Lights

Early Sunday morning I had made my way to the beach to listen to the sea for words of wisdom. The sea answered with these.

the old masters

Saw this and thought yes that would make a good picture...

Grow your own

A timely reminder

footpath in the mist

Self imposed satisfaction

Although I find taking self portraits personally quite a hard task to accomplish satisfactory. Forced myself to do this one as a study of light and shade.

In Reflection...

Self Portrait in a discarded television Lowestoft

So that leads us to the question....

Answers?

Who likes school anyway?

Found this plaque in Norwich today.
It brought a smile to my face.

That was the wonder of Woolies

This time last week the Woolworths chain of shops closed for the last time. This back entrance of the shop in Great Yarmouth was closed up much earlier in the eighties. For some the decline had already started then. For me as a child of the seventies it was the the most nearest entrance to the toy department and as an adult in the 21st century it sums up the present situation very well.

From Russia with love

It's xmas 2008 and I wasn't expecting a Russian made Zenit 3 SLR from 1960-62. Infact they found it too expensive to make so they only made it for a couple of years. The better made ones were sent for export or sorted out by the importer with better quality control. An interesting journey this camera has had. Individually stamped with the serial number of 62202303 where it was made in the Zenit factory in Krasnogorsk in the USSR and was purchased from the John Wells camera shop at Lowestoft in the United Kingdom in the seventies. My aunt using this camera to pass her photography exam with it.

It's a beautifully ugly camera that carries a certain charm about itself. Substantial and uses no batteries but feels reassuringly comfortable to use. Therefore it has no light meter built in. So you would have to use the Sunny 16 rule or a light meter. The very large viewfinder is very comfortable to use. It's like looking at a television screen inside. The mirror plate is worked by means of a length of string! You have to advance the film lever to operate this to be able to through the lens. It shuts down after every shot. It has shutter speeds from 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 of a second and a bulb mode. The Helios 44 f2 58mm lens it carries is a Russian copy of a Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 M42. So the optical quality is going to be of a very good pedigree. Other Zenit 3 also came fitted with an Industar 50mm/3.5 lens. On this camera they use a Leica M39 mount. So adapters exist as later in the sixties they started to make cameras with the more universal M42 screw mount. So a demand for Russian and communist bloc citizens wanting to use these lens on these later camera bodies was answered. Of course this then means you could also fit that adapter onto a M42 adapter to fit on a required film or digital SLR body. You could also use a reversing ring with a relevant camera mount to attach this lens backwards to make it a macro lens. A high quality macro lens in this case. So two possible potential avenues to explore in recycling old pieces of equipment.

Because I haven't a manual for this there were some issues to resolve. One of which I have resolved through a Google search. At first I couldn't see where you could rewind your film back after you had finished your film to unload it. Otherwise you would run the risk of ruining your film! Here you need to depress and turn clockwise to lock the ring around the shutter button. This enables the winding back of your finished roll of film. Like the relatively sized Halina 35x of the same time period the body has to be unlocked from the bottom to enable you to unload/load film. To unlock the rewind feature you need to turn anti clockwise fully then turn the top shutter so it pings back.

On the film rewind dial there are markings of film speeds going from 350 to 11. This in GOST (a pre-1987 arithmetic standard which was used in the former Soviet Union) . This translates to iso 400 to iso 12. There are three points marked on the outer rim. One black dot marks a circle with a dot in the middle (where the 180 is in the image) and the other two are red dots marking a sun symbol (shown) and a light bulb respectively. The function of is it acts as a visual remider for what film you are using and doesn't have any effect over the film exposure!



This week weather permitting I shall be discovering what this Soviet eye makes of the Suffolk area. This isn't an exercise about making images look old by using old equipment. It's about using affordable photographic equipment to make something new. It's about guerilla photography as a methodology. In these financial and environmental times it's more important and relevant as it ever was.

Fujicolour C200

I've been using Fujicolour C200 recently. Still have to get a couple of rolls developed and it's an iso200 C41 process film. Another supermarket find of 5 rolls for seven pounds there of. Capable of vibrant colours outdoors for such a cheap and cheerful film. I'm on the lookout for a film scanner is this is a necessity in the long run. Bypassing the need and expense of having prints and scanning from those by just having the negatives developed. Which should pay for it self in a very short while. In times like these that's a bonus as I'm doing this all on buttons.

Digital

Lets get killed
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

A montage of digital images

insects in paint.
light waves captured in a digital sensor.
light released from the monitor.
chemicals released in the nervous system.

Analog

Earwax
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

Inspired by using some shots I had taken with the Pentax I made this montage. Was pleased scanning images this analogue camera had made. Didn't take much processing to get this in this state. Which is normally the case with working with digital.

