Ben Dobson | Photography blog » photography

not the lakes

Ben — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:32:57 +0000

So I know I said I’d put up some more pictures of the lake district but instead I went to Cornwall so suck this picture into your eyes and hopefully enjoy it and if not then leave a comment saying why you hate me and I’ll definitely care.

Laters dudes.

pin-head

Ben — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:11:29 +0000

Travel Tip: If you are ever in, around or near the Lake District, then you must visit The Church House Inn because the food is amazing, the beer is fabulous, and the pub is bloody amazing. If you go to the pub quiz on a Sunday night expect to get your arse handed to you by the locals. We didn’t come last though, third out of five teams isn’t too bad….

A trip to the lakes is an opportunity to play with all my cameras, which usually results in any walk or trip out taking about 15 times longer than it should!

First up the pinhole pictures. I’m increasingly of the opinion that it’s not worth bothering with this thing any more. It takes ages to set up, it’s impossible to get the horizon straight, the negatives are a nightmare to work with, and the results just aren’t interesting enough to warrant all the effort.

Add to that the fact that the camera is falling apart (who could have guessed a cardboard camera would not be durable?) and the writing is on the wall…

I did use some other cameras too so I guess I’ll share some of those pics at some point…

a pin drop

Ben — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:47:31 +0000

This weekend I went to “Jamie’s Italian” in Bristol. I’ve never been a big fan of Jamie Oliver, and after visiting his restaurant I’m not really swayed either way. The attention to detail in the place is quite impressive I will say. The food was good and the price of the food reasonable.

But £8 for a pint of beer? Do me a favour Jamie! Are you saving up your pennies for a tongue reduction operation?

And you might want to train your bar staff better – when asked what beers are available the answer shouldn’t be a sullen “Light or dark”.

Moving on – I made some more photos with my Pin Hole Camera this time with Ilford XP2 400 film. These came out OK although I managed to overexpose the day shots and massively underexpose the night ones. Also I double exposed one because I forgot to wind it on. Doh!

anyway here you go….

pinhole guesswork

Ben — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:49:19 +0000

First roll of film through my new pin hole camera was a roll of Fuji Superia 400. This seems fine except all the guidance on the camera relates to 100ISO film so I had to try to calculate exposure times in my head. My tiny brain probably isn’t too good so any success is more luck than judgement.

Got the roll of film back this morning, and a quick glance suggests it’s just possible that I might have been advancing the film a tiny bit too much in between frames….

Anyway, moving on. Took the scanner in to work and connected it up to an old compatible system then got scanning…. The roll of film developed by Asda for £2 came back more tightly curled than a curly thing. This resulted in some effort required to get the film to lie flat on the canner. Welcome to the hi-tech world of pinhole photography.

The results are in – and are mixed. Now remember these were done at 07:30 on a Sunday morning. First up – Possibly I was still drunk from last night…. Or perhaps just possibly the tripod wasn’t straight.

Lens flare on a camera with no lens.

There is a pier there somewhere – honest.

A field. Least exciting photograph ever.

Some lessons – don’t shoot into the sun. Guessing exposure is fine but don’t over-expose, under is easier to rescue. Put the camera together better – otherwise you get this weird looking scraggly thing in all your photos:

More to follow since I’ve got 12 rolls of film to churn through!

testing one two

Ben — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:47:09 +0000

Went out with my new pin hole camera this morning to take some photos. I’d forgotten two things.

1.) You don’t get instant results with film. I want to see the pictures but I can’t! Argh! I wonder if Asda will process it…
2.) I’ve got a new computer so I can’t bloody scan the results anyway! Double argh!

Luckily I had my little Leica with me so I could at least do something when I got home! It also gives me something to compare the pinhole shots against.

phone-toe-shop

Ben — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 23:57:29 +0000

This got made when I pointed my phone at a scene and made a photo! Crazy.

pin hole

Ben — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:05:19 +0000

Been in London a couple of times this week working and naturally have to go in shops and spend money.

One of the more unusual purchases was this thing:

Basically it’s a flat pack 35mm pin hole panoramic camera. The sunset looked good tonight so I decided I’d build it and get out to take some pics. Easy right?

Right?

Wrong.

Anyway, fast forward a while and I’m here

Fast forward a bit longer and I’m done.

Sunset long finished and no doubt I won’t get a chance to go out again for ages – so I guess I’ll share any results as and when I get them.

black’s the new black

Ben — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:16:24 +0000

Once upon a time I went to New York two months ago and took loads of pictures but never got around to actually doing anything with them but here is some of them now for your eyes to look at and your brain to hopefully enjoy.

You might be wondering where all the colour is, well there isn’t any, if you’d been to New York loads like what I have you would know that. Silly you.

mooner

Ben — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:14:21 +0000

look I made a photo of the moon, ooooooh. not a naughty moon like a bum, but the moon that is in the sky and is all big and that.

in the district

Ben — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:49:46 +0000

so about a million years ago I went to the lake district and took loads of photos, seems to me that I should share a couple here. If you care, we stayed in Coniston and these were taken at Tarn Hows.

So there you go, a lake in the lake district, the world has gone mad.