Sing, Shout, Shuffle, Shoot.

"What use am I as a heap on the floor?"

So recently I've being really getting back in to my love of music, I've been singing, thrashing a Guitar and twanging on a Ukulele. Last month me and my cousin jammed in his basement with Synth and Guitars, it sounded pretty crappy at first but got better. 

Ive been practicing She & Him's Sentimental Heart on my Ukulele alot recently. 

Although I have been taking a break from shooting polaroids for the book I plan to release in January, I am now getting ready to shoot like crazy for my participation in The Transatlantic Project, see my photography blog for more info (click).  

In other news it was my birthday on the 29th of September and I am now 20!

I also recently purchased a typewriter.

 

Gear and more.

I love my camera gear so much that I had to create a widget to share with the whole world what I shoot with.

click through to get on the website and make your own! 

Mondays A Strange Day

So I woke up early and drove to a garage and left my car for its MOT test.
I walked around looking for things to photograph and then finally gave in and went to the train station cafe. I got a caffitiere of coffee and a packet of crisps. I liked the atmosphere in there it was really empty and calm. I shot some polaroids and took a few digital shots. 

               Open Door (Left)                                             Closed Door (Right)

I had a good 2 hours drinking coffee taking pictures and eating breakfast, I even read a few pages of a book. 


When I had finished there I checked on the car and it was going to be another 4 hours at least so I walked 4 miles home then realised I had left my house key with them. So I went round to my neighbours house and borrowed a ladder and climbed through my bedroom window. Epic.

What a strange Monday!

Suggestions for a girls name for my guitar please..

There she is in her full glory, sorry the pictures a bit dark I was running late to work.

Help me name her...

feeling a little odd.

The rain doesnt help and im still getting over a cold. Im currently single but remain good friends with Laura, on monday we are going to the cinema which I am looking forward to. We're going to Leeds to see it which is convinient as I feel the need to buy some new clothes.

Yesterday I bought a vintage electric guitar from Oxfam, a pretty high price for a charity shop but hey whats new there. Ive tuned it and tested it through my amp. It needs a little TLC but i can tell she'll be a lovely guitar.

Got a roll of film developed yesterday too, I shot a whole roll of Kodak Professional T400 CN [now discontinued] Expired in 07/2004 and the pictures are mostly without noticable grain on my 6x4 prints. I got them processed at Max Spielmann as its a C-41 process film. Unfortunatly some pictures came with slightly odd hues to them. Most pictures look fine. I will be posting them when I get home from work. Taking self portraits on 35mm with a manual focus camera was an interesting experience, and I felt it went pretty well with some good results.

When I got back home I made myself a drink and checked what was happening on facebook. Hannah posted a picture of herself with some crazy glitter makeup and a plea for someone to save her from boredom. So I came to the rescue ha ha! We watched Dont Look Now and laughed most of the way through it [we watched it on possibly the biggest tv I have ever seen] then we lounged about and caught up on what was going on in life. The deep meaning of the end sequence to Dont Look Now is still something neither of us can decifer

Yesterday was a fun day indeed!

however today im feeling pretty adverage and I still have 5 hours to go before I finish work. I want to go back to bed at the moment.

Edge Cut Fun

So this morning after watching a John Pertwee era Dr Who Serial I made some coffee and harassed Laura to get up . Laura had brought over her Polaroid camera and it was loaded with a pack of "Edge Cut" (one of the 3 packs I bought from The Impossible Project a months ago, packs were like £8 each so I snapped up as many as I could) We descided to take some pictures indoors first as it was raining heavily outide. then we went to an abandoned caravan nearby to take pictures there. The caravan is no place for a girl, its probabily the most disgusting place ive ever been in. Anyway we trod carefully avoiding the bird poo and the broken glass and shot lots of pictures. I took my Minolta X-700 and Holga CFN with me aswell as the Polaroid P-Cam.

London pictures need to be developed and also my black and white 120 roll which should be developed by me by the end of the month. Come on Darkroom =P

London

Ive been away for a while

Last week I had the week of as of Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to a nursery school to shoot pictures for the headmistress there, it went pretty well and I got some really nice shots I think. Thursday I packed my bag for London and got the train to Laura's. That night we watched Aristocats and played numerous board games which was pretty fun. Friday morning bright and early we set off an after a tiring train journey we arrived in London. That afternoon we explored some of the city and discovered the delights of Hummus Bros a restaurant near our hotel, they served allsorts of hummus delights. The next day we headed around the city again taking in the sights and sampling delicious foods. Our stay lasted until monday afternoon. The weather was wonderful and sunny (which unfortunatly made the underground a little uncomfortable temperature wise). We crammed in a trip to the Movie Museum, Tate Modern and alsorts of other exciting things. We also made a fort in our hotel room. It was a great little break and I was happy to spend it with Laura.

