Travel Photography | Pisa, Italy.

I have decided to carry on with the travel theme on this photo blog and to make it a regular fixture. I have decided to explore my journey to Pisa in Italy and also show photographs from my trip there. As you may have read in my post about my journey to Oslo I have a rule when it comes to travel and that it to take one camera only. This may sound obvious, but, there are times when I cannot decide which camera would suit best to where I am going [even if I’m just going to London].

For this journey I chose my 120 Rolleiflex TLR camera. I took this camera to have the serial number checked and was told that the camera was made in 1935. This makes the Rolleiflex TLR 75 years old at the time of writing this post. This also makes it the oldest functional camera that I have. As it works perfectly and can even be connected to modern day flash systems, making it suitable for studio photography. TLR is short for Twin Lens Reflex, this means that the camera has two lenses instead of just one. Which is what you would find on an SLR, which is short for Single Lens Reflex. On the TLR though, one lens is dedicated to focusing and the other for taking the shot. And this particular TLR camera takes 120 film. 120 film is larger than the standard 35mm [which is used in the majority of film cameras] and it also allows for square photographs. A format which I prefer if I’m to be honest.

As the Rolleiflex is so old, it does not have an internal exposure metre. The exposure metre basically tells the camera how much light to put onto the film for a good exposure. So without this I had to guess my exposure and use my best judgement to decide what aperture and shutter speed I should use and judging from the results below I did an ok job.

My journey to Pisa was my first trip to a foreign country by myself. IT came about out of a desire to see the Leaning Tower and always being afraid that if I waited too long it may not be there one day. I obviously knew that the structural problems that had been plaguing it had been corrected but you can never really account for those unforeseen factors. And the reason I went alone was because nobody else shared my enthusiasm for seeing the Leaning Tower so I decided to go it alone.

So with the same sort of hastiness as the trip to Oslo, I booked it and was gone pretty much the next day. But this time as I was going alone I thought it a good idea to book accommodation and I stayed in a nice hotel that was listed as being roughly half an hour walk from the Tower and also if memory serves me correctly I flew with Easyjet for this flight.

Oh, and a little sidenote. At the airport I got pulled to one side after my bag got x-rayed and asked questions about my camera. I take it as they hardly ever see a 75 year old camera on the machine. And it got checked for bomb making materials. It was quite strange as I had never been pulled to the side before and as this was my first trip abroad on my own I didn’t want anything to go wrong.

My flight was quite a late one so the first day of my two day trip basically consisted of me finding my hotel and figuring out my route for the next day thanks to the map that the nice lady behind hotel check in gave me. I woke up early the next morning checked out and went for the walk that I had planned out for myself. That would take me from the hotel through some side streets across a bridge and to the Leaning Tower.

The results of that walk are below. I have included 14 photographs in this post. Some are colour but as you will see the majority are in black and white. The last photograph shown on this post is the view from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I deliberated whether or not I wanted to pay to go to the top, but I then realised that I would regret it more if I didn’t. You also may notice that the colour photograph came out all red. This is due to a light leak which must have happened whilst the film was in my bag because all other films that I have used with this camera before and after, have all come out fine. The lady who is in one of the photographs was very helpful in giving me directions as I seemed to wander of course a few times during my walk.

I have to say though; my favourite photograph out of the whole bunch surprisingly is the first photograph. This is of the lamp in my hotel room. I like the way I didn’t roll the film far enough and it has overlapped with another photograph. I tend to be a fan of the fruitful mistakes that can occur in photography.

I hope you enjoy the photographs. Feel free to comment and look around the blog as I have got quite a few post covering different facets of photography. Also if you would like to know any information about the photographs in a particular post, say for instance, the camera used, the location, the film that I used and so on. Please check the tags at the bottom of the posts and that will have the relevant information. If there is anything else you would like to know about my photography or questions in general. Feel free to use the details given on the ‘Contact’ tab. This is situated at the top of the page.

