The death of boats

Tuesday was photography club night. Unfortunately it was rained off, so myself and Bryan went out and took some photos of Kings Lynn's fisher fleet, in particular the decaying vessels on the river banks.

We started off the night in the grounds of St Faiths Church in Gaywood where i really struggled to find anything of interest for me, until I went to the back of the graveyard and found a number of graves using crosses as grave stones.



70mm F6.3 1/13 ISO 200

The cross in the background, which is the point of focus was leaning over so I made it stand straight and its surroundings lean at an angle. My least favourite part of this image is the stump in the middle which is too bright.

Behind this scene is a cross on the floor and a lone grave a number of meters behind it.

 

31mm F4.0 1/30 ISO 200

On the way out I looked closely at the textures on a door and it's lock and noticed this above the door.

 

 

I then jumped in the car with Bryan and set off for the fisher fleet. Bryan had been there before but this was my first time and I would like to return again with a bit more time on my hands. Bryan says since his last visit the wrecked vessels have deteriorated more with some parts of the vessels now collapsed or missing.

The sky was very over cast and boring for photography, so I made sure to zoom in and crop the sky out in shot rather than at the editing stage.

The flaking paint and rotten textures make for a real sight and with a bit of exploring some great details can be found easily.

 

 

It difficult to capture the working fisher fleet as the sight is very messy and busy, with lines and angles leading in all directions .

 

 Three of the finer wrecks very accessible for photography. The two in the foreground are on a different side of the water from the one in the background. The further vessel is brought closer by the angle and focal length.

 

As you can see they were once quite large boats.

Never to be again.

Thursday Urbex

Since I was a boy I've always enjoyed exploring places and buildings.

When I was a young, there was an old shack in front of the family home. In between making bows and arrows and using my imagination and running from my older brothers who liked to pick me up by my ears, I enjoyed looking around the old building and looking through the belongings of the people who once lived there. It was like a forbidden fruit, as I wasn't allowed to go in there and would of been told off if my parents found out.

So jump forward over 20 years and Im always on the look out for place to explore. Im always taking mental notes on what's down each street and what's accessible. Photography now gives me a reason to explore; documenting buildings that may not be here forever or in some cases very long at all as they may face demolition or natural decay.

This particular find, can be thanked to a Saturday afternoon a few months back when I let my Nephew, Josh, have a drive around the back roads and small villages to gain some driving experience (and to keep up my status of being a cool uncle).

We drove past this place a couple of times and noticed that the place looked closed and empty. I was struck at the size of the place and new it would be good to have walk round. A couple of months later mission accomplished.

Now for some pictures.

 

Oh and I've found a way in!

A Playful Discovery; my new 35mm viewfinders and flash photography

Finally I've gotten round to writing a blog post.

A couple of months ago I purchased two 35mm cameras; a Cosmic Symbol and a Holga 135BC.

The Cosmic Symbol, apart from having the coolest name for a camera ever is also awesome looking thanks to its retro looks. The camera itself was manufactured in Soviet Russia between the 70's and 90's and allows the user to control exposure by altering aperture and shutter speed settings on the lens itself.

f/13 1/200 ISO 100

Holga's are the original Instagram before Instagram was invented. I brought the 135 version due to process and development of film these days; 35mm film is the cheapest to get hold of and print in this digital age. The BC stands for Black Corners. Holgas are known for light leaks, soft focus and unpredictable effects amongst others; everything people love about mobile photography at the moment. Compared to even the Cosmic Symbol the Holga is very basic.

A quick shot from my iphone

The link between my new (old) cameras and this post is the Holga flash that I also bought to go with my film cameras.

The Holga 15B is a good bit of fun due to the colour filters attached to the flash unit via a screw. The idea is to put a filter in front of the flash, take a photo using the coloured flash and to wait and see what the photo looks like when you get them developed.

I was bored the other day and wondered whether I could get my 15B flash to fire using my Canon. To be safe, I didn't want the flash to short circuit my DSLR, I attached the 15B flash to a wireless flash trigger (used to fire a flash off of / away from the camera) and shot away at my unsuspecting model who at the time was reading a magazine.

My favourite shot was using a red filter.

f/5.6 1/125 ISO 100

Due to the angle of the flash, I like the shadows on the right hand side of the photo and the catch light in Laura's eyes. Other than that........come on she's red....what's not to like about this!?

During processing of the raw file I also tried out a black and white conversion that will definitely be a keeper.

 

The red filtered flash has created a brilliant look when converted to black and white.

 

Until next time. Which will hopefully sooner rather than later.