Olympus Mons

I have a new camera, and Olympus Pen F. This is one of the first images I made using it, during a recent visit to Liverpool

Cathedral City

During a few days in Liverpool recently, we made a visit to the Anglican Cathedral, where I made this image with my RX100. I've employed my patented poor man's HDR technique to get some detail into the windows.

Dad's Gone to Iceland

We've just returned from another weekend at my father's house in Liverpool - probably one of the last as the building work going on there is nearing completion. However, I made this image on the previous visit in early June. 

I don't know what it is with builders, but as soon as they move in your garden turns into a building site, no matter what they're actually doing, inside or out. These Icelandic poppies are growing everywhere amongst the other weeds and long grass at the back of the house. 

Anyway, I managed to take five minutes out to take this picture. I didn't bother to take my tripod with me so I had to shoot hand-held, hence the shallow depth of field. And I couldn't make it into an acceptable monochrome image, despite concerted efforts, so I present it here in all its full-colour glory.  Nevertheless, I'm reasonably pleased with the result.

Praktica-L Photography Part II

One thing that I omitted to mention in my last post, is that there was a roll of film in the camera when I found it, which I extracted and took for processing. I had absolutely no memory of what might be on the film, so there was a fair degree of anticipation in waiting for the results, which came back on Thursday. So, what did I find?

Well, the film stock had aged badly with significant colour shift. Also, only twelve of the twenty-four frames had been exposed. Of those, one was an out-of-focus shot looking out of the window of my bedroom at my parent's house - the sort that you take when you're winding the film on at the start of the roll; There was an image of my parents in a formal garden somewhere; Several images of a family party, probably to celebrate the birth of one of my cousin's children; And three images of some friends at Holt's Field, one of which is presented above.

(By coincidence, Holt's Field is behind Sudley House, which I've written about in some of my previous posts.)

I've resisted the temptation to improve the image, so that you can see that my assertions regarding the poor standard of my photography at the time are true. I've managed to get the exposure right, but the focus is a bit soft, the framing is all to cock and the depth of field was probably left to chance and ended up being a bit deep for a portrait. 

Anyway, the internal evidence suggests that these images where all made around twenty-five years ago. But the scary thing is that I've still no memory of making any of them. It makes you realise how much of your life disappears, forgotten into nothingness. 

Do any of the people in the photographs remember then being taken any more than the photographer? I expect not.

This photograph also illustrates the immense subjective emotional charge of photographs. To most viewers this is just a photograph of three blokes sitting on a wall, failing to enjoy the experience of being photographed. To me, its a window into a long forgotten summer afternoon many years ago.

Anyway, enough maudlin navel gazing, normal service will be resumed with my next post.

One Small Step

Back in Liverpool this weekend and the builders have started work in my father's house. They've stripped the hallway, the stairs and the landing, removing the carpets and revealing layers of paint on the floorboards.

When my grandparents had the place, fitted carpets were the exception. There was a strip of carpet running up the stairs, held in place with brass stair rods, with the bare boards either side gloss painted.

Funnily enough, a couple of years ago we decided to recreate this look in our own house. The idea was eventually abandoned due to cost as the edges of the carpet need to be braided and that was expensive. Strange how a style defined by thrift gets acquired by the affluent becomes the very opposite. 

The Ancestral Pile Revisited

Another image from our visit to Sudley House. This is of a stained glass panel which is in the entrance porch on the North side of the house. Note that there's a chip under the central figure's chin with a radial crack running down and left onto the chest, which adds a nice touch in my view.

A should say that, in addition to the temporary exhibition of Bedford Lemere's photography, there are some very nice family photographs, dating from the early twentieth century, on display in the cafe. So, its a good afternoon out for photographers and entrance to museums is still free in the People's Republic of Liverpool.

The Ancestral Pile

We were in Liverpool during the weekend, trying to finish clearing out my father's house. Despite the fact that we should have been working, I made us visit Sudley House, which is a couple of miles from my father's place.

Sudley was gifted to the City of Liverpool when the last member of the Holt family died in 1946. It's now a museum. However, there is a family story, repeated to me by my father, that we were related to the Holts and that my father, as a young boy, was taken up to Sudley to be presented to "the old man".

Except that "the old man" would have to be Joseph Holt, who died in 1896. So that doesn't work, but the story may have been about my grandfather, although that doesn't work either because he wasn't born until 1905. And my father's memory could be flaky, so he could have been mistaken. 

Whatever, the point of the story is that we were something to do with those at the big house. So I took the wife to see our family seat.

The museum isn't anything to write home about, although it does hold a couple of original works by J M W Turner. Upstairs, there is an exhibition space which is currently hosting a display of architectural photography by Bedford Lemere & Co, which is worth seeing if you can get there before the end of April.

The image above is of the small cupola over the main entrance hall. Below is an exterior shot taken from the drive and looking at the north side of the house. I had my Alpha 77 with 50mm prime fitted, so I couldn't get a shot of the whole facade. 