General Photography | Lomo Fisheye 2

It was about three years ago, I don’t remember the exact date, but I do remember it was summer. I had gone up to London to meet up with my friend Heather. It was general day up in central London and at one point we had made out way to the Photographers Gallery. This was when it was still in Great Newport Street. The gallery now resides on Ramillies Street, just of Oxford Street. And I went straight to the shop, as I would usually do, but today was different. Today I actually had money. So I went into and there I saw the camera that I had been drooling over slightly just a few weeks prior. This camera [as you would probably have already guessed from the title of this post] was the Lomo Fisheye2 Camera.

The Lomo Fisheye2 camera is a small 35mm compact camera with a 10mm fixed lens attached to the front of it. This gives you a focal length of 170mm on 35mm film. Some of the main differences between the original Lomo Fisheye camera and the Fisheye2 that I purchased is that the one I purchased has a BULB setting for longer exposures. A hotshoe has been placed at the top of the camera. This is useful so that you can attach an external flash unit to the camera and the ability to make multiple exposures. All of these new features I have used during my time owning this camera.

The majority of the photographs that I have included in this post were taken on colour positive film which was then cross processed. Cross processing is a method of getting strange and unusual colours from your films as the results are generally unpredictable and I like it because it keeps with the Lomo way of thinking. To cross process you need a colour positive film [E-6 Process], expose the film as normal and when you go to get it processed ask for it to be put through a normal colour process [this is called a C-41 Process] and it turns your positive film into a negative film and you get pretty astounding results as times. Not alot of places cross process films these days, so it’s best to ask around beforehand. A good place to try is Snappy Snaps as they are the only ones I know of that are local and still do it.

You can fake cross process results with some presets in Adobe Photoshop. But after seeing the results that this digital processing produces I feel I can say that nothing beats the real thing. One of the good things about cross processing is not knowing how the final print will come out.

One of the shots on this post was featured on the Abduzeedo blog. It was a post entitled 60 Interesting Lomo Fisheye Shots. I actually forgot about this till recently. I have included the link below. Also if you click the word Abduzeedo above it will take you to the main site Abduzeedo website. Do please have a look as it’s a great website and they have plenty of tutorials one there for Photoshop and other image editing websites.

http://abduzeedo.com/60-interesting-lomo-fisheye-shots

In today’s post I have included 13 photographs. All of which were taken with the Lomo Fisheye2 camera in various locations, but mainly in London. They were also all cross processed after exposure except for the black and white photograph which was processed in a standard way. Upon having written this blog I have decided that I am going to be taking my Fisheye 2 out again soon. As it has been sitting atop my printer for some time and I may write a second post with more up to date photographs.

The Photographers Gallery
- http://www.photonet.org.uk/

Abduzeedo
- http://abduzeedo.com/

Fisheye2 Microsite
- http://microsites.lomography.com/fisheye/specifications/

Travel Photography | Oslo, Norway.

Quite some time ago I was found myself extremely bored. I mean extremely. With two midweek days off in front of me and nothing to do. I thought of going up to London but I had been doing that too much and started to find London less than interesting. So for a laugh I started looking at cheap flight websites. And as I just got paid this was all feasible but at the time it was just for a laugh.

Then I saw a really cheap flight to Oslo and almost booked it when a good friend Tommi popped up on MSN and our conversation went something like this.

Me: Heya man, what you up to tomorrow?
Tommi: Nothing, why?
Me: How about the day after?
Tommi: Nothing, why?
Me: Come round I’ve got something to show you!
Tommi: Will I need a day bag?
Me: Just come round!

He finally got to my house at about 10:30 that night and I showed him the flights and he was up for it. So we booked them, well nearly, we had to run to his house at about midnight and get his passport. But eventually we booked it. In order to get there on time we had to get the earliest possible train to London and then on to Gatwick. We get there, got on the plane and we were away.

Now, one of the things about this trip, and I know this sounds geeky, was which camera to take. That’s when I decided on my one camera rule. This basically means that for a holiday I would take one camera and possibly a small compact digital as back up. And for this trip I decided to take my first ever camera. My Olympus Trip 35. I borrowed it from my mum when I was Seven and never gave it back. If you are lucky enough to own one of these cameras you will know how amazing it is.

