I mentioned in my last entry that I took all my camera gear to London, but then spent the entire time shooting with my Holga. Four rolls of film came back from Peak last week and I started the long process of scanning.

Before I loaded the first film in London, I removed the 6×6 mask from the camera. I wanted to know if it would get me slightly less uniform light fall off at the edges of the image and it did that. It’s also however given me a massive light leak as shown in most of these photos. I’m still undecided on how I feel about that but I think I like it.

Obligatory tourist shots of Trafalgar Square:

Trafalgar Square, 10th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

Trafalgar Square, 10th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

Trafalgar Square, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

On the way to the V&A we got off at South Kensington station, and wandered the rest of the way in the sunshine, after I pressed my face up against the glass of the Lamborghini London showroom!

South Kensington, 11th October 2008
Holga 120 CFN
Fuji Provia 400

As we walked round the Victoria and Albert museum I had visions of some amazing series of images called “The V&A from the hip” but what happened was virtually every single shot was underexposed to the point of being unusuable. Ho hum.

Still, using a statue as a makeshift tripod (no tripods allowed in the V&A) I managed this one with a manual (approximate) 3 second exposure.

V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400
Manual 3 second exposure on bulb mode

Outside was a different story, as I shot off a couple of frames in the John Madejski Garden. I then decided I’d try once more at a panoramic shot with the Holga. This failed miserably last time I tried it, but I sat there working it all out first, then had a crack. Click to re-bigulate this.

John Madejski Garden, V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Fuji Provia 400

I loaded some colour negative film into the camera for the last roll, to give myself a break from all the E6 slide film I’ve been using recently. I’m not sure what this is supposed to be though.

South Kensington Tube Station, 11th October 2008
Holga 120cfn
Kodak Portra 400

On the final day in London I had a couple of frames to finish off the film so as we walked to the tube to head back to Paddington I shot off the last few.

The colours from the Kodak Portra just look flat and lifeless after the Provia. As the Provia was about 5 years out of date and the Portra was brand new, it doesn’t say much for the Kodak film. Luckily I still have 20 or so rolls of Fuji E6 film to work my way through.

A weekend jaunt to London town saw me carry all £3000 odd of my camera gear around for 2 days, yet the only time I used my Nikon D200 was when I was at the train station on the way home (more on that later). The rest of the time my £30 Holga was in use. I shot a total of 4 films, and I’m currently waiting with baited breath for the return post from Peak Imaging.

Following our horrorshow attempt to visit Venice earlier this year, I thought we’d seen the last of our travel woes. I was wrong.

Paddington station, 13:00 Sunday afternoon, our train is on the board showing “on time” to leave at 14:03. Then right before my eyes….

Approximately 20 trains all get cancelled at once, and some station announcer clown mumblingly slurs out an incomprehensible sequence of gibberish of which the only bit I could understand was “wait for furhter information”. What I want to know is, what is so special about Birmingham Snow Hill station? ANSWER ME!

I wont mention the mad as a box of frogs lady who cornered me and talked to me for 10 minutes about the voices in her head. Oh wait I just did.

Eventually a train to Taunton leaves, and we scurry down platform 3 only to find we are joined by three quarters of the entire number of passengers waiting to leave Paddington, so the train is packed to bursting point. Cue an hour spent crushed on the floor of the carriage entrance next to a toilet.

Did I mention Sunday was my birthday? Happy Birthday Ben!

London was great though, pictures to follow when I get my films back.

What?

In the last of the “what I did on my holiday” series, I’m going to break from tradition and actually not say anything bad. We were lucky enough to go to Bristol Zoo on one of the three days this summer where the sun came out. So it was a nice day.

Granted it rained at about four in the afternoon but we were already in the car on the way home then.

Bristol Zoo isn’t a bad day out really, although photo opportunities are limited to shooting through glass or long lens stuff. These are all shot with an 80-400 VR lens.

I’ve run out of stuff to say. Until next time, bye!

I mentioned in my Wookie Hole post that we’d been to various attractions during our week off work - one of these attractions was Longleat.    Longleat is actually a pretty good place to visit, there is a lot to do, in fact we didn’t get to see even half the stuff so we are going back to see the rest!

