I’ve had this camera for nearly 10 years now, in that time it’s been repaired twice, and unfortunately it’s now broken again. I’m struggling to justify sending it off to be repaired another time. There is a view that cameras are tools, there to do a job, and then be replaced and upgraded as necessary, but not for me. I always get ridiculously attached to my cameras, I’ve only ever sold two cameras, and I regret them both. As you can probably already tell, I hold a real sentimental attachment to this camera. Especially as this is the camera I bought when I started getting really immersed in photography.
It was shortly after I moved to Bristol, which was an exciting time. I was in a new city, and just having fun going out and exploring and shooting loads of photos. Learning through trial and error, making mistakes, and shooting loads of photos with this camera.
I also took the first photo that I was really proud of with this camera. By then I had started to develop a little more knowledge and an idea of what I wanted from the finished photo. I had started using a tripod, and was slowing down and being a little bit more deliberate with my process.
It’s very old (for a digital camera) and it’s pretty delicate (as you can tell from the amount of previous repairs). I was rushing, dropped my bag on the floor heard a clunk, and I immediately knew what had happened. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach as I took it out to test it, and as soon as it powered up (a good sign) the screen was weird and glitchy, none of the buttons work, and I had to remove the battery completely to turn it off. The fact it still turns on means it’s not dead dead, but it’s certainly not looking good.
For now it’s safely tucked away, I’m a hoarder so there is no way I’l ever throw it out, even if it is definitely broken. I have this optimistic conviction that if I leave it long enough, one day I’ll put in a fresh battery and it will start working again. It sounds far fetched, but something similar has happened before.
I was really hoping to get the shutter count higher than this one day, but inevitably something else broke first.
This is very similar to a blog post I have already done, but it’s a good excuse to share some of favourite photos taken with this camera. It’s very on brand that one of the last photos I ever took with the camera was with a burnt out motorbike, which feels very appropriate, incidentally the last photo I ever took with it was of a goat, but they can’t all be bangers.
I found this location by chance, stuck on a diverted route, with traffic at a standstill, I took a quick phone photo of this bridge as a reminder to come back some time and take some proper photos.
This road is on the bike path between Bristol and Nailsea, you actually have to cross this road as part of the path, which I’ve ridden before, but I’ve never thought to venture off and explore around this section. It just shows there is good stuff everywhere, you just have to look for it. It reminds me of the Bristol to Bath cycle path, when I first moved to Bristol I didn’t drive, so I used to spend hours and hours riding this path with my camera, and I feel like I must have explored every single little section, and followed every fork and offshoot to see where it leads, and what was hidden there.
Bikes are perfect for these little missions, as I can just head out with a location in mind, and there is nothing to prevent me stopping and exploring if I see something that catches my eye. I feel so much more nimble and reactive compared to driving, where it’s a bit dangerous to just slam on the brakes and stop if I see something that catches my eye.
I wanted to get a photo of this graffiti, I’m always fascinated by this specific kind of graffiti. It has a very serious apocalyptic tone, which is at odds with remote location, it reminded me of the rapture that wasn’t from earlier this year.
Plus it’s been done by someone with a spray can who felt that they had to go out and write this, which I find fascinating. There is no specific style, this hasn’t been done by someone in the graffiti scene, it’s just in someones block capital handwriting, which just makes me question their motivation. It’s so dramatic, why did they feel that they had to spray this on the bridge support?
I made a version with the graffiti on the side edited out, as it looks shit, and it disrupts the photo. But the editing doesn’t look great, and I’m not really comfortable with removing whole elements from a photo like this, so I won’t use this version. I’ll go back and shoot it again from the other side instead. I just have to hope the original graffiti hasn’t been removed by then, but I find anything in remote spots like this, basically never gets removed.
I’m going to head back at night one time, as I think it would look great illuminated from above by the road lights, even at dusk or blue hour, when the contrast would be a little more subtle. I think a late sunday summer evening would be best, as I’ll have the least chance of getting run over with my tripod set up in the middle of the road.
