Jon Poutney

Jon Poutney, a successful photographer and old college friend of mine, has set up his own photo blog. It's fascinating both to see his work, and read about his inspirations. Well worth a visit in my humble (and very biased) opinion!

The Barbican

I'm afaid to say that there isn't really any purpose to this post other than to show off some new photos I took at The Barbican. Right then, job done!

Fame at last (sort of...)

I've had one of my shots picked out on a recent blog post at Analoguemasters regarding square portraits. It's a photo I took of my granny a few months back when I was up visiting her. I wasn't that pleased with the photo at the time, but it's really grown on me since.  Many thanks to Adam Scott for its inclusion on his site.

The Guardian Camera Club

It must have been all of about two minutes since I last wrote about cameras, so I'm thinking that another post is well overdue. I thought I'd write a little bit about the Guardian Camera Club. On the face of it, the Camera Club is simply another competition to upload a few photos and win a camera in return, in this case a Nikon digital SLR. The Guardian draws in a few more readers and Nikon get some advertising, so far, so average.

In reality however, to everyone's credit they've created something a lot more interesting. Each month they set an assignment (e.g. rivers, cycling, black-and-white avaiable light portraits) and the best photo wins the Nikon. They kick it all off with a tutorial video where a Guardian photographer will give their advice on how to best tackle the assignment together with some handy tips. All entries have to have been taken within the assignment's time period so you're required and encouraged to actually get out there and shoot something rather than simply trawling through your old favourites.

Perhaps more interestingly, they also review people's assignment and portfolio submissions. This is a great idea, and it's interesting to see their views based on their experience of commissioning professional photography. Flickr is great – and the Camera Club uses a Flickr group as well for submissions and discussions – but it can be hard to receive constructive criticism. Much though I love getting praise from strangers (and I really do!), even I occasionally crave a slightly more critical perspective. Of course I say all this, but when/if they review my portfolio submission I reserve the right to change my mind!

It's not without some faults, the mechanics of using Flickr as well as their own Camera Club microsite don't mesh quite as well as they could. In the early days, there also seemed to be a slight misunderstanding of how people use Flickr groups, not helped by come confusing and overcomplicated rules. In fairness though, they've taken on board a lot of criticism and they've been quite open about it being a work in progress. They still get quite a lot of Flickr Flak, but it's definitely improving.

All in all, I've been thoroughly impressed* at the efforts they've made to elevate a simple competition into an engaging, interactive resource. It's genuinely good fun – you'll take some photos and who knows, you may even win a camera...



*Until they give my portfolio a rubbishing, then I shall of course quit the group and flounce off like a spoilt toddler.

Russell Davies: Playful

On the rare occasions when I have a bit of downtime and I'm not trawling Flickr, I often have a quick glance at Russell Davies's blog. I don't always fully understand what he's talking about, but it's always interesting.

I think what intrigues me the most is that he seems to have such an unfettered and childlike, wide-ranging curiosity about things. Like a mad professor he draws together seemingly disparate ideas and then fashions them into some kind of slightly half-baked theory. Great fun, and a good excuse to tax your brain slightly during a dull day at work.

This is a post/transcript of a great talk he did recently for Playful: A day of cross-disciplinary frolicking whatever that may be...

Vivian Maier

The other day on Flickr (where else!), I came across a link to this fascinating blog.

A gentleman in Chicago named John Maloof bought a bulk load of old medium format negatives at a furniture auction which had been taken by a lady named Vivian Maier. After developing a couple, he soon realised he'd found a great archive of street photography from the 1950s-70s. He's been steadily working his way through the 30,000-40,000 negatives and is currently adding selections to the blog. I think I read somewhere that he was looking into creating a book as well at some point.

They cynic in me thinks that the story almost sounds too good/too sad to be true, a bit too Hollywood. But the photos seem genuine enough to my untrained eye! Well worth a look...

The Gentle Amateur

Damn his eyes! Not only has this man picked probably one of the best Flickr usernames ever, but he then has the temerity to take great photos to boot. Finally, in an act of breathtaking chutzpah, he writes a great blog as well.

You can really go off some people...

