In another instance of an epic delay occuring between me taking the photos and then getting them processed and getting the time to scan them in, I’ve finally got me Holga photos back from when we went to Cornwall a couple of months ago.

So without further ado and without me bleating on pointlessly, here are them pictures.

In a short break from the relentless photos of beaches in Cornwall, I’ve got some photos of a beach in Bournemouth instead, how exciting!

I’ve complained in the past about the delay in getting photos from my Holga developed on these very pages, and this was no exception. I took these ages ago, and had forgotten that I took them, so when this roll showed up along with the six or seven others from Cornwall I did a little wee wee.

I just love Fuji Provia slide film, look at them colours, just look at them with your eyes.

This couple were living the life, enjoying the sun in their Bournemouth sea front beach hut. It was hard not to be jealous, but since I’m a long way off retirement I’ll just have to settle for a handful of weeks off work each year.

It was only April but the beach was packed, with everyone enjoying the good weather.

The Pier at Bournemouth. Not on fire.

So that’s all for the Holga photos from Bournemouth. Now time for a moan. I got a new PC recently, with Vista x64 loaded on it. Since it’s been available for several years now, I stupidly assumed peripheral makers would have software that works. But oh no, of course they don’t so Epson can kiss my stinky bum because I now can’t use my scanner with my PC. As a result I had to hook it up to my laptop which was both annoying and also very very annoying.

I had to wait for my blood pressure to drop before scanning in the rest of my slides. Don’t panic though, I’ll be back with more photos of beaches in Cornwall before you can say “oh crap not again”.

So I’ve treated the wife to a day trip to bath for her 30th Birthday, and no that isn’t all I did. Bath is fun, we had a good wander around and stopped in a few pubs for beers and I took a few photos with my Holga before we went for a meal at the Hole in the Wall which isn’t a dodgy saturday night TV show with Dale Winton but rather is a nice little restaurant which serves yummy food.

Bring on the wall!

Anyway onto the photos – of two rolls I was unhappy with virtually all the results. The reason for this was that I tried to be clever and deliberately over-expose all the images. In practice what I acheived was washing them out almost completely except in about 1 case. Never mind, lesson learnt, don’t try to use bulb mode on ISO400 film in daylight.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Pulteny Bridge, Bath
Fuji Provia 400

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Pulteny Weir, Bath
Fuji Provia 400
Manaul exposure of approx 1/3rd of a second

Also on the roll when I got it developed was this one. I’m not sure what I did but I vaguely recall putting it in bulb mode and waving it around. I like it!

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Abstract
Fuji Provia 400
Manual exposure of unknown length.

That’s all for now – BYE!

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:

Holga

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

Holga

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

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Trafalgar Square, 11th October 2008
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!

Holga

Holga 120 CFN
South Kensington, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
John Madejski Garden, V&A Museum, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
South Kensington Tube Station, 11th October 2008
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.

Holga

Holga 120cfn
Covent Garden
Kodak Portra 400

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.