Jonathan Gazeley

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, I visited the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs with Hannah and my family. As usual, I took at least one camera. I decided to take my trusty DSLR, as well a newly-bought waterproof 35mm camera, as we were intending to go swimming and canoeing.

I shall try to piece my holiday together from the various photos I took on my digital and two films. Obviously the digital photos have the time stamped into the file, but the film photos don’t.

Upon arriving at the villa, we had a walk around. The surroundings were very pleasant – lots of trees, and only a few paces to a small lake where there were ducks, swans, moorhens and other birds too.

This duck was paddling cautiously in the shallow part of the lake with all the confidence and enjoyment of a young child on Blackpool beach in November.

Later on, we had a barbecue. As usual, Dad set fire to everything except the coals (but including the food). However, the smoke billowing from our dinner looked pretty as the sun shone through it.

For those who have never been to Center Parcs, there’s a large boating lake with an artificial beach (yep – some 50 miles from the sea!). Now using my waterproof camera, I tried to finish some black & white film so I could get some colour film loaded before we went canoeing.

Walking back to the villa, my brother Oliver passed us on his bike. This photo was my runner-up for the “sport and action” Photo Challenge.

Now with colour film in the waterproof camera, Hannah and I took to the water in canoes.

The lake was too murky to get any decent shots under the water. The camera was great though – not only was it safe when it inevitably got wet, but it floats so you can simply throw it to somebody else. That’s how Hannah took my photo.

After a while our bums were so wet and and our fingers were so cold and numb that we headed back. A little later, I returned to the shore of the lake with my DSLR and a long lens.

These people look like they are having a lovely, relaxing ride in a pedalo.

And these boys are clearly having fun splashing around in canoes.

Unfortunately, this girl and her brother look utterly miserable. I guess the moral of the story is “love many, trust few: always paddle your own canoe”.

I repeatedly forgot to take the waterproof camera to the swimming pool, where the water is actually clear enough for it to be used underwater. Never mind – there’ll be other occasions.

This week’s Photo Challenge theme is “street scene“.

This isn’t a particularly inspiring shot, but unfortunately the rain started just as I took it. It’ll have to do!

I’ve recently taken an interest in medium format photography. Aside from the “disastrous” first roll, this is the first picture I’m pleased with it.

My Conway camera doesn’t have a tripod socket so this long exposure (probably about 15 seconds) was taken by holding the camera tightly against my balcony railings. Unfortunately I knocked it a bit, as you can see by the kink in the headlights in the distance.

This photo was actually taken on a beautiful, sunny day. I used a red filter to darken the blue sky and bring out the clouds.

Today, Hana and I went to Weston-Super-Mare. I’ve been craving a proper photo session all week, but livened by the thought of the beach, I couldn’t decide which camera to take. So I took three.

The photos on this page are from my (digital) Canon EOS 450D, because I haven’t yet used up and processed the film from the two proper cameras I also took.

The tide was out a long way, so I was able to walk quite far away from the sea wall, enabling me to get this wide panorama. It’s composed of 22 separate shots for a total of 154 megapixels, and 51 minutes of my computer’s time stitching it all together. This thumbnail is too thin to see anything, but you can click for a somewhat larger version.

I’ve been hunting for a decent panoramic scene for a while now, since I snapped up a panoramic frame a few weeks ago and have been wanting to fill it. This picture has an aspect ratio of 21:1, while my frame offers a mere 4:1, so I’ll have to keep hunting for something not quite as wide as an entire seafront.

I reckon the best of my photos today were captured with my Canon AE-1 with infrared film, and my Braun Paxette with regular black & white film. However, just to keep you going for now, here’s a few more taken with the 450D.

Hana’s black & white stripes really make this picture for me.

And here’s me, shooting something with my Paxette.

Yesterday Hana and I drove to Blagdon Lake for a walk and a picnic. It seems the sat nav had a bonkers moment and insisted we should go down this road:

No matter where we went after this, it insisted on trying to send us back, so we turned it off. We didn’t have a map, but eventually we somehow managed to find our way to the lake.

Just in time for the rain to begin.

It was grey and horrible with no real opportunities for photos, so we ate our picnic in the car and went home.

I visited my parents this weekend. Both of my brothers were also at home, because their birthdays are both in May.

We were treated to beautiful, sunny weather on Friday. My brothers played hockey in the garden but I was too lazy to join in, so I broke out my telephoto lens and tried my hand at some “sports” photography in the bright sun.

You might have noticed that “sports” was in inverted commas. This is why.

We stayed in the garden until it was dark. There was a slight coolness in the air, but nothing that wasn’t fixed by a hot chocolate!

Later on, the moon was bright and clear.

For Edmund‘s birthday, I gave him a Canon SLR. “Wow!”, you think, “he’s so generous!”. But you can forget about megapixels, gigadoodles and kilowotsits. In actual fact, it was an EOS 500N – a 1996 35mm SLR. He was pleased with it, so on Saturday we loaded up with film and went for a photowalk around Ensor’s Pool, a local wildlife reserve (err.. abandoned quarry). It’s quite scenic, despite being among a load of industrial units.

And here’s the man of the occasion, playing with his new toy.

I also took a photo that I’m likely to enter into this week’s Photo Challenge. The theme is Time, and I think this photo has a double meaning. It’s a moment frozen in time, but it’s also a dandelion clock.

This week, Hana bought me a Braun Paxette Electromatic II, dating from 1960 or thereabouts. I’ve shot one roll of film in it so far.

Looking at these photos, you’ll see that the quality is bad – both from poor focus, camera shake due to the slow (fixed) shutter speed, and that most of them are exposed and corrected for in post-processing. Many of them also have scratches across them, presumably where something in the camera rubbed on the film as it scrolled past. I like it – it reminds me of a cinefilm movie with scratches and lines.

Anyway, the detail is all on my blog if you’re interested

Overall, I think this camera gives a very authentic vintage feel. Lots of these photos look like they were genuinely taken in the 50s or 60s.

For now, these are my favourite photos from the roll.

To start with, a couple of portraits: first of Hana by her car, and then me by my desk. The picture of Hana has been spoilt down the left hand because the film got jammed inside the camera and I had to open the back to unjam it.

The next two shots were taken in Castle Park on my way to work.

And these two were taken on Queen’s Road, by the Clifton Triangle.

Finally, these two were taken in Brandon Hill park.

Yesterday I shot a panorama of the view from the garden around the Clifton Observatory. It’s quite a pleasant view, but it’s a shame that the suspension bridge and the observatory aren’t the same height.