I've a couple more images that are worth posting, which I'll do over the next few days.

The Pathetic Fallacy

Oh dear, here comes the obligatory sunset photo.

Recently, I found myself at a loose end in Liverpool. The family had been safely packed off back to Somerset and I didn't feel like hanging round my father's house. So, I set off with my camera and followed my nose to the river.

I have a strong sense of connection between my family and the Mersey. My grandfather sailed down it and away to travel the world. My father was a diver in it, then he worked in the shipyard on it. So there was some sense that the images that I was capturing were in his memory, hence the title of this post.

The camera in question was the new Alpha 77. My memory is that I had my 50mm lens with me - which is not the best for landscape - but that's not what the EXIF data on the RAW file says. Again, no tripod. Sometimes, I wonder why I bought the damn thing.

As you might expect in these circumstances, most of the images where useless, but I quite like this one. I've tried to make a mono image out of it but it looses something, so here I am again, presenting a colour image for your consideration. Normal service will be resumed soon.

A Study In Imperfection

Still going through the holiday snaps. This is another from the National Wildflower Centre.

Unfortunately the petals at the bottom of the image have drifted out of focus. Such is life. As I've already written, I wasn't carrying my tripod.

However, I can't resist the colours and the light in this image - I don't normally post colour images, but I had to make an exception in this case. The bokeh is quite nice as well.

Happy Holidays

I've been on holiday with the family, hence the recent lack of posts.

Whilst we were away, we spent a happy afternoon at the National Wildflower Centre. And I bet you can't guess - unless you've just followed that link, of course - where it is.

No, its not the most obvious place, is it?

Anyway, the place is rather overgrown and unkempt and I still can't decide if that's because of a deliberate decision to cultivate windblown flora, or if they've just let the place go a bit in the current economic slowdown.

This post represents a couple of firsts. For one thing, the image above was captured with my Alpha 77. All images posted previously have been taken with my Alpha 100. Tell me you can spot the difference. Please.

And its also the first of my macro work which I've posted.

Given the constraints, the results aren't bad. I wasn't carrying my tripod - a mean you don't on a family day out, do you? - so I was shooting handheld, and the sunlight was very bright. But I managed to get a few images when the sun went in. I was probably the only person there hoping for a few clouds. Then, I ran out of space on my memory card and I'd made the beginners mistake of leaving my spare in my other camera bag.

Never mind, time for tea and cake in the cafe!

Blast From The Past

The Mersey, looking downriver from Otterspool,

Christmas Day, 2005

This post brings together a couple of subjects already mentioned in other posts - namely, What I Did On My Christmas Holidays and Liverpool.

In 2005, in a break from our usual routine, we decided to spend Christmas in Liverpool. I should say that this was a couple of years before our son was born. The need to get out of the house hit earlier than usual - Christmas afternoon, to be precise - and we ended up at Otterspool Promenade. Obviously, we'd had to get through dinner first, so it was approaching sunset when we got down there.

When we arrived, the river was completely still - no tide, no wind, nothing. My father, who spent many years working on the Mersey - or more accurately under, as a young man he was a diver - said that he'd never seen it like that.

Fortunately, I had my camera with me. At that time, I was still using my first digital camera, a Fuji bridge model. Its traditional to report that this was a great little camera and that I wish I still had it. But that's not quite true. Yet again, a technology company had modified one of its products to make it less functional than it might have been. 

But no matter. I got a couple of nice images, of which this is one.

In another link to my father, the building that you can see on the skyline is Camell Laird's shipyard, where he also worked for a number of years as a cabinet maker. I can't imagine it being possible to have such a varied working life these days, but maybe that's just me and my blinkered view of the world.

Hey, That's My Home Town...

Liverpool from the Mersey, May 2011

I may have mentioned that I come from Liverpool.

I made the images that became this panorama during a visit to see my father at the end of May 2011. We took a trip on the Mersey ferry (and yes, they do play that song - constantly), had a ride on the Liverpool 360 and did all the touristy things, ostensibly for the benefit of our son.

I like the fact that the Three Graces aren't front and centre as in every other photo of the waterfront. The newer build has more prominence and you can just about make out the Albert Dock on the far right.

I know that panorama creation is getting to be a standard feature of many digital cameras. However, like many technologists, I'm a Luddite at heart (and a bit of a freetard) so I used Hugin to create this. It's based on the Panotools library, which was originated by a bunch of heavyweight German mathematicians, so it must be good.

I have very early memories of traveling on the ferry with my maternal grandfather, who would take me out and about during the summer holidays. I can remember the old wooden landing stage, with the massive tires lashed to the side. This was replaced some years later with a concrete platform, which had an alarming propensity to sink in rough weather.

The concrete stage is still there, but the whole of the Pier Head has been redeveloped and you'd have to be blind to say that its not an improvement. I haven't made it to the new museum or the Open Eye Gallery yet, but I guess I will one day.