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      I have a stack of out of date film under my bed which included an Ilford HP5 ASA 400.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!

Night Crawling in Bristol

      A few weeks ago I took an online course in Low Light photography on Lynda.com. I had been meaning to go out in the dark for some time but I am not really one for wandering around alone at night especially hauling a rather large expensive camera! Last night I went to visit a friend who lives down in Stokes Croft in Bristol. On my way out I took some photos of the plants and shrubbery around my house. 
       These first images were super super dark and blurry, I had to push my ISO right up to 6400 to get anything while my camera was handheld. Also the white balance on Auto was terrible. In hindsight I should have had a fiddle with this when taking the images but was kind of embarrassed skulking around our estate in the dark so I didn't take many pictures. The joys of working in RAW meant I could push the white balance completely in another direction without damaging the image too much and it was crazy what came out of some very super orange images. 

       Here are a couple of the final images, they were quite soft in the end and pretty grainy I think next time I will use a tripod and longer exposure. 

       I then drove over to my friends house, this area of Bristol is known for graffiti and there is some pretty amazing artwork around. I didn't venture far but I got a few interesting images. These mostly just needed brightening up, I had less issues with the white balance so I just had to push the contrast a bit to bring out the details in the graffiti. 

       I would like to do this more but I think I might get a friend to come with so I don't feel so worried about wandering about in the dark! There are some pretty interesting streets in Bristol which would make for some great photos.