As a Skoda driver myself, when I enter Randalstown from the M2, I’m always intrigued by this vintage Skoda that’s seen better days—like, maybe during the disco era?
Now it’s living its best life as a floral display, proving that even rust can blossom! Who knew a decrepit old scrapper could be so… (ahem) ‘blooming beautiful?’ LOL. So, I walked (yes – WALKED) out towards the Ballygroobey Roundabout, armed with with the Leica C-Lux camera to get a quick snap, because even old Skodas deserve a moment in the spotlight!
The popularity of running as a leisure activity is growing exponentially. And runners seem to actually like being photographed.
I’ve been photographing these athletes for around five years now, and I use the Fujifilm X-T5, with a 100-300mm lens. I open the lens aperture to its fullest extent, which at 300mm is around f5.6, which reduces the depth of field and give a nice bokeh effect in the background. I set the shutter speed to 1/500th sec to freeze the movement, and that usually means an ISO of 1600 or thereabouts, – depending on the light quality, of course.
Look! It’s Dougal the Old English Sheepdog from the Magic Roundabout, trotting along the forest path and getting himself all dirty. I shot him with a Fujifilm X-T5.
Old English Sheepdog
(Don’t worry – Florence and Mr Zebedee weren’t around, so they didn’t see it happening. I think I’ve got away with it.)
I realise most of you are too young to know what I’m on about! lol
I’ve been photographing so much black and white material recently, and experimenting with various film stocks and developing solutions, that I thought I might have been neglecting my lovely Fujifilm X-T5 a little. So, in case it was feeling a little neglected, I made it two nice measures of espresso.
Needless to say, after I’d showed the coffee to the camera, and made a few images, I felt compelled to drink the stuff. It would be rude not to. Or, as I remarked to my Much Better Half, when she asked me what on earth I was doing, “One cannot simply MAKE coffee, – one MUST photograph it!”
Isn’t it great when you shoot them and they have both feet off the ground. Incidentally, this image was made at a distance of around 150 yards from camera position.
For those who like to know these things, the image was shot at F=290mm, f/5.6 @ 1/500th second on ISO500. The aperture was wide open to allow a shallow depth of field, hence the bokeh (the fall-off in focus) visible on the ground, while the faster shutter speed froze the feet in a fraction of a second – a moment in time. The ISO was set at 500 to achieve a 1/3rd stop over-exposure, and CLICK.
I spent an hour at the annual Randalstown Community Festival, an event aimed at bringing the community together in the town centre, for a night of free open air entertainment and fun, with cuddly animals and funfair rides for the kids, a mini-market selling novelties and food, and a stage featuring local artists.
Raindrops in monochrome, shot on the Nikon F100 film camera, F-50mm, f/3.5 @ 1/500th sec, after a long heavy rainy day – typical of our Northern Ireland summers…
Photographed on (out of date) Ilford HP5 film, ISO400, and developed in FD10 for 7 minutes. Negatives scanned.
So, there was me, taking a stroll through the beautiful city centre of Lisburn (there’s a joke – boarded up shops and empty buildings – the place looks decrepit, a shadow of its former self). I got up to Castle Street, where once stood the Co-Op supermarket, and the big NIE electricity showroom, and Frederick Thomas Prams and Nursery Goods, and I noticed that amid the dereliction, there were ridiculous balls of some sort strung across the street. I decided to make an image – this is it – mediocre enough, like Lisburn itself.
All that makes it interesting is what happened next.
Another in my occasional series featuring cameras in my rather eclectic collection. Here’s my Brownies! (For those of a more recent generation, – Brownies are NOT a crumbly dark confection!)
The earliest Brownies were made by Eastman Kodak in the first years of the 20th century, and production continued right up to the 1950s. My maternal grandfather, the late Bob Kirk owned one of these in the 1960s, and I can well remember family caravan holidays in Millisle, and lots of photos being captured with the ‘Box Brownie.’
Ballymena, the ‘Middle Town’ in Co.Antrim, is known for its shopping streets and its churches, and its friendly people… But tropical sunsets, – in January? Yet here’s the sight that caught my eye as I turned the car into Ballymena Showgrounds car-park on Monday 29th January 2024…
Such a stunning sight deserved to be photographed, even if the only camera I had with me (apart from my black and white loaded film camera) was an iPhone 12.
Portraits2Go.co.uk 