The Broken Camera

A face lift and fitting in with my alias at Flickr. Even though the address for this blog is always the same. Born out of necessity after breaking the shutter on my DSLR the SLR featured above is a Pentax P30t which is far from broken. The next thing I have to sort out on this path is a film scanner for digitising negatives. The cost and quality of developing film is variable. I have had some problems with getting my negatives developed at high street outlets which have damaged the actual negative. Leaving blemish s on the prints as well. At the moment I am scanning from the prints. But just getting the negatives developed on their own is more economically viable. I haven't abandoned digital far from it. Just wanting to experiment in blending the two sides together.

The Empire

The Empire
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

It has seen a hundred years of change since constructed in 1908. Of hair styles, music and thought. As theatre, cinema and night club.

With the previous post about Woolworths prehaps the comforting thought is in the number ten and the multiples there of.

death on the high street

death on the high street
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

I took this on Sunday morning in the midst of the snow flurry. A couple going in said to the Woolworths employee standing outside "the a man taking photographs..." Well that's usually what happens with cameras. Cameras don't take pictures people do.

I had heard earlier in the week that the Woolworths Group PLC was in financial difficulties. So wanted a shot of this place for old times sake. We all have memories of "Woolies". Certainly of this shop in Great Yarmouth as a child collected many sets of Airfix figures and other items such as sweets. Actually just typing this gave me a flashback to those times of the early seventies. But that's the problem as a brand it seems to hold more as memories of "pick and mix" rather than actually spending any cash there. I used the passport photo booth about twenty years ago and that's it. If they are selling things off cheap I was wondering if they have any rolls of film going cheap?

I know it's abit of an institution here in the UK but the original Woolworths is an American concept was born out of a period of the 19th century that is far removed from today. Time and cultural patterns have changed. It would be worth investigating how much advance the internet has made from high street commerce. Not that is everything but there is a change in the air of how we use the center of urban areas. Much to ponder but an evolution rather than complete change.

It was on the news last week that shops might just get through winter but it's Easter that is make or brake for some. Yes it is indeed a death on the high street.

Lowestoft at night

Spent this morning taking night time exposures around Lowestoft. Some interesting images and I didn't get to try all the locations I wanted to try. Covered some of the same areas I'd done previously in the day time. But this time I was using my DSLR with a tripod. Awesome lit night is all I can say. On the banks of Lake Lothingland at 3 am spent sometime in conversation talking to a group of people who were interested in what I was doing there. I suppose I did look abit out of place. Good shots though there and elsewhere. Funny thing was I could hear something raise to the surface a couple of times which to me sounded like a cross between a seal or a diver as it came to the surface. That, the generator in the distance and the water was the only thing that broke the silence.

This time took sixty odd pics with room to experiment. Not all of them really long exposures but at 30 seconds maximum in Manual mode rather than in Aperture priority or especially bulb mode which I'm found of using. Which worked out alright all in all.

Next time a flask of coffee and some sandwiches for refreshments with all that walking involved.

Structures

Structures
Originally uploaded by -{The Broken Camera}-

Patterns of Entities

Desaturated colour in Photoshop. Some great colours are captured in the original negative but I liked the shapes so hence this as monotone.

Exploring with the Pentax P30t and the lens that came with it. Pleased to say it all works. Got my film developed from what I took on the Sunday and Monday. The supense was killing me. Like the anticipation of sex on a first date. So I'm pleased to say the good majority are keepers. Even the Somerleyton sunset hand held at F3.5 @ 1 sec exposure with it's Orton effect is usable. That's special as I'm really surprised how that came out hand held The combination of good breathing technique and the light meter really worked well! Should remember to take it out with my £10 50mm f1.7 prime next time. Which is abit faster in low light. Don't take too much out just the barest minmum. Spent most of Monday evening and Tuesday scanning them in and retouching. Still more to do. The lens is good and took sometime to get used to it in feel. Being slightly more telephoto at 28-80mm rather than my 18-55mm lens which I'm more used to. Especially at the wide angle. As with all zooms it appears to work best in the mid range and gives you.

I've done it again

Amazing what you can find in Oxfam. I had previously seen an Olympus OM10 the other month in the window of the Norwich shop. So imagine my suprise to find a Pentax P30t in there this time. No I haven't gone mad or in a one man effort to spend my way out of a recession. Just a backup to my digital SLR that can share all my lens between each other. Which to me makes sense as it also came with a Pentax A 28-80 zoom f3.5-4.5 lens. This late 80's /early 90's photo equipment still works and is in pristine condition. Far from obsolete at all I say.