Sander Meisner

My name is Tom, and I'm a Flickrholic. I revel in the casual praise of strangers and spend far too much time looking at photos. On the plus side, as well as massaging my ego, it does also help to inspire and educate me.

One of the photographers I've come across is a Dutch guy called Sander Meisner. He takes the most amazing shots, most of which seem to have been taken at night. I'm massively jealous, but have also been spurred on to try some night shots myself (not as easy as he makes it look!).

There's a wonderful sense of calm and stillness in his technically brilliant work. Although he shoots these empty urban locations, devoid of human life, they don't seem desolate at all. Instead they seem (to me at least) quite warm and almost friendly, lit up by the traces of streetlighting.

There's a great little article on him here at Analogue Masters, well worth a look.

Belated Blogging

To all the thousands (if not millions) of dedicated followers of this blog, I can only offer my wholehearted apologies for being so tardy with my updates. Over the last month or so I've looked at my own blog from time to time and thought that it hasn't been updated in a while. Bizarrely, it's taken until tonight for it to click that actually I'm the one who should be updating it. I'd like to have some glamorous excuse for being absent since my last post on 18 August, but I'm struggling to remember what I've being doing for the last six weeks.

I'm sure that the secret of good blogging is – as with so many other things in life – to do it little and often. I've never been blessed with a great deal of common sense, so I'm going to do the complete opposite and try and write one stupidly long post to cover the last month and a half of my life. I've gone through my receipts, numerous Flickr uploads and the scribbled notes on my wall calendar and I think I can now put the last few weeks into some semblance of order.

I think it might be easiest to start with some kind of sub-Feltronesque facts and figures (but without any effort made to make pretty graphs):

Holidays taken = 1 (North Cornwall since you ask)

Cameras taken on holiday = 6 (Cosmic Symbol/Konica Auto S1.6/Agfa Optima-Parat/Konica Pop/Ricoh Caplio R6/Nikon Coolpix 5200)

Favourite Holiday Pic (So far, still waiting to get one film processed):



Or maybe this one:



Number of times I've kicked myself for not betting on Speech Debelle to win the Mercury after banging on about how good her album was = 7

Books read = 3 (Moby Dick (not finished)/A Clockwork Orange/Possession)

Films recorded, now languishing on my BT Vision box not yet watched = 5 (Raising Arizona/Pulp Fiction/Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead/London to Brighton/Munich)

Films recorded and watched = 2 (Point Break + District 13)

Cameras bought on eBay = 3 (Konica Auto S1.6/Konica Auto S2/Bronica ETR-Si)

Photographs taken = 62 (Not including 120 photos being processed at the moment/stuck in the post)

Museums and Galleries visited = 2 (V&A and National Portrait Gallery)

Number of visits to the East End = 2

Number of shirts purchased in the East End = 1

Number of stag dos attended = 1

Number of life-threatening hangovers = 1

Number of photos taken of Lizzie = 9

Best photo of Lizzie:



Best photo of Lizzie looking bored of being photographed:



Number of violins rented from the music shop in Putney = 1

Albums bought = 7 (The Very Best "Warm Heart of Africa"/Jamie T "Kings & Queens"/Mos Def "The Ecstatic"/Tru Thoughts "10th Anniverary"/Tru Thoughts "Shapes 09:01"/Quantic and the Combo Barbaro "Tradition in Transition"/Various Artists "Impossible Ark – A Compilation"

Competitions entered = 18

Competitions entered to try and win a new Olympus Pen = 2

That ought to bring things a little bit more up to date, with any luck I'll have more sense than to leave it so long between posts next time.

Analogue Masters

I came across a great blog the other day whilst browsing around in some Flickr forums. It's called Analogue Masters and in its own words it's a "...showcase corner on the web for all things analogue." Given my love of vinyl, old cameras, cardigans and Victorian novels it could almost have been written entirely with an old duffer like me in mind. There is also a corresponding Flickr group of the same name full of great shots (despite all the ones I've dumped in there!).

