South Africa – Subjektiv

thoughts as deep as the blue sea

December 9, 2017December 10, 2017Posted in Digital, Mobile, Photography, TravelTagged Mossel Bay, South Africa, Travel2 Comments

Spotted this guy sitting on the rocks and having a think to himself.

Bohemia Lies by the Sea – Ingeborg Bachmann

If houses here are green, I'll step inside a house. 
If bridges here are sound, I'll walk on solid ground. 
If love's labour's lost in every age, I'll gladly lose it here.

If it's not me, it's one who is as good as me.

If a word here borders on me, I'll let it border. 
If Bohemia still lies by the sea, I'll believe in the sea again. 
And believing in the sea, thus I can hope for land.

If it's me, then it's anyone, for he's as worthy as me.
I want nothing more for myself. I want to go under.

Under – that means the sea, there I'll find Bohemia again. 
From my grave, I wake in peace. 
From deep down I know now, and I'm not lost.

Come here, all you Bohemians, seafarers, dock whores, and ships 
unanchored. Don't you want to be Bohemians, all you Illyrians, 
Veronese and Venetians. Play the comedies that make us laugh

until we cry. And err a hundred times, 
as I erred and never withstood the trials, 
though I did withstand them time after time.

As Bohemia withstood them and one fine day 
was released to the sea and now lies by water.

I still border on a word and on another land, 
I border, like little else, on everything more and more,

a Bohemian, a wandering minstrel, who has nothing, who 
is held by nothing, gifted only at seeing, by a doubtful sea, 
       the land of my choice.

into the night

November 22, 2017Posted in Digital, Photography, TravelTagged on the road, South Africa, TravelLeave a comment

Harrow Camera: Ilford HP5 Plus 400

November 6, 2016November 6, 2016Posted in Analogue, PhotographyTagged 120mm, Analogue, black and white, Film, Harrow camera, Ilford, Italy, London, South Africa, SpainLeave a comment

In my gear talk post, I mentioned a bakelite shell camera similar to Lomo Diana I’ve been using for a while now.Because the seal on these aren’t great, you often get light leaks, which in some cases adds a nice touch, but in other cases can ruin your pictures. It’s been hit and miss with this camera. I’ve tried a few kinds of film, all of which seem to require very bright light conditions to achieve good results with this camera, no matter if the film in question is described as suitable for low light conditions. In this post I’m sharing some of the results I’ve achieved with Ilford’s HP5 Plus 400 (120 mm). These images were taken in Spain, Italy, South Africa, Berlin and London.

Konica C35: Film 2

November 6, 2016December 28, 2016Posted in Analogue, PhotographyTagged 400ASA, Analogue, Bristol, Cardiff, Film, Kodak Gold, Konica C35, London, South Africa1 Comment

After seeing the results I achieved with my first film using my new Konica C35, I was excited to take this camera with me on a trip to South Africa in October this year. Big blue skies, bright sunshine, incredible scenery; all the good things. Along with some amazing landscape shots, I took what I felt were some potentially great portraits of people. When I came to the end of the roll, and started winding it back, I felt a bit of tension (that’s what she said), and then an awful snap. Not just happy with snapping pictures, I also want to snap the actual film! Boom, tish. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I waited until it was dark, thinking I’d open the camera and unwind the film from the spool by hand. Unfortunately all I found when I opened it, was a mangled piece of film three frames long. It slowly dawned on me that the film was never rolling onto the spool, while I was taking what I thought were all these amazing pictures. Maximum bummer, man.

So technically, the pictures below are the best of from my third roll of film (400 ASA Kodak Gold), which I also managed to snap when rolling it back into the film cartridge! How strong am I? I lost a few frames bordering the broken section (again, bummer), but managed with the help of my local developing lab to save most of the pictures. I must be doing something wrong when feeding the film into the spool initially, or the tension on the winding mechanism must be too great. Still scratching my head on this one. On the same roll of film, I took a few casual shots of a friend’s band. I was really eager to see how these came out, but with the relatively slow film speed and low light conditions (very overcast, late afternoon), they turned out rather blurry. Maybe best to not volunteer to take someone’s wedding or graduation pictures when you’re still learning. At least I’ll have future opportunities to photograph the band. 🙂 The pictures below were taken in Cardiff, Bristol, London and the Freestate in South Africa.