Traipsing up Bamford Edge in the dark

It seemed like a good idea at the time…… I had been to “The Edge” before but fog had prevented any chance of a shot in to the valley below in which nestled Ladybower reservoir. There were also a lot of people around too so this time I intended to get to the prime viewing spot in time for the sun to peak over the horizon.

So traipsing up the hill in the pitch black I was confident I would bag the prime spot. No such luck! Seems like plenty of other people had the same idea. Even so I set up on a rocky outcrop and waited - it was bloody cold - but eventually I managed to fire off a couple of dozen shots at different focal lengths and aspects. Even looking at the playback on the camera screen though I could tell they weren’t going to be very inspiring

Ladybower reservoir from Bamford Edge

It’s a fantastic view from up there but somehow I just couldn’t translate that into an interesting photo. Maybe I just lack the necessary imagination. Anyway as I trudged away, consoling myself with thoughts of a bacon butty at the Grindleford Station Cafe I looked back and spotted a couple of lads arsing about at the edge of another outcrop. I took a couple of quick snaps of one of them doing a handstand on a rock overhanging the cliff whilst his mate took photos. A much more interesting image - if a little idiotic. Still, it made the morning worthwhile so what do I care.

Have you discovered portable photo printers yet?

It’s a throwback to the days when you used to take rude Polaroid pictures (or was that just me….?).

The Fujifilm Instax SP-3 portable printer. It prints acceptable quality square images direct from your phone or your camera. The prints are about 7cm x 7cm and they are supplied in a cartridge which just slots into the printer.

We were recently in Bude with the family (pre-lockdown) and giving the kids (and the adults) something physical to take home with them was a big hit. Lot’s of fun to see who could pull the funniest face (you had to be there). TOP TIP - be selective on the number you print or it can get fairly expensive - worth it though

Taking photos in the "Blue Hour"

It’s all about the Golden Hour! How many times have you heard that? Those times of the day as the sun is rising or setting and golden light floods a subject from a low angle, flattering anything you care to point the camera at. Well I had my eyes opened recently by discovering images by people like kudo_bass and twocrowspictures (check them out on Instagram). They love to take images in the “Blue Hour” defined as that period immediately before sunrise or immediately after sunset when the light has a distinctive blue tinge. Lighting tends to be provided by artificial sources such as street lamps or car headlights. Exposures tend to be long and a tripod is essential. If, like me, you choose the pre-dawn period to wander around the streets this can lead to some curious stares from other early risers - especially if they only notice you lurking at the last second. It’s usually dog walkers, and joggers who provide the encounters but there have been some instances where people have peered from their windows only to see me pointing my camera at their house! I usually leg it when that happens before they call the police. I enjoy taking these blue hour images for a few reasons really. Firstly and most importantly these are the type of images that I enjoy looking at when i’m scrolling through other peoples photos and I also love the technical challenge of the low light levels. Having said that, perhaps the most important reason is that this is the time of day when I can actually get out and capture some images before the rest of the family stirs and work starts. Plus, it is time limited, in that the blue hour in fact only really lasts 30 or 40. minutes! Because of that I have found myself going out earlier and earlier and then really it’s more “night photography”. Check out my recent shots around Birmingham (in my Blue Hour Gallery) where I was wandering around the canals at 5am! It makes my afternoon naps even more essential……….

Why not mix Colour images with B&W in a gallery?

The short answer is - it doesn’t look right to me - which frankly is enough of a reason! But why doesn’t it look right?

The problem is that color and black-and-white images appear to be from different times or even different worlds and sometimes both. They’re so different from one another that presenting them together “jars” and breaks the continuity of the presentation. The viewer ends up paying more attention to the way the images are presented and attention is deflected away from their content.

In this shot the cool guy is clearly the subject of the image. The bike is incidental.

When I see a monochrome image I think about it in a different way. It’s less about the “how” (it’s easy now to create colour and/or mono from the same image) and more about the “why”. What is the image maker trying to convey by choosing to display an image in monochrome. What began as a necessity, then accepted as normal has now become a matter of choice. That choice means something, creatively, and in my view should be regarded separately and differently.