Further fotomentalism

I was lucky enough to be given some rolls of redscale film from my girlfriend for my birthday. Put simply, it's normal 35mmm film but you shoot through the wrong side of the film. For some clever scientific reason to do with the chemicals in the film's emulsion it gives your photos a strong red or yellow cast depending to some extent on whether they're over or underexposed. I don't really understand it, but what I do know is that it makes a great effect. It's a very forgiving film as even the most boring scenes become dramatic and apocalyptic with burning red skies!



Clouds seem to benefit especially well, or you can use it in a more graphic way like with these blinds below:



It's all good fun, I'm going to try a lot more portraits with the next redscale roll just to see how they come out. I probably ought to try the film in a couple of different cameras as well. There's some great examples on Flickr from a lady in Bristol which better demonstrate it's possibilities: Trapac's Redscale set.

I also took my TLR out for some night-time photography which was pretty successful considering I don't have a flash. Foolishly I decided I couldn't be bothered to carry my tripod which did limit my options a bit as it meant I had to be able to rest the camera on a railing or the ground. It's all a learning curve though I guess, I'm keen to try some more low-light work though as I really like the slighty spooky atmosphere it creates. As usual all the shots are up on my Flickr pages...

Fotomentalist

This photo lark all seems to be getting rapidly out of hand. Last night I spent the best part of six hours scanning and uploading five rolls of film. Fun though it all is, I never envisaged it being so addictive and time consuming!

Since my last post I have accidentally purchased another two cameras, and finally got around to resurrecting my Mum's old Fed-4 rangefinder. All of these new cameras have to then be tested with rolls of film. I also somehow managed to find time to shoot another two rolls of film on my wonderful Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex.


I have managed to reach a point where I almost know what I'm doing with the various cameras, as well as learning their different foibles and characteristics. I'm no expert by any means, but I've managed to educate myself after a fashion. There's still a massive amount of luck involved, and I still only like a tiny percentage of the shots I take, but it's getting better each roll.


All the latest uploads from my mammoth scanning session are on my Flickr site...

Zeiss Ikon TLR

As part of my ongoing quest to buy as many weird and wonderful cameras off ebay as is humanly (and financially) possible, I treated myself to my first medium format twin lens reflex camera. Up to now all my cameras have been digital or 35mm so this was a bit of a leap into the unknown. After bidding on all sorts of TLRs, I finally ended up with a Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex 1C from the late 1950s.

It's an absolute stunner, a truly beautiful piece of workmanship with a bewildering number of knobs and dials. It's a million miles away from the old point-and-click cameras I've bought recently. I reckon it takes me about five minutes to take each photo, from reading the light meter, setting aperture and shutter speed and then trying to take a photo and realising that I've forgotten to wind the film on from the last shot! Theoretically this should mean you end up considering and composing each photo more fully, although it's taking me a while to get used to this way of working.


I've only shot two rolls so far, and I'm still getting to grips with what it can do. From what I've seen so far though I think I'm going to be enjoying this camera for some time to come. There's a selection of shots up on my Flickr pages as usual.

Zider I Up!

...and another one as well. I have high hopes for this design on teepay, I think this may finally be the one that actually sells (please!?).

I lived in Bristol for ten years, first for university and then working there afterwards. I almost consider myself to be an honorary west-country fellow and can do a passable Brizzle accent (when drunk). This is my heartfelt tribute to a wonderful city and it's favourite tipple!

Old School

Fourth time lucky? I've just uploaded another new t-shirt design to teepay. It's my new school tribute to the old school formats, gone but not forgotten.

Black and White

Just scanned in the negatives of my first black and white roll shot on the Agfa Optima-Parat. I've stuck a selection of the photos up on my Flickr site, generally I'm really pleased with the results. I think because of it being black and white I considered the composition a bit more than I would usually, or at least I did until the booze kicked in – well, it was a bank holiday!

Home Baking

My latest t-shirt design has just gone live on Teepay. It's different to my first two designs in that it's been fully drawn by hand. It's been donkey's years since I've tried to draw anything at all so it was nice to have a little go at it again (could still do with some more practice though!).

Teepay Three was not to be

This was due to be my third Teepay t-shirt design but it was rejected. The email you get back is a bit vague so I don't really know why. I don't think it breaches any copyright but I did a quick google search afterwards and there is a band on MySpace called Mild Horses so maybe that was it? Or maybe they just objected to the idea of straw boater wearing horses smoking pipes?


