Spring Bluebells

       Happy spring everyone! What with the snow storms, freezing temperatures and miserable rain it hasn't felt particularly goods so far. This time last year I was wandering around the woods out the back of Wild Place in Bristol taking photos of some lovely bluebells with my film camera. 

I use a Minolta X-300 with a Tamron 28mm f2.4 and Minolta 50mm f1.7. I love the 50mm for its beautiful depth of field, it really helps the bluebells stand out. 

These are all taken on Fujifilm Superia ISO 100 film bought expired on Ebay. I so far have been lucky enough with expired film that it still always gives me good results even if I have no idea how old it is. 

These photos make me miss the warmth and sun! It is 7 degrees outside and I was still deicing my car last week, I wish spring would hurry up. 

Lothar Meggendorfer's International Circus

       So, it has been a while and I thought I should come back to this blog with something truly beautiful and amazing! I was gifted this pop up book by a family friend who is a self confessed hoarder of amazing things. Since she knows I love the circus this was the perfect present for me. 
       The book she gave me is a reproduction pop up book which was printed in 1979, the original production of this book was printed in 1887! The book is a panoramic scene, the "book" folds out to create a circus tent with a different act in each section. The Frankfurter Journal reviewed the book in 1887 calling it:

"the most spectacular of Meggendorfer's surprises... a book that is certain to astound and delight everyone"

  

In the year we are celebrating 250 years of circus, it is great to go back and look at images of the original circus with it's classic big top. 

The below images show some of the amazing and humorous illustration, with captions from the book. Enjoy! 

"Miss Ella rides her stately horse while the clowns have trouble riding their Donkey."

"Mr Funtolo performs on his horse as he leaps over a flaming gate."

"The Bravo family show their graceful skill riding bareback on two horses"

"The sultans courier straddles his galloping horses"

"Clara Springel leaps and somersaults through a hoop"

 

52 Weeks - Hitting The Ground Running

       So if you have me on Facebook or Instagram you might have noticed a little series of photos going up every week! In January I knew i would be changing jobs into a position less focused on photography, but which would give me better work/life balance and freedom to do more with my spare time. 5 weeks I am really enjoying it and being able to use my evenings and weekends to take photos has been great! 
      I wanted to keep motivated in the new year, I am into week 8 of this challenge and I have tried to do something new and different each week. The theme changes every week but on top of that I want to push myself and try new techniques and ideas. If anyone wants to join the challenge there is a group here to submit your photos and hashtags to share on social media. 

Week 1 - 52 steps from your front door. 3 exposures in and out of focus at the end of my road!

Week 2 - Sun. There was not a lot of sun in January, I shot some film but my local developers was out of action so this was what I had!

Week 3 - Black and white. Shot on my film camera on Ilford HP5, Stokes Croft graffiti makes for great high contrast photos. 

Week 4 - Landscape. My new job in Avonmouth has a nice walk I can go on on my lunch break with views of the boats! 

Week 5 - A childs laughter. This is my cousins little boy Jack who has the greatest big blue eyes and who is very hard to keep still!

Week 6 - Animals. I went to Wild Place in Bristol and caught this cheeky lemur having his lunch. 

Week 7 - The colour red. Valentines week, I was so so busy and ended up having no good ideas, this experiment with ink droplets came out rather well though.

Week 8 - Water and Ice. I froze some flowers and had fun smashing them open and playing around with composition.

Week 9 - Macro. I had a plan for this which looked horrible so in the end I just explored my living room and found this great cracked candle holder to photograph. 

Week 10 - Transport. Rather uninspired by this theme so I went to the village of Lacock and took photos of vintage bikes and lovely street stalls.

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!