An occasional Photo Blog
Wife and I had been meaning to visit Bellinzona for quite some time, yesterday was the big day. With only three hours in the city we just had time for a pizza, a visit to the big castle (Castelgrande) and of course a coffee. Here are a few images.
So far I’ve been unable to confirm it on the internet, but I heard somewhere that onions shouldn’t see August rain. Being August 2nd. and sunny, a day in the garden was on the agenda and while I was making lots of noise mowing the grass (lawn would be an overstatement) and playing with the trimmer, wife was busily harvesting our onion crop and tackling a very healthy weed plantation. Before reclining in a deckchair with a cool beer I dutifully tied them in bunches and hung them up to dry.
As mentioned in ‘Summer-fourteen 7’, I’ve been experimenting with the myriad of settings on the K30. Yesterday’s onion photos and the couple of images taken this morning were captured using the ‘User’ settings which I’ve set up for B&W use. Increased contrast, yellow filter and one or two other goodies are now available at the turn of a dial, rendering the term ‘straight out of the camera’ quite meaningless. I’m not sure the digital yellow filter is as impressive as the glass filter used with film was all those years ago, but perhaps I need to experiment more and keep a look out for dramatic, characterful skies.
It’s probably fair to say that no one jumps for joy when a block of flats is built just across the road. The reasons for the lack of jolly excitement are surely obvious. Views of a lush green garden are replaced by a those of walls, windows and balconies. Instead of the sun shining unimpeded through our kitchen window, it will loiter provocatively behind someone else’s walls.
But despite everything, there is something quite intriguing about a building site and these roof timbers were just asking to be photographed.
Today’s weather was not bad. Being a bit damp underfoot in places the light was particularly interesting when the sun came out.
After a brisk walk with the dog, the dark clouds dispersed and provided ideal conditions to visit a town that, during the summer months, is crawling with tourists. At just after one o’clock the small, picturesque town centre was deserted.
A Saturday afternoon in January. A definite chill in the air, no snow, no sun and slightly misty. There was almost an Autumnal feeling as I, wife and dog plodded along the very muddy paths through the woods. Suddenly a splash of colour made me reach for my camera. The bright green moss on the old weathered sign pointing the way to the lake was the most colourful thing I’d seen all afternoon… apart from my blue Pentax of course:-)
Strictly speaking the ‘lake’ is really not much bigger than a large pond. During the summer a picnicker or two may grace its shores and a handful of bathers can be seen bobbing about in its waters. At certain times of the year a solitary angler may be seen trying to net the catch of a lifetime. But today was quiet, deathly still and quite deserted. Somehow the following two images just had to be reproduced in black and white, and I increased the contrast a little too.
There was a slight covering of ice around the waters edge. Certainly not thick enough to skate on, but a forgotten bottle of some fizzy drink rested idly on the icy surface.
It’s that time of the year again, an office party here, an informal get together there, a quick glass of something before plodding home through the night. There’s no doubt in my mind, the choice of camera has an enormous influence on the choice of subject. If I’d have had my DSLR with me on the way home from the office do, I would quite possibly not even have taken the lens cap off. If I’d have had the compact Lumix with me I’d most likely have sought perfection and spent far too much time trying to create nice sharp, well framed images. But as luck would have it I was simply carrying my mobile phone in my duffel coat pocket. The phone has quite a reasonable camera but I don’t expect wonders. So, not worrying about all those reflections in the tram window or whether an f stop more or less may be better, I simply pointed and shot. Total freedom.
Today’s post will therefore probably be the last in the series “Autumn 2013″…… with those words from the last posting I was ‘probably’ going to end this autumnal series. Well, as you see, Autumn 2013 hasn’t quite finished yet. Walking the dog late on Sunday afternoon I thought I would try to capture the cold, bleak atmosphere so typical of this time of the year. As it turned out that was quite a challenge. The scenes themselves were not exactly earth shattering, but that didn’t bother me too much because it was the ‘feeling’ I was trying to achieve. The original images were in colour and they appeared quite harmless. Not cold, not bleak and not at all mid November. After removing the colour and fiddling slightly with the brightness and contrast they approached the feeling I was after – but I’m certainly not there yet.
My two weeks holiday is drawing quickly to a close and although the weather could have been better, it really was a most enjoyable couple of weeks. Thanks to the weather, various bits and pieces have been done around the house, and this week we even managed a couple of days in the black forest. A splendid place, and on the day of departure the sun shone brilliantly for several minutes. Today’s images seem to sum up the holiday quite well really…. very relaxing 🙂
Those of us who were brought up on film can surely remember the excitement and indeed trepidation as we left the photo shop clutching an envelope full of freshly developed photos. What was on that film? Would they all have come out alright? Well, I experienced similar excitement just last week.
I think it was sometime in January 2013 that I plopped a roll of Ilford HP5 into my 30 year old Pentax ME Super. The big question was whether the camera would still work after many years shut away in a cupboard? As it happens the photos were OK, certainly nothing to shout about, but OK. I must confess I had, with few exceptions, completely forgotten what was on the film. It was therefore quite interesting, on hot Saturday afternoon in August, to be sent back in time to cold, bleak landscapes taken six months or so ago.
Compared with images taken on the little Yashica T5, the latest photos proved to be considerably more grainy, which I would expect from a 400ASA film, but most of them were a stop or two underexposed. This may perhaps be partly due to the fact that the film was several months past its ‘develop by’ date, and partly due to exposure errors on my part, It may even be that the old Pentax’s battery needs replacing or the metering system is not as reliable as it once was. Not to worry, The Gimp saved the day.
All the latest film images can be viewed at:
http://www.harding.ch/Gallery21/main.php?g2_itemId=1346