In this edit the bike detracts from the focus on the subject with it’s attention grabbing colour

If that’s true of course then one could argue that an imagemaker should already know whether an image will be colour or mono before the image is captured. I confess that there are however plenty of times when I look at a photo in the editing suite and try it in both colour and mono before deciding! Hey - nobody said I was perfect………

What other kit is in my bag?

It’s a real mystery and it’s bugging the hell out of me! Last year, when I was having delusions of grandeur and thought I could recapture past glories in the veteran bike racing scene, I put away all my kit for a while. Recently when I came to blow the dust off I could only find the camera body and the kit lens. My other two lenses and filters, and a myriad of other bits and pieces had disappeared. Despite tearing the house apart I haven’t found them to this day! We are moving in a couple of weeks and I still harbour the hope that somehow they will magically appear during the move. Whilst clinging on to this forlorn hope I have resisted re-purchasing anything but the essentials again - spare batteries and SD cards, chargers, UV filter, and remote shutter release. That leaves me with just the 18-55mm kit lens - which is surprisingly good. I miss my super fast 56mm and 23mm prime lenses but since I am doing much more landscape stuff lately I tend to always be in the F5.6 to F11 range anyway for the wider depth of field. I also managed to find my tripod which I am using more and more. In my pre-covid life I would take advantage of the fact that I spent most days in the London office to wander the streets and snap a few images. Now I’m working from home I tend to go out pre-dawn and take long exposure images locally or travel to the nearest countryside locations where a steady base is essential for sharpness. It also tends to slow me down and enable me to think more about composition and the technical side of image making. I have to confess I am not so talented in the creativity department but spend hours at least trying to master the theory - it’s my engineering background I think!

I have also invested in a photo printer - the Epson XP-8600 - which is capable of fantastic print quality. Sadly I seem incapable so far of actually producing the promised quality. Once again I am delving into the technical aspects of screen calibration and printer profiling. I have already concluded that editing on a laptop and then expecting to be able to match what you see on the screen with what is actually printed on the page is a fruitless task. The easiest solution is to edit on a properly calibrated and profile matched screen like those from EIZO - but starting at around £600 for a basic model it’s a hefty Christmas present. I’ll persevere for a while to get the best out of what I’ve got I think…….

My thoughts about photographic kit

I’ve always been interested in photography and I remember my first serious SLR - a Russian made Zenit 35mm camera. I can’t for the life of me remember what I used to photograph and no images have survived to this day unfortunately -but I do remember having fun. Then along came the point-and-shoot compact cameras with digital screens, only in turn to be replaced by mobile phones. It was sometime in 2016 when my interest re-surfaced and after careful consideration I invested in my first “proper” DSLR - the Nikon D5300 and kit lens. Unusually for me I had resisted going for the top of the range models, sensibly realising that it was more about the user than the kit! I had learned that lesson, strangely, from years of playing golf poorly and always investing in new clubs rather than lessons from a pro!

I’m not sure what finally attracted me to the Fuji brand. In the first instance the type of photography I started to get interested in was broadly “street” - this required something small, simple and unobtrusive - I traded in all my Nikon gear and bought a Fuji X100T which I absolutely loved. However as my interests grew into other areas such as landscapes I realised that a fixed lens systems was too restrictive so switched again to the Fuji XT2 which was still small(ish) and unobtrusive but benefited from interchangeable lens capability. This is where we come full circle, because it strongly resembles the rangefinder design of my beloved Zenit SLR. It’s the perfect camera for me and I love it. The only thing that may tempt me to change again would be for the same camera with much more resolution (43MP versus 24MP), not because I think it will necessarily take better photos, but as an amateur I tend to be a bit lazy about composition so often require images to be cropped. More mega-pixels are better in order to compensate - although I guess I could always save my money and stop being so lazy. Maybe I haven’t learnt my lesson after all……..

Zenit-e SLR

Fuji XT-2