I love a good multistory car park, especially when they are quiet and the light is right. These were some opportunistic shots taken on a family bike ride, as I knew my son would enjoy going down the ramps in his trailer while the car park was mostly deserted on a quiet sunday evening.
This is the old pier in Weston Super Mare, which has been closed since the 90s, it’s away from the main sea front, where it’s just been left to crumble into disrepair.
I posted some of these photos on instagram and Mr Baloo summed it up perfectly “Lovely Lovely Birnbeck Pier & it’s surroundings- where Every day is like Sunday…"
Binkbeck is definitely the the part of Weston that seems most forgotten, I go to Weston a lot, and this is the first time I’ve ever gone over to this side and taken a look at the pier, and I don’t really know too much about it. There is no point me just regurgitating the wikipedia page, but having a quick search it looks like it might be finally restored after years and years of false starts.
I bought this little thermal printer on a whim from aliexpress, because they look great fun to play around, they are super cheap, the printer and 5 rolls of paper cost less than £10. Plus get a little hit of nostalgia, as it reminds me of the gameboy camera and printer I had as a kid - it’s got that same lofi appeal, but without being limited to 128 x 112 pixels
Obviously quality on these still isn’t great, but that’s part of the charm, digital photos are so crisp and sharp now, it can be fund to have a process like this that is a little rougher around the edges. Being able to print as many photos without worrying about cost is freeing, and makes the whole process really fun. It’s also great with kids, I have a toddler and he loves being able to choose an image and have it printed almost instantly, before he then proceeds to scribble all over it.
Anything that encourages me to actually print out images is great, it’s nice to have them off a screen in a physical book I can pick up off a shelf and have a flick through. The size of them is perfect for little A6 notebooks, which I can never resist picking up from Tiger or Muji, and again they are cheap, so there is no pressure, and I don’t end up overthinking the process, unlike a moleskin, where it’s constantly at the back of my mind that it cost the best part of £20.
Anything too detailed gets lost when using the thermal printer, I’ve found that simple scenes with lots of contrast work well, so these are all just simple scenes, usually close up little signs, cars, no big detailed lanscapes, as they just get lost in the lack of detail.
so these are mainly just phone shots of little everyday situations I’ve noticed, something that’s caught my eye, you know the kind of thing I see and post to instagram stories.
I’ve been keen to get back to Wales to explore some waterfalls since a trip last year, this time the destination was the Sgwd Gwladus waterfall on the Elidir trail, as it looks absolutely perfect.
Now I know there are already thousands of photos of this waterfall, and my plan to take a long exposure photo isn’t exactly ground breaking in its originality. But I don’t care. Even if it looks identical to every other photo, it will be my photo. Sometimes you have to just embrace the obvious, otherwise there would be no point in doing anything, as almost everything has already been done.
It’s a perfect daytrip spot, as you can park in the village, I feel like such a dad saying this, but there is plenty of parking, even on a sunny busy day, we found a spot no problem. Once you’re on the trail it’s a 40-50 mins straight path to the waterfall, though with a toddler and a dog it took at least double that time, but it’s nice weather, there’s no rush.
We lost count of the amount of people that overtook us on the way there, and then passed us again, this time heading the back the other way before we had even reached the waterfall. Though I think some people must have got to the waterfall, stopped for 30 seconds so they can say they’ve seen it, and then head straight back.
On the trail I spotted a few of these entrances that have been completely sealed, must be to stop people exploring them, and getting themselves into trouble.
There were a couple of nearby churches that looked photogenic, and were worth stopping at, I would have loved to explore a little more, but a tired hungry toddler meant I had other priorities.
Plus a pylon shot, as big ugly structures are like catnip to me, I can’t resist.
Last little shot was an opportunistic one through the windshield when we had to pull over just before taking the big road out. I’m never quite happy with iphone shots, but I took this with bayercam and it turned out ok.
