Bristol on Film

      I have a stack of out of date film under my bed which included an Ilford HP5 ASA 400. I haven't shot black and white for many years and I wanted to try this film out with my Minolta X-300 and 50mm lens. It was nice to wander round a few areas of Bristol and get some grainy, contrasty images! 

Stokes Croft - Famous for it's street art, Stokes Croft has graffiti around every corner which changes on a regular basis!

The Bear Pit - The portal between Stokes Croft and the main shopping centres, this area has more street art, a fair few homeless often playing music in the tunnels and skaters making the most of the open space. I especially like the Donne Darko like messages sprayed on the walls and floor. 

Horfield - Perhaps not an "exciting" place but these few are on the 2nd January when the buses were running bank holiday schedule so I walked halfway to save sitting in the freezing cold! A very crisp icy morning!

Park Street/Bristol Museum/College Green - Park street area has such a huge amount to offer. The Museum is free to enter with a huge amount to see. Park street has many independent shops, restaurants and cafes with college green at the bottom where you can sit on a bench and watch the world go by, or pretend you are in Skins (if anyone reading remembers back that far!). 

The final frame - this is just a happy accident from the end of the film. One of the things I love about film is when things like this happen and you get an interesting graphic image which you would never get digitally. Let me know what you guys think!

Arnos Vale on Film

      A couple of weeks ago I had a day off with not a lot to do so I decided to take a couple of film cameras over to Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol to take some photos. This cemetery has a lot of historical graves, as well as more recent ones. It is a very interesting place to walk around and is free to enter, though it is a charity so it is good to make a donation if you can.

      All of these photos were taken on a Minolta X-300 with a 50mm f1.8 lens. I like using this camera as it is very easy to use, it auto exposes based on your Aperture setting you just have to check the light meter which flashes if you are letting too much light in for the cameras capabilities. 

      It was a nice sunny day which is good for when you walk up the hill into the woods and get all the sunlight through the leaves.

      When you get nearer the top of the hill there is an interesting sculpture, and even further up there is a building with some of Bristol's famed street art which has creeped into the boundaries of the cemetery! 

      I would definitely go for a wander round here again, they also run a lot of different events including the outdoor cinema which I hope to go to for halloween! Click here to see what is on right now :)

hand colouring

After a talk with my tutor decided to add some colour to the book made out of photo prints. Took a good few hours on photoshop but I think it definitely adds something to it :)

Click to see it bigger!

Death of the Moa

Spent all day yesterday creating one of my final books. This one is a set of photographic prints which fold out in a strip. I may shrink these down and print them into smaller pocket size books as the prints I did ended up quite large! 

Until the arrival of settlers, the Moa only had one predator, the Haasts Eagle. These eagles were feared by humans and are believed to be the largest eagles ever in existence. When the Maori arrived in New Zealand they hunted the Moa to extinction, this meant the eagles had lost their prey and their extinction followed soon after.

moa's in the darkroom!

Doing a bit of experimentation for my next book by drawing onto tracing paper and overlaying it with a photo in the darkroom! Tried this in college with text, I like the way the line comes out in white! Any opinions on which look better, black or white line, would be greatly appreciated!! 

darkroom

I guess this goes away from illustration a little bit but ah well! I did a darkroom workshop this week which means I can finally get into the darkroom to do exciting things with prints! For this workshop I just developed some photos of Exeter as I have been working at their Animation festival this week. 

 Test strips!