When we landed in Oslo we came across one problem. We had no idea where to stay for the night. For the few hours that we had to look Oslo up the night before, finding a place didn’t seem to come into it. And because we were only there overnight the men at customs looked at us strange as we left the airport, me with just my signature messenger bag and Tommi with no luggage at all.

But due to luck, overhearing and my ability to talk to anyone as if I’d know them for years we managed to find a group of lads who were talking about a Hostel they were about to visit. So I asked as we could follow them as we had nowhere to stay and they were fine with it.

A little side note, the currency in Norway is the Krone [I think I still have some lying around indoors actually]. Tommi and I didn’t know that and went and ordered a load of Euros. It was lucky the women behind the counter was making idle conversation and asked where we were going otherwise we would have been royally screwed. Anyways…

So we got to the hostel and it was brilliant. The guy behind the counter was a legend. As well as that I would not be lying to you if I said that it was actually better than any hotel I‘ve been too. I loved it there. So after that Tommi and I went around Oslo and I slowly started to admire the place. I really liked it, and I intend on going back there again in the near future for more than an overnight stop off because, and I’m not sure why, it seemed to remind me of London.

Below I have placed 11 photographs. All these photographs were taken with the Olympus Trip 35, a 35mm camera that was produced from 1967 to 1984. I am not sure when my particular model was made but I am assuming mid to late seventies. I apologise for the equality of some of the shots, but, the scans that I received form Jessops were of poor quality and to scan them again would take a lot of work as my scanner is currently underneath a few cameras. Also with this camera you have to guess your focus which I seem to have forgotten to do in one of the shots]. The photos span from the airport to the flight and the trip itself. And all the shots were taken with ISO 200 film. The poor scanning at Jessops did prove interesting though, as you can see in the last shot. If you’ve enjoyed this travel blog then it might be good to note that I am going to do more in the future. The next one is more than likely going to be on my trip to Pisa last year.

Portraiture Photography | Andrew James Murrock feat Allisha Sloan

Months ago, before I moved away to Bangor, I had been asking Andrew to be a model for me as I was lacking in male models and thought it would be a laugh. The thing is, we were never free at the same time and then I moved away. And I had forgotten about it.

Then out of the blue a few days ago Andrew says that he’d be up for doing the photos and at first I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and then it came back to me. Andrew also had the idea for some night shots and I really liked the idea as I had only performed a dedicated night time shot once before and felt that it would be get more experience.

So we met yesterday at around 8pm as the sun was due to set at 8:36pm. The only problem was location. I wanted somewhere that would be lit up at night and I did not want to repeat the shots I took last time around Greenhithe. So we decided to go to Rochester in Kent. I had the idea that the castle would be lit up at night.

We got to Rochester pretty early so we popped in to see a friend of ours Allisha who lives in the area. And we invited her along on the shoot. As it turns out the castle is locked of after a certain time and there was no way to get in that didn’t require serious climbing [believe me, I looked]. So we took the portraits in the area around the castle. I really like some of the shots that we achieved although I would like to re-visit the area and take some more.

Andrew had brought along a change of clothing with him for the shoot which also worked very well and also had a group of ladies watching him from a pub as he got changed which was quite funny. Ali ended up in some of the shots because she said “You know what would make these shots better a girl in there with him” to which I responded “Go on then”. And that’s why I have entitled this post ‘Portraiture Photography | Andrew James Murrock feat. Allisha Sloan ‘.

All the photographs were taken on a Canon EOS 50D using the Canon EF 28mm f1.8 lens. As the photographs were going to be handheld shots without flash, I chose the camera with its good low light capability and the lens with its fast aperture of f1.8. Allowing me to get the shots I needed and reducing the amount of blur that would have occurred had I used my Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 lens. Although I must admit some of the shots are still blurred, hence why I want to revisit the area again and re-do the shots.

All the photographs were taken using the light that was available. Except for the fourth photograph where Andrew and Ali are sitting on the bench. There was no available light so Andrew was nice enough to park his car on the curb and leave the headlights on for a few minutes. I have included nine photographs with this post. I have decided that portraitures are going to play a big part of this blog. So if you would like to have your portrait taken by myself, click on the ‘Contact Me’ section at the top of the page for ways to get in touch.