I have just submitted another design instead based on a strange mixture of old anti-piracy warning and muffins, fingers crossed I have better luck with this one...

Teepay Two

Fired up with enthusiasm after my first t-shirt design for teepay.com I've gone ahead with another couple. Here's my second attempt, on a similar theme to the first. The sales for both t-shirts are currently at zero so I've set myself a pretty easy target to beat!

Teepay

A couple of days ago I was sat on the toilet flicking through the new Howies catalogue – after all, where else is a man meant to do his reading? In amongst the clothes and some great photos of China which made me a bit jealous, I saw a simple spread for something called teepay.com. I could try and explain what it is in my normal laborious manner, but instead I'll copy the text of their ad:

How it works
You create your own design
You upload it
We tell everyone about teepay
You tell everyone about your design on teepay
It's our platform
It's your business
When you sell your design, we pay you a royaltee

So right now I'm on stage 4, telling everyone about my design on teepay. Once a design has received a minimum of 50 orders it goes into production and the designer (me!) gets 10% / £2.50 of each shirt sold, hurrah!

I've got another design waiting to be approved and go live and a few more ideas written down on a scrap of paper which may yet see the light of day. I have a feeling I may not be able to retire on the proceeds just yet, but if nothing else it gives me yet another excuse to be designing stuff which can't be bad?

Neon Neon

I've just had a couple of films come back that I shot with my Agfa Optima-Parat over the last few weeks. I've added a smallish selection to my Flickr page. Enjoy.

New Old Camera (Part 3)

Over the weekend I scanned in the negatives of the second and third films I shot using my Agfa Optima-Parat. As it's a half-frame camera, the negatives are half the size of a standard 35mm camera. This means that when the negatives are scanned you get two exposures in one go which can lead to some interesting juxtapositions:


Overall I'm really chuffed with the results, tonally the shots have a real warmth to them and I've been really impressed with how well the camera works in low light. There's a selection of shots on my Flickr site.

New Old Cameras (Part 2)

This camera thing may be turning into a slight addiction. It all started with my buying the Agfa Optima-Parat (from the post below). Then I saw a lovely old Kodak Retinette IB which I bought (ostensibly) for my girlfriend as a gift. Meanwhile I was pootling around on a few camera sites and I heard people raving about the Olympus Trip 35. I found one on eBay and made my first ever successful bid, for a grand total of £1.06. This is all starting to get a bit out of hand now, to date the total is as follows:

2 x Digital Compacts
2 x Automatic 35mm SLRs (about 10 years old)
1 x Agfa Optima-Parat 35mm (Half-Frame)
1 x Kodak Retinette IB 35mm
1 x Olympus Trip 35
1 x Fed 4 35mm ('borrowed' from my Mum many moons ago)
1 x tiny one-bed flat, rapidly filling up with the above
1 x angry girlfriend, weirdly ungrateful for her gift of the Kodak Retinette
About £40 in films, processing and CDs

I've just got my first test film back from the Olympus Trip and it's not too shabby. The shots haven't quite got the same charm as the Agfa, but it's good fun to use and feels great in your hand.






The aforementioned angry girlfriend, loving all the attention.

There's a few more shots up on my Flickr site. I'm still waiting to process two newer Agfa films after a bit of a mix-up at Boots (not sure their system is geared up for old half-frame cameras). It's still really good fun though, maybe just need to curb my spending a bit...

New/Old Camera

Last week I treated myself to a secondhand Agfa Optima-Parat camera from Oxfam and just got my first roll of film back.


In many respects the camera should have been a complete nightmare: I had no idea whether the automatic light meter still worked and focusing is based entirely on distance which is a novelty to me. As it turned out these were precisely the reason it was so much fun to use. Not knowing if it worked meant I wasn't precious about the photos at all, and not having a tape measure (or any clue!) meant I had no idea if a shot would be in focus or not.