Here is the cute teapot I bought alongside my new pocket watch.

Double Film Review: The Designated Victim & Night Train Murders

  The Designated Victim [1971]
Venice a city of beauty and charm.... throw in some mist, an extreamly camp Count and make the plot of the film basically a total rip off of Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train" throw in a typical detective and watch as an innocent man commits murder.
Night Train Murders [1976]
Any horror film involving trains is pretty much a winner I think, this is no exception. Basically a rewarking of "The Last House On The Left" but on a train. Two girls board a train alone on their way to italy to stay with relatives on christmas day. Some real nasty dudes get on and with the help of one twisted posh bird things start to get rough. What will daddy do when he finds out who killed his daughter?

The perfect double bill, two great offerings from Shameless Entertainments catalogue.

Film Review: Blow Up

I bought this as it was reccomended to me by a friend.
The film centres around a scruffy looking london photographer, who is a bit of a prick, but hey he gets results. The film has some great moments and is worth the money just for the use of the cameras in the film, it has a reasonable plot that sometimes looses with way but its soon back to it. A photographer who photographed a murder without knowing. Thats a film to watch in my book. 

This Made My Week

Since I got all that darkroom paper I have been looking to find an enlarger and other darkroom equipment. The lovely people who gave me the paper, asked around and someone told them he had an Enlarger and lots more stuff too.

I rang him on Tuesday and organised to see it on Wednesday, He had the original packaging for the Enlarger and the Enlarger Head aswell as a box full of various usful bits of kit. He named a price and I went on my way to think it over. As my parents house is already full of my junk and I am still living at home, I needed to find somewhere to build my darkroom. So while at work on Wednesday I saw my Grandad and asked him about using his basement, he said yes!

On Thursday I rang him again and asked to arange the pick up of the equipment, he agreed to a time and I went to pick it up. Im so happy, all I need now is developing Chemicals and then I can get started! Oh yeh I also need to transport the stuff to my grandads too.

So heres what I got:

• Vivitar VI Enlarger Unit with Stand and B&W Head Unit 2.8 Lens included
• Vivitar Colour Enlargement Head Unit
• Vivitar Wallmount Bracket
• Patterson 35mm Developing Tank
• Patterson 35mm Twin Developing Tank
• Patterson Safelight
• Patterson Squeegy (unused in packaging)
• Patterson Thermomitor
• Changing Bag
• 3 Print Trays
• Ilford Mulitgrade Filters (2 Packs in assorted Sizes)
• Measuring Cylinder
• Various Bits & Bobs to do with the Enlarger
• All Original Documents for all equipment listed above.
• Original boxs for all Vivitar Equipment listed above.
• A Number of Large Developing Papers
• Assorted Photography Books including the hilarious "Techniques of Photographing Girls" and a rather rude looking book about "Glamour Photography" ha ha ha

OMG SX-70 PLZ

OH MY GOD!!!!!

IMPOSSIBLE HAVE PUT TOGETHER SOME LIMITED EDITION SX-70 KITS!

THE KITS FEATURE ONE REFURBISHED SX-70 AND TWO PACKS OF PX100 SILVER SHADE

I WANT THIS BAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! ANYONE WANT TO SHELL OUT 250 QUID ON THIS?

SOLD OUT IN 2 MINUTES!

GET IT HERE!!!!

A Trip To Windermere

All Pictures are SOOC

What's All That Film Doing In Our Fridge?

When my parents get back from Ireland today im pretty sure they will ask that question.

This morning I went to pick up some darkroom developing paper from my old photography tutors, I now have like 13 packets of the stuff. Some of it is out of date and some is nearing its date. They also gave me a shoe box full of Expired Film! 35mm, 120mm, Black & White, Colour, and Infared. The Films consisted of Ilford, Kodak and Fuji products. Some were as expired as 1992 but some where Nov 2009. I cant thank them enough for their kindness.

Heres a few pictures to show what Im talking about...

The Full Lot

Colour Kodak

Colour Fuji

Black And White Ilford

Black And White Kodak

What I managed to fit into the fridge

Looks Like theres going to be a fair amount of film photography going to be posted on this blog in the future.

