My City

  I  suddenly found myself with a free evening as my wife had been reminded of a tea party she was meant to attend after work.  As its winter and the night comes ever earlier i decided to do one of my favourite things which is wander around the city in the dark with my ipod on and my camera in hand.  It's not as scary as you might think, i have never been hassled my yobs or anything so as long as im careful i can seem to avoid harm.

  I loaded my Bronica SQ-A with some Ilford FP4+ and headed out to some of my usual spots.  For some unknown reason i am always drawn to car parks at night.  I just love the contrast you can get shooting on the different floors, and if you make it to the roof theres always something to shoot. Whilst wandering round the Fish Market car park i stumbled on a police car parked up in a corner with a snoozing officer inside.  I wonder what he thought when i pulled a huge black cube out of my bag and mounted it on a tripod...

  After spending some time in the car parks i wandered the streets for a bit.  One enjoyable experiment to do is have your earphones in but without music playing.  Its amazing what people say when they think you cant hear them.

   Just around the corner from the Fish Market car park is the fish market loading bay where all the fish is taken off the lorries daily and put on display in the market.  I had never shot here before but though id check it out.  I quite liked it in there apart from the smell and a ridiculous amount of litter strewn all over the floor.  I took a shot looking along the loading bay and then got down onto the floor to try out the f2.8 aperture on my lens.

   When i got home i realised i hade made a slight error as Ilford FP4+ (an iso 125 film) cant really be pushed to 400 iso using Rodinal.  So after some research i decided to stand develop for 2 hours at 1:125 and hopefully id get useable negatives.  And above are the results, no alterations in the scanner or photoshop or anything like that.  I love how they have come out.  Maybe not the best pictures in the world but i love the tones and i love the high contrast.  I may stick to stand developing all my black and white films in the future.

  So next time you find yourself with a free evening why not head out onto the streets and see what you can find.  Contact me when you have something, id love to see your results.