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.’
Another example from my weird collection of cameras and photographic bits and pieces gathered up from friends, relatives and charity shops. This little film compact camera is the Ricoh XF-30. Mine is black – but I’ve seen a few nice red examples on the second hand market.
Rarely is there anywhere to park a car in the vicinity of Queen’s University, – parking spaces are few and hotly contested, but on 27th December 2023, I was driving through the area on return from an appointment in South Belfast, when to my surprise, I found an empty space, right beside the Students’ Union. I quickly parked, and stepped out with the Fujifilm X-T30 fitted with an 18-135mm zoom lens.
The Queen’s University, Belfast.
Photographed with a Fujifilm X-T30, F=18mm, f/5.6 @1/125th sec on ISO250.
Because it was still student holidays, traffic around the university was light, and that helped quite a lot with the photography. I stood outside the Student’s Union to capture the main image, but it wasn’t long before some human interest occurred.
In September, 2023 I visited the Belfast Book Fair, held this year in Methodist College (Methody) at Stranmillis. There was little in interest this year, by way of books, (mostly Irish history etc), but there were a couple of dealers selling antique postcards, and I spent quite a time trawling through them – with no intention of buying, of course, (some of these antique postcards can be rather expensive), despite the enthusiastic sales techniques of one of the vendors, who mistook my prolonged browsing for a potential sale. I was looking for photographic inspiration! Actually, I was sorry I hadn’t taken a notebook and pen!
Continuing the occasional series featuring my eclectic collection of cameras, here’s the
Jiffy Kodak VR Art Deco Camera
This fascinating little camera came into my possession when some of the remaining possessions of my wife’s late grandfather Sam Scott were being sorted through, quite a while after his death.
This week in Northern Ireland saw yet another political agenda being promoted and furthered by the skilful use of photography. To say that ‘the camera never lies‘ is no longer true in the age of digital manipulation, but was it ever? The simple shifting of the photographer’s position can change the perspective of the viewer, flatten distance, and be used to make a political point.
In Northern Ireland, the building of a bonfire, and the lighting of the fire on the 11th July is a tradition, long held among certain sections of the Unionist or Loyalist community. It is an expression of loyalist culture. When I was a boy, back the 60s and 70s, little bonfires were made in each street, no more than little piles of planks and scrap. But the local authorities tried to regulate the tradition. The street bonfires left a mess that needed to be cleaned up, and sometimes caused damage to properties. Often the materials that were burned were far from helpful in controlling pollution; tyres were often burned, pouring out toxic smoke into the air. To solve these problems, some councils began to offer grants to buy pallets, which would burn more cleanly, on condition that the street bonfires were replaced with centralised pyres, and pollutants excluded. This led to pyres like this one in Newtownards:
Fujifilm X-T4, F=25mm, f/14 @ 1/125th Sec on ISO250
It was this massive bonfire that became the subject of a media scam, fuelled by deceptive photography. Apparently this bonfire in Newtownards was built RIGHT BESIDE THE LOCAL FIRE STATION! An image was produced to prove the point, The media picked up on the story immediately, – radio programmes, a Twitter storm, newspaper articles, with the collective might of the left lining up to demand that the bonfire be dismantled and removed.
On 9th July 2021 I reproduced the photograph which caused the ‘offence’ – an image showing the ‘alleged’ juxtaposition of the pyre and the fire station.
Fujifilm X-T4, F=33mm, f/13 @ 1/125th sec, on ISO250
It looks authentic. There’s no Photoshop manipulation, the image is ‘as shot.’ But what has happened is that camera position is flattening the distance between the bonfire and the Fire Station. It is deliberately deceptive, and it set the local news agenda for a whole morning, before some locals pointed out that the distance between the fire and the station is considerable, with a stretch of waste ground and a four lane road between! Still, the Left got a whole morning of free publicity and a chance to pour more odium on the working class loyalist community of the town.
Tim (my son) who is a coffee aficionado, bought me some ’38 Coffee’ whole beans for Christmas. I’d duped him into thinking I was getting a brand new professional Gaggia from Santa, and he kindly thought that I’d need some beans for the big day – and of course to make him a decent cup of Americano. I was lying, of course – a serious breach of ethics, and one of those conscience riddled challenges that we all face from time to time.
We walked through Portrush this afternoon, and then drove out through Bushmills to have afternoon coffee at the fabulous BOTHY COFFEE cafe at White Park Bay. Iv’e spent so much time with a camera in Portrush, so I wanted to get some different shots, something fresh and original from a familiar location. Here’s a few of my efforts…
The Liverpool Supporter’s Back Alley/.
I looked down this entry and noticed a Liverpool FC flag hanging from a window, giving a tiny splash colour to an otherwise bland scene.
Portraits2Go.co.uk 