Phew! June has been a busy month.
When the summer kicks off, there’s a sudden flurry of activities and events and festivals and things to do.
People seem to wake up suddenly at the end of May and its hard not to get swept away in it all.
How is the beginning of your summer going? Let me know in the comments below!
I’ve been grounded since returning from my trip to Spain and Portugal as all my identity documents had to be shipped off in order for my UK driver’s license application to be approved.
But guess what arrived this week?! A shiny new provisional UK driver’s license. Now I think I need to take a couple tests and should have my final license after that hopefully.
Things are a lot harder for expats and foreigners in the UK than I thought they would be (administratively and culturally speaking) and I often find myself missing the comforts of living in a country where you are a citizen, something I took for granted before moving across the pond.
Anyways, let’s get into the recent news!
Recent Headlines
Analogue Wonderland Aquires SilverPan Film Lab To Offer One-Stop-Shop For UK Film Photographers
Unique Medium Format Color Film Released By CatLABS
Flashback Start-Up Blends Disposable Nostalgia and Digital Sustainability With the ONE35 Camera
Jollylook Launches Kickstarter Campaign for New SQUARE Pinhole Instant Film Camera DIY Kit
ONDU Eikan 4×5″ Large Format Camera Blows By Kickstarter Goals
TTArtisan release LTM mount 28mm F5.6 Leica Summaron copy - here.
TTArtisan upgrades their Light Meter - here.
Lomography Homes-Sweet-Home
Sara Snyder aka deadbuggy on Lomography’s social site was kind enough to share with me (and YOU!) why film and what to love about it.
I shoot film because it's more lived in, more nostalgic, less perfect. I mostly use point & shoot cameras from the 80s and 90s because they are so easy and fun. I have SLRs from Canon and Olympus that I enjoy but I put them on the automatic settings so that they are basically souped up point & shoots. I'm really inspired by the banal and new topography movements; Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. I like colors, shapes, lines and a bit of whimsy. I'm drawn to architectural photography but after I take pictures of the pretty parts in the front, I'll sneak around back to check out the more interesting stuff. There's also beauty in the bollard and the dumpster.
I've had my Lomography page for almost 15 years. I got into Holgas and Dianas; the Lomo LCA camera was a constant companion for a few years, but the zone focusing system and I never really bonded so I stepped away from film for several years. My uncle gave me his old Olympus Infinity point & shoot camera about five years ago and I've never looked back. The Lomography site is such a great space for photographers. I am always so inspired by people's work.
Check out Sara’s beautiful photography and Lomography home here!
Film Adventures
The Bellini C41 kit has been going great!
I’ve managed to get 16+ rolls processed so far in it. The max the kit recommends is 16 but I think I’m up to 18 at this point. I’ll probably stop there but I do have one roll of Ilford XP2 120 to develop, so perhaps this will be the last one.
The temperature control is fantastic. While you can process color film without it, it does take one thing off to list to keep checking.
For the rolls processed in the Bellini kit, I selected the Plustek 8100 to scan with since this has more accurate color conversion than using Capture One, even though the Pixl Latr is faster.
Here are a few of the results:
I shot my second roll of ORWO’s Wolfen NC500 color film and also processed this in the Bellini C41 kit. Here’s how it came out:
Much better than my first roll, but also I think this film looks much better when there is a lot of sunlight. Otherwise, it’s quite dreary.
I also processed a fresh roll of Kodak Gold 120 in this kit taken on my Seagull TLR in Bristol when I met up with a photography friend. Usually, I struggle with the color conversion in Capture One, but think I’m getting better at the tweaking and actually like how these came out!
On Youtube - In Case You Missed It
Five films I’m trying this summer. While I have a serious stash of color film, I couldn’t resist grabbing some of the new options that were recently released to test out. In the video below, I talk about five of them I got to try!
The next video is my May’s contribution to the Frugal Film Project…Shooting with the cheap Minolta GF and ever cheaper expired Fujifilm Superia X-Tra 400 film.
The next two videos were filmed at the same location, the Street Food Circus Festival at Caldicot Castle. We had a lot of fun here!
Summer festivals, well, any festival for that matter, are my jam and I love the atmosphere you will usually find at them. The folks at the Street Food Circus put on a great event and I’m really “chuffed” with the images from this day. Caldicot Castle was a stunning location for this food festival. As you might be able to tell, I’m STILL buzzing from this…
Reading Inspirations
Fleet Street Girls - while there are some things I don’t like about this book, I was instantly drawn into the true story of women trying to break into the men’s journalism club to become formidable writers and reporters on their own merit, paving the way for future female journalists. Julie Welch, who may be a long lost ancestor of mine, writes well and tells the story in a jangly fashion to make sure you don’t get bored. Filled with loads of juicy human-story type details, the book was one I didn’t want to put down this month.
It also fueled the simmering rage I often find in myself at how women were and are treated still. Much has changed with certain things but also not much has changed with certain other things.
Found randomly at the library. Sometimes it pays off to just spend a relaxing hour or so digging through the stacks!
Signing Off
That's all for June! See you in July :)
-M
I haven't even unpacked by B&W stuff. No place for a darkroom in Newport :(