The Shores of Mars

  Last weekend my wife and i went up to Maryport in Cumbria to stay with some friends who have recently moved up there.  There were about ten of us camping over in a field behind their house and bouncy castle had been hired to kill the small hours of each morning.

  The weather was glorious on Friday and Saturday, and at night you could see so many stars it was breathtaking.  I quite fancied doing some star trail photos but couldnt sum up the energy to set the gear up.  I regret that now as my plan to do it Saturday night was thwarted by clouds.  After an evening of bouncing and restless sleep we all decided to head to the nearby beach to pass some time and take in some sun.  Now im not one for lying in the sun all day, i get bored and restless so i decided to head for the shore with my friend and his dog.  Fortunately before leaving the campsite i had thought to grab my Diana F+ and a roll of Velvia so i loaded up and started shooting at anything that caught my eye.  After an hour or so we were back at the campsite ready for barbeque and frisbee.

  Instead of sticking around on Sunday i headed straight home as i was feeling rough and just wanted to lie down.  I thought about how my film would turn out.  I knew it would have an extreme colour shift because this is Velvia were talking about! The resulting photos were... red.  And thats an understatement!  Ive had purple Velvia before but never such an intense amount of red.  I must confess that i quite like it.  Who knows what colour my next roll of Velvia will go?

The Ghosts of Industry Past

  Very last minute my wife decided to go to London for a close friends hen meal, suddenly leaving me with a whole day free to entertain myself.  I had a few errands to run including picking up a parcel about twenty minutes drive away.  So I packed up the car and put in a camera and some film just in case and started driving.  Whilst trundling along strumming my fingers lightly on the steering wheel in time to the CD playing through the car speakers I suddenly realised that directly en-route to the parcel depot was an abandoned mill I had been meaning to visit for some time!  Upon arrival at the depot I hastily rummaged through my bags to see if I had packed some black and white film and my light meter.  Thank goodness i had!  So off i went in search of a road leading to the mill.

After a bit of searching (both on-road and on-line) I pulled up outside.  Not wanting to cause suspicion I parked a little further down the road and walked up.  The mill was surrounded by a large fence but fortunately at one point someone had cut a gaping hole into it which I could just walk through.

  I tend to get a little on edge when going to places like this.  Both of  locals seeing me and thinking i'm up to no good and so calling the police, or delinquents who hang around these kinds of places causing mischief.  But fortunately I ran into neither.  I rather fancied trying to get inside but couldn't see any obvious way in so and I didn't want to do any climbing as i was wearing my favorite jeans.  So I decided to just keep outside and see what i could find to shoot.  Fortunately an abandoned shopping trolley proved a worthy subject, as did a traffic barrier which is strange really as I only shot it to finish off the roll of film.

  As i was developing the negatives i was really hoping they would come out ok.  Fortunately my Diana camera didn't let me down and I got some shots that i'm really happy with.