I've never been a great photographer, and this camera hasn't changed that by any means, but it has given me more enjoyment than I've had from using a digital camera for a while. The shots have that 60s/70s feel to them, with a certain warmth that is sometimes lacking from more polished digital shots. The only real downside was that it cost me twice as much to have them all processed as it did to buy the camera in the first place!


There's a rough selection of other shots on my Flickr page as well. If you're getting a bit jaded with your sexy, slimline 12 megapixel camera you could do a lot worse than popping down your local charity shop and taking a chance on some old kit instead....

Bath Half Marathon (Part 2)

Just a quick note to thank everyone who sponsored me for my half-marathon attempt. I managed to raise the grand total of £340 (so far!).

Unlike the 140 runners who succumbed to dehydration I managed to complete the 13.1 mile course in 2 hours and 6 minutes without the aid of the St John's ambulance. I had hoped to be a bit faster but I guess when it's your first time any result is a new personal best?! After a day's rest yesterday I can just about walk again which is handy.

Thanks once again for everyone's support, it means a huge amount to me and to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Bath Half Marathon

Despite spending my entire life scrupulously avoiding all forms of exercise, I'm laughably going to attempt the Bath Half Marathon – all 13 excruciating miles of it. I started running last October, winter obviously being the easiest season to start learning how to run. Since then I have dragged and hauled my aching, flabby body through enough muddy trails that I have finally got to the point where I can run a few miles without collapsing.

You may be forgiven for thinking that I probably shouldn't be encouraged in such delusional exploits, and I've certainly questioned my own sanity over the last few months. All I can say is that if I manage to survive this race I sincerely promise to think long and hard before entering another!

I would be extremely grateful if you'd be so kind as to sponsor me and help Macmillan Cancer Support to improve the lives of people affected by cancer. Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Macmillan Cancer Support gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

Many thanks, Tom.

Letterpress

Maybe it's something to do with the new year, but I've been thinking for a while that I need a hobby. I started running a few months back and although that occupies a fair bit of my spare time it doesn't really satisfy any creative urges. As much as I enjoy my day-to-day work, it's just not the same as creating something purely for yourself.

Over Christmas I bought one of these prints for my girlfriend (and sort of for myself!) as a present.

It's by a guy called Douglas Wilson and I got it from the Keep Calm Gallery. It's a beautifully simple and perfectly executed idea, Douglas buys up old maps and then prints over the top with hand letterpress. The nature of the work means that each piece is unique, and as a customer on the internet you never know quite what your print is going to look like. He also does a second variant which again is overprinted onto different maps.


All of this got me thinking that letterpress would be an interesting route to explore. I've always loved the aesthetic of letterpress as well as it's tangible, physical nature. It seems an ideal way to combine my love of typography and print with my (very vague) artistic urges. When you spend all day creating imagery on a computer, it's easy to lose sight of the craft aspect of the work. There are some great pieces of letterpress work out there, including this piece for The Economist by Craig Ward.


To cut a long story short I started looking into the logistics of printing at home (home being a tiny one-bed flat). I've done a bit of woodcarving, etching and screenprinting in the past but letterpress is completely new to me. After a bit of reading around (mainly on the hugely informative Briar Press site) the easiest route for a beginner in the UK seems to be getting hold of an Adana.


Sadly Adanas are no longer in production (although you can get spares and refurbished models from Caslon). This leaves options like eBay, Gumtree, car boot sales and blind luck. I'm a bit impatient though so I've started looking into another approach, DIY letterpress! Given that I have little to no aptitude for DIY (apart from a highly prestigious grade D for Design & Technology A level) this may be a little ambitious. I don't know whether it's just sheer bloody mindedness but the idea of doing your own printing seems so much more appealing when it's coupled with doing in on your own hand-bodged press.
I've looked around and it seems I'm not the only person delusional enough to have thought of this. Here are some examples of presses that other people have made using their own ingenuity.

Winking Cat Press

Winking Cat Press

ReadyMade

Instructables.com

And probably my favourite design, just for its unorthodox approach to the problem:

Grant Gehrke

I think I'm going to have a crack at building one based on the ReadyMade design above. I can get my head around the instructions and it looks like it might be within my limited means. Fingers crossed I'll post up some letterpress work soon(ish)...