So as graphic designer why have I made this blog about photography? It is about keeping myself excited and interested in things other than work. I am far from the worlds best photographer but it is something that I enjoy and that I want to more of and with than just sitting images in a box or folder until I die and then have them thrown out. With a blog I can also try to improve my writing skills and try to critically examine what are the things that I am doing in my photography that I think are working and what I'm doing that sort of sucks.
I do not really have a niche or a special style, I really just like to wander around and photograph things that I find interesting. You wont find a lot of shots of people, although I do like to photograph people, I do a lot of that for work (it is on the list, kicking around like this blog had been). I like details, textures, contrasts, gradations, type, decay, patina, grain, foliage, flora, fauna, minimalism, maximalism ( I just made that up, spell check hates me), water, weather, cars, trains, planes, architecture and interestingness.
So high school was where I first got interested in taking photos, and not just taking them, I really liked the darkroom as well. The chemicals, the smell, cracking the developing tank open to see the negatives and watching the print image appear in the developer tray. The initial image on this post is from that time. Agfa APX 100, it would have been developed in Rodinal, everything was at school. Back then (the early nineties) we needed to buy a roll of Ilford film because the ends could be popped off the cassettes. Once you had used that roll, the cassette could be reused for bulk loaded film. FP4 or APX, whatever was cheapest at the time, you just put in your couple of bucks and that money went to buy the next bulk roll for classes. Of course we were all terribly honest and never tried to squeeze a few extra frames on to the roll.
Here is a small retrospective of other images I have taken over the journey. They are just ones that I liked as I was having a browse through my archive. I will probably expand on some of the shoots that these came from in future blog posts so stay tuned.
The next shot is from a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains in NSW it would have been about 1987 on Kodak VR100 film. I have rescanned this one and other old photos recently with a digital camera, macro lens and film holder set up. It works really well to get the photos into a digital format that I can share.
A scan from a Kodachrome taken in the early nineties at Maldon in Victoria. Perfect imperfection. This one would have been with a Pentax 28mm f2.8 which I had at the time. I liked it and it stayed on the camera most of the time. Kodachrome was a great film too. I really liked the colour or color in Kodak speak and the sharpness. It was also good that when you purchased the normal non-pro version, processing was included. You shot your film then put the exposed roll in the mailer that came in the box and then sent it in to Kodak. A week or two later a neat yellow box of mounted slides would arrive in the post for you.
Here we have some typography from a machine that made typography. Taken at Lake Goldsmith steam rally in 2012.
This is Westmere in the Western Districts of Victoria. There would probably be lots of matching station buildings at small towns dotted around Victoria. Photo is taken on Ektar 100 film.
The final one for this post is from Fort Nepean at the Point Nepean National Park. The national park is on the eastern headland at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. Because it was originally a department of defence site, it was protected from development. It is very worthwhile visiting the park, as well as the defence installations, which date back to before world war one, the site of Melbourne's original quarantine station is also protected there. This shot was taken on Agfa Vista 200 and it shows the inside of the power generation building.
I'll be back with more thoughts and photos next time so check back soon.