The Weekend

Ok so this weekend Laura came over and stayed at mine, My parents left on Sunday morning to go to Ireland visiting my brother to watch him run a Marathon in Cork where he lives now. On Saturday night me and Laura went to Gisburn Forest to take pictures and then we came home and had pasta. Sunday we got up early and watched cartoons for a while and waved off my mum and dad as they set off. We went to a vegetarian cafe in Skipton and had some nice food and then went to the charity shops (there are plenty in Skipton) We bought Disney films on VHS and we got a few DVD's too. The list was as follows:

Serial Mom [DVD] [1994]
Dead Man's Shoes [DVD] [2004]

Frenzy [DVD] [1972]

Gran Torino [DVD] [2008]

Heres a few pictures from the weekend

Film Review: Baba Yaga

Today I watched Baba Yaga AKA Kiss Me, Kill Me (1973)
My girlfriend bought me it as a present knowing I wanted to see it. It was Directed by Corrado Farina an Italian Writer/Director. The Film was based on a Popular Comic Book/Graphic Novel of the time Called Valentina The Comics were Centred around a young Fashion Photojournalist. The Man Behind this Character was Guido Crepax a Graphic Artist from Milan.

In the film Baba Yaga, Valantina is played by Isabelle De Funes who is an uncanny match of Valentina from the Comics. The Film plays like any good Italian 70's Giallo movie should. The Cinematography is extreamly good and very creative, the film is hugely enjoyable and the use of some of Crepax's original drawings during the film is brillient.

I would reccomend the film to anyone who likes 70's Italian Giallo and Films of the era. Although the film contains a fair amount of nudity it is by no means a distasteful film.Video Label Shameless Screen Entertainment have released the most comprehessive version of the film with an introduction from the director himself and interview as well as 2 documentries on Valentina. Details of their release are here.

Get it from Amazon by clicking below.

Edge Cut

I just ordered 3 packets of "600 Edge Cut" from IMPOSSIBLE 

The film was also available in SX70 format (this is also sold out now)

Their description explains:  Original Polaroid 600 film, produced from the edges of the photosensitive material. This film can thus show "scratches" or lines crossing the picture. Exclusively available at Impossible for an incredible price.

The film went on sale at 2.00pm today and was SOLD OUT by 2.10pm!

So... there may be some Polaroid scans up here soon.

A Forest

All of these pictures were taken near an woodyard owned by a neighbour of mine. I love going up there is always full of surprises. I cant wait to the weekend Laura is coming over!

Dear Diary... I am so alone

(The title is a Beetlejuice quote... im not just some massive emo kid)

Its June 1st, the months have flown by and I've lost track of time. This year has been an interesting one, in mid-December 2009 Laura and I got together, every weekend we see each other for a couple of days. So far we've been exploring, we've watched films and we've been generally lazy, I love spending time with Laura she is so great.

This week I went to the Christening of my cousins daughter, the service was at Queensbury church near Bradford. I used to live in Queensbury and have great memories of the place before I moved. It was nice to see family that I dont see so much and to visit old haunts. I took a walk down my old street and went up to the scrubland near the local rubbish tip. I took my Nikon D60 and also my Minolta X-700, so theres 35mm and digital pictures from that day. I havent had chance to look at them just yet and I need to shoot some more film before I get that developed.

I miss Laura so much today, Last night I had a strange dream about being a cardboard transformer and morphing into a really cool car. The night before that I had a nightmare about being chased around london at night, were I took shelter in an old hotel, here my tooth rotted and fell on the floor and the owner of the hotel was a vampire! I dont know what lead to these dreams but they were pretty weird.

Yesterday I went on a very long walk with my family and enjoyed some sunshine and the countryside, while I talked about rape murder and other grusome film scenes with my cousin Jake. We also talked at great length about synthesizers and drum machines and other musical junk, I think when I get home I might make a tape for the car, it will have some film soundtrack extracts on it most probabily.

This weekend Laura is coming over, I can hardly wait.Although we havent descided what to do yet, we might go to the woods, maybe see a film and most likely take some pictures. Laura is continuing to read me Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman, this is awsome as I struggle to consentrate and keep my place when reading.

I'll probabily post some pictures up here soon.

Shooting Film In A Cafe

Not Too Far Outside Piccadilly Station You Will Find:

A Greasy Spoon That Serves All Day Breakfast

Camera: Minolta X-700

Lens: MC Rokkor 58mm 1.4

Film: "Klick Photography MAX" 24exp, 200ASA, Dated  05. 2007