Jonathan Gazeley

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!

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.

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.

This week I loaded some Ilford Pan F Plus 50 film into my AE-1. It’s the slowest film I’ve used to date.

I took a few photos around the campus of Bristol University but before I had a chance to shoot many, I lent the camera to my mate who visited for the weekend. He took pictures of steam trains, and we developed the film together. No doubt his pictures will be on his blog; I’ll provide a precise link to the actual post when he does. In the meantime, these are the handful of photos that I took.

The wall of the Chemistry department.

Colston’s Almshouses on St Michael’s Hill.

N^o 71, St Michael’s Hill

Royal Fort Gatehouse

I’ve never really attempted to take photos of graffiti before, this week I saw two pieces in particular that I really like – and a third whose photo also came out OK.

I spotted all three of these in the Clifton area of Bristol. This first one isn’t that interesting, but I like the contrasty black & white look.

Here someone has painted a picture of a mains plug onto a piece of street furniture.

And this last one is a picture of Derren Brown, along with a playing card. His face was about five or six feet tall, and was just one part of a larger piece of art. There were two other faces that I didn’t recognise, but it was obvious that they are also magicians.

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.

Recently I’ve heard quite a lot about “tilt-shift” photography, or “fake miniature” photography. Done with a proper tilt-shift lens, you can mess with the lens to make a real scene look like a model. It’s also possible to fake the effect in post-processing, which is what I’ve been concentrating on since I don’t have a tilt-shift lens.

My friends Paul Seward and Dave Musson have also recently published fake tilt-shift photos, of Royal Fort House and Acocks Green railway station respectively, and last night I also looked through this page of 50 beautiful examples of tilt-shift photography.

Today I set out to take a photo that could be turned into a fake model. It’s not just about editing on a computer – you have to start with a photo taken from a high perspective, as if you were looking down upon a model. So I headed for the Clifton Observatory, which overlooks the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Avon Gorge.

I took this photo looking down the cliff onto the A4 that passes beneath, beside the river.

Despite it being a mediocre photo, I’m quite pleased with the result. I will definitely revisit this concept, and working on a university campus I have access to lots of tall buildings. Watch this space!

This week’s Photo Challenge is architecture. I want my photo to be a little bit different from everyone else’s so I decided to use my fisheye lens. Building almost always have straight edges, so a curved and distorted lens can really make things interesting.

One of the criteria of this Challenge is to take only one photo of each building – so this is what I’ve done. (Although I’ve taken photos of lots of buildings).

Today I cycled to the Avon Valley Railway, somewhere between Bristol and Bath, and accessible via the Bristol-Bath cycle path.

Being a sunny Spring day, the steam trains were running and there were plenty of passengers and spectators. I took a few photos that I’m pleased with – all the better that I was using black & white film for that vintage feel.

It was also the first time that I’ve properly used my new 135mm prime lens, and it’s fantastic.

Sort of train related, here’s the Staple Hill tunnel – free of trains and now part of the cycle path.

And finally, not at all train-related, but from the same roll of film, a deliberately out-of-focus shot of some street lights…

… and a sizzling barbecue.