (Twit 1).

 Twit 1

A few months later I managed to allow the camera to fall and wedge in between some large jagged rocks (Twit 2). This time the body of the camera was actually bent. So much so that the camera back would no longer close. But with the help of a hammer and a few curse words I managed to get things as square as they could be.

Twit 2

It was sometime before I ventured out with the Pano again, but my love for this taped up monster soon gave way and I found myself in the small town of Amble along the North West coast of the UK. Of course it wasn't long before the third installment. After making a nice long image of a bit of wall and a pole with a green light on the top, I was five feet from the car when the camera, which wasn't attached to the tripod properly, fell to the floor with the words 'ohh you big bastard camera..'  This was by far the worst droppage.  Viewfinder first, smashed, body of camera, cracked. Bellows, ripped. And worst of all, the manual winder had snapped clean off. The camera was now well and truly knackered..

Twit 3

So the camera was confined to a draw. Out of sight, dead, and of no use to anyone. 

A few years went by and I had all but forgotten about the panoramic format. It wasn't until my annual 5/4 camera clean up that my thoughts turned to the 6/17 beast. After all I had just given my large format camera a full service and I had all my tools out. And so for the next four days I got busy with the camera. A few bits of light engineering, some screws, another go with a hammer, a bit of black paint, and wallah, I am back in the panoramic business...

 

100,000

 

A nice image with no purpose.

After all my years of little bloggings I was delighted to see that my page views quota has exceeded 100,000. Of course some blogger pros have that amount in followers, whereas I on the other hand have a small loyal following, enough to keep me writing little ditties for a wee while longer.
My only wish is that I was paid a pound every time I had a hit..

Rob Stephenson

(c) Rob Stephenson

Some wonderful work from Rob Stephenson here (best I have seen in an age).  His series, 'There Swept Out of the Sea a Song' is particularly fine. Nice informative blog too..

Blah, Blah, Blah, Photography?

I thought that by spending most of the day looking through lots of photography on-line I would become wonderfully inspired for my upcoming trip State side next month. But sadly the opposite seems to have happened after trolling through countless images of desaturated images reworked within an inch of their life somewhere between a cartoon and the page of a colouring book. I hate this kind of photography which is neither here or there. In fact I don't even know what to call it and only hope the followers of the dark cloth understand what I mean. And as for HDR photography (High Dynamic Range, or as I like to call it, Highly Dynamic Risotto-Of-Crap), well thats even worse and you might as well flip the image to black and white and get your felt tips out.
I have always liked the purer side of photography and recording something that was actually there as apposed to adding something that wasn't. Of course I am not saying I don't make any adjustments, I just like a spade to be a spade, not a cartoon spade.

A blue thingy.

 A Blue boat thingy. Dungeness. date forgotten.

I remember an interview with Joel Meyerowitz when he talked about an image of  blue boat from his wonderful Cape Light series published way back in 1979. What I liked about the image, and indeed much of Meyerowitz's landscape work, is that he claimed this particular image was not about a boat, or an object, it was about the colour of the boat, a boat that happened to be blue. I always liked this approach and have always found myself drawn to certain colours in a certain way. I do still wonder what would of happened if the boat was red, or yellow, or pink perhaps. Would the image still exist? all be it differently.
Its an interesting topic, photographing subjects solely because of a certain colour, but I guess it all depends on the colour. . (I have given myself a headache just thinking about it).

I have searched for the image in question using my www skills, but alas nothing and my copy of Cape Light is packed away, unless I sold it. So here is my version, the closet thing I could find, a blue boat (or is it a canoe). And what a lovely blue it is. Just don't mention the red and white caravan in the background..

Portfolio?

I have gotten a little lazy over the past twelve months choosing to slip an ipad into my bag rather than a print portfolio. The ipads compactness and way of making everything look better seems to have become the norm with a lot of photographers. But I like prints, and I sell prints, so prints it should be. Now my print book is a monster; 100 images and as heavy as you like. It breaks all the rules on showing work, which I love, and besides it looks fabulous.
There is, of course, reason in my madness. The foilo in question contains an edit of five projects with around 20 images in each, so you see its not actually that much. One should also consider that a project could be as much as 50 (or more if its a book project or something) so this is very much an edited down version.
Maybe I am trying to justify my own work and poor editing skills. Or maybe I should just go with my other portfolio; 30 images, but 3 feet across...

Bring on the big time...

Altered Landscape

Its been many moons since I last purchased a photography book, I am not sure why, but it may have something to do with bombardment of self published books, most of which should be immediately pulped. A little harsh may be, but theres a lot of dull, re-worked images out there..
Anyhow, I came across this little number (above) and its a swell fill with lots of striking intelligent landscape from a large body of good photographers. And about time too..