The only problem with Longleat is that it’s full of shuffling cretins. Normally this particular species of human can be easily avoided or ignored but at Longleat you are continually smashed in the face by acts of sheer moronity (a new word I invented).

Take for example the drooling gibbon lady who stopped her battered old Peugeot 406 to look at the Tigers. Ahh, pretty stripy tigers. BUT YOU ARE BLOCKING TWO LANES OF TRAFFIC YOU UTTER UTTER GOON. So now something like 30 cars have to sit and wait. And wait…. And wait…….

Until the mouth breather and her brood have crushed their faces up against the car windows for long enough and having had their fill of tigers they move on, only to block the entire two lanes a short distance later, ohhhhh… Look at the Wolfies…. droooooooool…

Still the tigers didn’t seem that bothered.

Acts of stupidity such as stopping in doorways and blocking pathways are the norm at Longleat. Luckily I am a calm and balanced person so I wait until I get home then write sarcastic things on the internet because actually saying something to someone just wouldn’t be the correct behaviour for an Englishman.

The best bit of the Safari driving experience has to be the fallow deer - you buy a cup of food, then you feed them and they eat right out of your hand. Look!

As I was taking this photo of a particularly cute deer eating out of my wife’s hand, another impatient chap had his head right in the car trying to find some delicious deer munchies:

Second highlight of the trip was watching a car who felt that the massive queue waiting to see the monkeys didn’t apply to him. Fortunately one cheeky little chappy had a sense of justice and so ripped a couple of trim pieces off that particular car.

Throughout the safari I attached my Nikkor 80-400VR lens to my camera to see what photos of the animals I could get but there ended up being a number of problems, such as focusing through wet glass or through my front windscreen which has a heating element in it. As a result almost all the photos were consigned to the big delete bin in the sky.

The deer photos were taken with a Sigma 10-20mm, the Tiger photo with a Nikkor 80-400VR.

A special mention to the chap with a back seat full of kids who shouted the “C” word out of his car window at another driver. That kind of high quality parenting gives me hope for the future of our country, I salute you sir.

“Everyone needs a holiday”, said Ernest Hemingway, except of course that he didn’t say that because I just made it up.

In an attempt to prove that day tripping our way around the South West of England is actually more expensive than a week in sunnier climes, we spent a few days visiting various attractions within driving distance. In no particular order, Bristol Zoo, Longleat and Wookey Hole all were graced by the soles of our shoes and my incessant camera waving.

Starting with Wookey Hole; I’ve visited “the hole” a couple of times before and thought it a fairly interesting attraction. However each time I go they make the tour more and more cheesy with ludicrous lights in the shape of Witches plastered across every available surface replacing something called “imagination” which was what the tour relied upon when I first went as a scrawny little child.

You can’t see the Witch in this picture as I waited till the tour guide had moved on and propped my camera on a handy rock (there are loads of rocks in the caves, oddly enough) but trust me, she was everywhere.

Speaking of cheesy, with any requirement for imagination having been replaced by rampant commercialisation, portions of the caves have been set aside as a giant fridge for storing cheddar cheese during the ageing process. This means sections of the caves smell like an arse, so basically we paid money in order to smell arse. Great.

The section of the tour that showed the Wookey Hole paper mill in action was closed for “improvements.” which was nice as they warned us it would be closed when we paid full price for the ticket - oh wait - no they didn’t.

I’m sounding like a miserable sod, because that’s what I am, in actuality we had a lovely day out including a delicious lunch at the Wookey Hole Inn which I’d highly recommend to anyone not least because they have about eight Belgian beers on tap.

One final comment - to the couple who bought an 2 year old child into a dark, wet, smelly cave, then spent the entire time trying to stop her relentlessly screaming in fear, nice one, thanks, I really preferred hearing your child scream instead of the tour guide, really.

Can you tell I don’t have kids yet?

Coming soon, I moan about idiots in cars (Longleat) and animals that do that disturbing repetitive behaviour thing (Bristol Zoo).

Bet you can’t wait!