Jonathan Gazeley

Hana’s dad picked me up a folding Voigtländer Bessa camera at a car boot sale in Exeter. To my surprise, it had some film in it – although unfortunately I didn’t find out until I’d opened the back.

I developed the film in my darkroom, and found that, as expected, half the film was totally black but the rest had some faint images. One frame had some rust on it, as it had been in the camera for so long.

In the end, only three frames out of the eight produced any usable results once scanned and edited, so here they are.

The camera is rather older than the film, as the Bessa was first manufactured in 1929. The film used here was Ilford FP4 (note: not the newer FP4 Plus) which was produced from 1968 to 1990.

If you recognise the location in the first photo, or recognise the man in the second and third photos, please get in touch. I’d love to trace the person who forgot to take out their film, all those years ago Chances are the man in the photos is still alive, if he was in his 30s back in the 1970s.

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.

Recently on my blog I posted about using flash bulbs with an old box camera. The photos in this post are taken with said box camera, and the indoor ones are using flash bulbs. This is my first attempt at using flash bulbs, and indeed at any flash photography on film.

I had a bit of trouble getting it to fire reliably at first^[1], so the first photo is exposed twice, once with flash and once without. Most things in the non-flash exposure are invisible, except for the lamp.

Once at my parents’ house in Nuneaton, Dad demonstrated that while he may be retired now, his knees are still good enough to kneel by the fireplace.

Clearly photos by the fireplace did not offer a sufficient thrill to entice my brothers home, so I went to pick up Edmund from Nuneaton railway station a little later on. Of course,any excuse for some photos…

Here I knelt as close to the edge of the platform as I dared while a train passed. You can see the concrete kerb-stone at the bottom of the picture. The driver gestured that I should get back a bit, but I wasn’t likely to mess up a photo with the price of film these days!

On Sunday, we ate at the Courtyard. Edmund’s girlfriend Lara came along too and I finally managed to get everyone to pose together for this photo. Nobody was quite ready for the snap, but having spent about quarter of an hour setting the camera and flash up, I wasn’t likely to try again! I think the not-quite-posed nature of the picture adds a lot to it

After the meal, Oliver took custody of the camera and after some tuition, managed to make it work.

After the meal on Sunday, Hana and I returned home to Bristol. I processed the film, dried it, scanned it, and uploaded it here – long before my parents had even looked at the photos on their digital camera. They’re probably still looking for the USB thing-a-ma-jig that plugs into the digital-ma-bob right now!

Who says film is impractical?

[1] I disassembled the flashgun and cleaned the internal copper contact strips with cotton buds and spirit vinegar. I also found out that you have to scrape the oxide off the terminals of each flash bulb before use.

Sprocket holes in 35mm film are usually outside the boundary of the picture. But the other day, Paul showed me some of his pictures taken on an Ilford Sporti 4 which include the holes in the picture and it got me thinking*. I decided to run some 35mm film through my LOMO Lubitel and see what happened.

*About plagiarism of his work.

The Lubitel usually takes 120 roll film and produces images 6 ×6cm in size. With 35mm film, you get an image that’s 6cm tall, 3.5cm wide and has sprocket holes running vertically.

So here goes, with a customary view out of my balcony to get us started.

Some double yellow lines in the road. I hadn’t realised how shallow the depth of field was (or how inaccurate the focussing).

A nearby electricity substation. Ever tried shooting landscape with a TLR, looking sideways into the upside-down viewfinder?

And finally, at the end of the film, a snap of Hana. Shame it got cut off, because she looks great in this picture.

I’m pretty sure I need to calibrate the focussing in this camera. I took care to ensure that the image in the viewfinder was always in sharp focus, so I think the gearing between the viewing and taking lenses has fallen out of sync.

In several of these photos you can also see a white circle. This is the red window for watching the film numbers advance on paper-backed roll film. Of course, 35mm doesn’t haven’t a paper backing so any light leaks fog the film. The Lubitel has a little metal shutter to cover the window but clearly it’s not 100% effective.

These are the first photos I’ve taken with my Lomo Lubitel 166. It’s my first TLR, and my first camera which takes square photos. You might not think it would make much difference, but I like the square format because it saves having to decide whether to go landscape or portrait.

The Lubitel has geared lenses to keep them both in focus. The viewing lens shows the true focus and has a ground glass centre to make it easier to adjust the focus correctly. However I think my two lenses have slipped and come out of alignment, because all of these photos are a little out of focus. This will be something to fix in due course

Here’s my mother, sitting in the garden. I like how the picture could almost be of a Victorian lady; somehow timeless.

This is St Paul’s Church, Nuneaton, and my family standing outside it.

And finally, a shot of Barton Fields, Bristol.

I like this camera!

Hana’s Dad recently lent me a 1934 Kodak Six-20 Brownie. I’ve just run my first roll of film through it, and here are the best from the roll.

Unfortunately the scans haven’t come out well – I’m still getting to grips with my new medium-format transparency scanner – an Epson Perfection V500 and it seems to struggle with dynamic range. It doesn’t help that the negatives were slightly over-exposed – probably my fault for using ISO400 film in a camera from the 1930s.

On the other hand, it gives them a rather faded, vintage look and feel.

This week’s Photo Challenge theme is the past.

Take a photo that has a connection with the past. It could be something that reawakens a memory for you, or invites you to reminisce. It could be an old item, or an ancient place. Perhaps a person.

I decided to recreate a self-portrait of my Grandad that he took while on active service in Korea in 1955. We’ve been told we look quite alike, and I tried to emphasise this with my choice of location and clothes.

So this is my way of keeping the past alive.

Incidentally, if you are interested in my Grandad’s unusual colour photos of post-war Korea, you can see them all on Memories of Korea.

Taken for the “Whose hand?” Photo Challenge.

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.

Some archaeology students from Bristol University were digging up parts of Royal Fort Garden for a project this week. I snapped this photo of them sweating under the midday sun, with the intention of using it for this week’s Photo Challenge – documentary journalism.