Saturday 30th July 2016
Here are some photographs I took during a very short trip to the Czech Republic in mid July. The reason for the trip was that a school friend of ours was getting married in the Czech countryside outside Prague but it was during term-time (Ed is a teacher) so we couldn’t make a longer trip of it. We flew out on the Thursday evening, spent Friday walking around Prague, Saturday with friends at the wedding in a little village called Chodeč (I was taking pictures for them), and then Sunday back in Prague before we had to fly home.
I visited Prague in 1992 with my parents when we lived out in Germany. I was only 6 at the time, and so didn’t fully take in the details, but it was obviously a vastly different experience visiting in 2016. I was pleased to see that carpet puppets and traditional marionettes are still a popular tourist product as they were when I was a child.
I wish we could have spent longer there as there was so much to see, but we still managed to pack in a lot of walking and see all the major sights in Prague itself. One day I’d love to go back and visit Karlovy Vary too. I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson and love his film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ which was inspired by visits to European cities and towns such as Karlovy Vary. I love how bright and colourful the town is!
The photos are a mix of film (Portra 400, Noritsu scanned, Fujicolor C200, self scanned) and digital. If you’d like to know more about each of the photos, they’re hosted over on Flickr and I’ve geotagged them / added information about film and scanning in the tags.
Read more…
Monday 6th June 2016
My RØDE Reel 2016
The deadline for entries to RØDE’s ‘My RØDE Reel 2016′ competition has just passed, so I thought it a good time to reflect on my experience of entering a film competition. True to form, I didn’t get around to filming and editing my short film until the 11th hour. Perfectionism was my main hurdle, as always, but there were a few other issues at play which meant I had to change my plans last minute. I think it’s been a good learning curve though, and so I wanted to write about and share my thoughts on the matter.
From a trip to Wales in April where we filmed some footage for the longer documentary I’m hoping to make.
Filming a running documentary
I’m in the process of making a documentary about my husband Ed’s attempts to break 15 minutes for 5km. At the moment his PB is 15:09, set in the summer of 2015 at a Tipton Harriers Open Graded Meeting, and he’s itching to push his time down further. I’ve been tagging along to nearly every race over the past 6 months to capture race footage – from grim cross country events under flight paths and grey skies (Donnington National Championships in February, I’m looking at you) to blisteringly hot Midlands League events such as Tamworth where Ed has taken it upon himself to gather points for his team and navigate immovable barriers at speed. The steeplechase really is an event for masochists.
I’ve captured lots of footage, but it only makes sense in the grand scheme of a longer documentary. For a 3 minute short film, I felt that the narrative would have been all over the place moving from race to race. As such, by the time May came around I had settled on the idea of focusing on a single race for the My RØDE Reel entry: Highgate Harriers Night of the 10,000m PBs. This is an event that Ed has raced before and I’ve attended as a spectator, but this year it was extra special as the ‘A’ races were also set to be the England Athletics 10,000m championships and decide which athletes would compete at the Olympics this summer.
Thursday 3rd March 2016
In this post I show you how I make my digital images look like they were shot on modern 35mm film. It is one of my most popular blog posts and was most recently updated in February 2018.
In case you want the TL;DR version of events here’s how I do it, largely in camera:
ETTR to minimise digital noise and achieve the correct shadows exposure in camera; use vintage or legacy lenses; boost the luminance in the midtones in post-production; use film presets to mimic the colours of 35mm film stock. Remember though, the most important thing is your base file. No amount of post-production can turn a bad photo into a good one.
If you want to know more of the hows and whys, as well as my suggestions for good quality film emulation presets, read on.Read more…
Tuesday 1st March 2016
These photos were taken during a trip to the Brecon Beacons over February half term. It’s a bit of a tradition for us to head to the mountains during the school holidays. Over February half term, the spring holidays in late March or early April, and then again at some point in August we head either north or south to Snowdonia or the Brecon Beacons. This time it was the Brecons and the plan was to make an ascent to the main ridge for dawn.
We drove down to South Wales on the Monday and climbed the ridge in daylight to make sure that it was safe for us to go up in the dark the next morning. It was the first time we’d climbed Pen y Fan and Corn Du, and even thought we knew it to be a well trodden path, after a hairy anniversary climb in the Glyderau back in August we were feeling extra cautious. It was bitterly cold up on the ridge even in the sunshine, but the views out west over the rest of the range were incredible. Looking up over Corn Du I could make out the moon hanging low in the sky just above the peak.
Read more…
Tuesday 1st September 2015
Back in August, Ed and I spent a week on holiday in Estonia. We stayed in a little studio apartment in Kalamaja, Tallinn, and hired a car for the week so that we could make daytrips out of the city, too. We spent a lot of time in Tallinn itself as it is a beautiful city with lots to see, but we also took daytrips to Haapsalu and Pärnu, and on a third day explored the grounds of Palmse Manor and Viru Bog in Lahemaa National Park. The week we visited, Estonia was experiencing a rare heatwave and so we were on the lookout for shade and water. On the way back from Haapsalu we stopped at Keila waterfall and on the way back from Lahemaa we visited Jägala waterfall, both of which are worth taking the scenic slow route home to see. The photos below are a mix of film and digital. The film photos were taken on Portra 160 and Fujicolor C200, which is why the colours are a little mixed. All of the photos are over on Flickr with geotags if you want to plan your own trip.
Read more…
