Jonathan Gazeley

From the title, you were probably expecting some shots of nature.

But no – these photos are taken from a couple of walks around Bristol docks with Paul and Ian. This week has been the first sunny week since last year and it was really good weather for taking photos on film.

As this film was a colour one (Fuji Superia 200) I had it done at Patchway ASDA. The usual photo guy wasn’t there, and instead it was a young woman who looked young enough such that she’d never seen film before. The photos came out OK, but she stuffed the negatives into a paper envelope where unfortunately they became scratched and dusty on the fibres. I have now nicknamed her the lint bint.

Anyway, on with the photos. This shot is a view over the Christmas Steps.

This is a view of the newly refurbished Colston Hall.

This is number six, of which street I cannot remember.

The next two photos are chains ‘n’ cranes by the dockside.

And these are some new apartments, overlooking the docks.

Finally, as we trudged wearily back to the office, I spotted this handrail on the steps behind the cathedral.

This week’s Photo Challenge theme was Plug & Play.

This is a fairly uninspired shot, but I wanted to test out my new camera – a Canon 450D. I tried to aim for a slightly unusual subject, as part of the Challenge this week is to avoid lots of similar entries by doing something unpredictable.

Maybe this is quite predictable; I don’t know. I just felt sorry for my speakers which haven’t been used since my amp died a death last month

This week I shot another roll of black & white film in my SLR. Last night I developed it, and tonight I’ve scanned and uploaded the highlights for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately I think I overdeveloped the film a little, so some of the brighter areas are burnt out. Never mind.

First of all, here are a couple of shots taken in Royal Fort Garden. I like the photo of the bench for its woody quality.

And I like this shot of the fence because of the bokeh effect in the background. However, the lighter parts of the fence wire really show that the highlights were overdone in developing.

A day or two later, I went for a walk with Paul in Brandon Hill park. We both took photos of some ducks on a pond. I commented “look at the beautiful shade of green on that duck’s head!” and proceeded to take several photos. Then I realised I only had black & white film. Never mind – Paul’s best duck photo was much better than mine anyway!

However, while we were there, I did take this picture of the sun glinting through the trees. I like the contrast between the skeletal branches, and the bushy ones.

They say that black & white photos lend themselves to showing textures in detail. I guess it’s because there’s no colour to distract the viewer. But I think this sign, engraved into the pavement and lit by the low sun is a perfect example of strong texture. It makes me want to reach out and touch my screen to see if it’s real. I imagine it might be even more effective when printed.

Well, on top of the roof of the Bristol University physics department, which is a pretty tall building on top of a pretty tall hill.

This afternoon I managed to get access to go up there with some colleagues. Unfortunately I’d just finished a roll of film in my SLR, but I managed to borrow a Fuji S6500fd.

The first shot is looking West over the Clifton area. Unfortunately the sun was pretty low in the sky.

This shot is looking East. The tower blocks going across the middle of the photo are in Lawrence Hill, and if you click for the bigger version and look at the pale building on the horizon towards the left, that’s Cossham Hospital in Kingswood.

A little closer to home – this image shows the department of chemistry in the foreground. You can see the the industrial museum about halfway up, by the permanently moored ship on the river.

This morning was a very foggy one across Bristol, so I decided to take my camera to work and find something for this week’s Photo Challenge – framing your photos with a box. So you’ll understand why these photos are all taken through a cardboard box!

Fog is my favourite weather – mainly because of its feel and smell. It is, however, hard to capture on camera. What looks mysterious and dreamy to the eye looks like a dirty camera lens when you see the photos later on. But here’s what I achieved during my stopoff at Castle Park.

The first one is a view of Bristol Bridge.

Here’s St Peter’s church, disappearing into the mist. The greyish cast over the photo, combined with the rough frame and old architecture makes me think this photo might have been taken a hundred years ago.

This is another view down the river, this time facing in the direction away from Bristol Bridge. It was the buoys that caught my attention.

I can’t take all the credit for this composition. I was trying to compose a shot of the cranes and some birds flew into the frame, so I pressed the shutter as quickly as I could.

This week’s Photo Challenge was Fire. This is my effort.

For those who are wondering, no, this wasn’t a real fire. It’s nothing more luxurious than a Sainsbury’s carrier bag held over the flash with a hair band.

This glowing standby light reminds me that the appliances in my flat are never asleep – even when I am.

Last weekend I found my old microscope, that I was given as a child. Even by the standards of a school science lab, it’s pretty poor – but as I child it made me feel like I was a real scientist.

Today I decided to see if I could take pictures with it using my camera. I set up the microscope without its eyepiece, and added a macro extension lens to my Fuji S9600. It took quite a while to get it set up properly – the hardest part was aligning the microscope with the camera on its tripod, but I eventually managed to stack up some DVDs.

Then was the fiddly issue of focussing it. I had to focus the microscope in the usual way, by turning the knob. Unfortunately, that made the whole barrel of the microscope move up and down – changing the distance away from the camera lens. After setting up the microscope, it was a case of moving the camera back and forth by tiny amounts, and lastly changing the focus on the camera. Of course, changing the focus on the camera moves the lens and not the body, and just touching the camera moved it around. It took ages to get it right.

I backlit the subjects of my photos using a halogen desk lamp and a small mirror that’s built into the microscope. Apologies for the quality of this image – it was taken on a phone.

Then it was just a case of running round the flat like a 6-year-old, looking for things to put on a slide. First I had a look at a daffodil petal. The microscope has three objective lenses, 150x, 300x and 600x respectively. Of course the camera’s macro lens also adds an additional 1.5x or so. I started with 150x…

…and then increased to 600x…

Bored of my botanical subject, I plucked a hair from my beard. Here it is at 300x…

…and at 600x…

And finally, here’s the end of the hair that was once attached in my follicle. This one only looks more zoomed in than the previous ones because I cropped it quite closely on the computer.

The bluish area in the picture seems to be the camera’s way of telling me it didn’t appreciate having a bright light shone right up its barrel, so I decided to call it a day before I broke something. I might revisit this idea with my 35mm SLR (which has better quality optics, and no CCD to accidentally ruin).

This a candidate shot for this week’s Photo Challenge theme – glass. I’m not sure if I like it that much, but time is ticking away so it might have to do.

A while back I was approached by another Flickr user, who asked if he could use one my photos alongside one of his poems.

Of course I said yes, and since then I completely forgot about it – until today.

You can read the poem, Loss, on his blog.