20three » Photography

West Sussex Literary Trail

Owen — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:06:13 +0000

Last month, while the weather was still bright and sunny, we had a days walking and one nights camping along the West Sussex Literary Trail. We met at Christ’s Church railway station and walked along the trail till we got to Amberly, were we set up camp for the night. The days walk was about 15 miles and we had the customary late pub lunch at the White Horse Inn in Pulborough along the way…

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Photos above taken with a Pentax K1000 using 400 ISO Fujifilm. The pic below taken on a HTC mobile.

The campsite near Amberly:

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op / gh / dl

Kevin Meredith: Toy Cameras, Creative Photos: High-end Results from 40 Plastic Cameras

Owen — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:05:50 +0000

I would think that most designers with an eye on the lo-fi will be familiar with the aesthetic of toy cameras. As an arty type with an interest in lo-fi technology and photography I have a couple of toy cameras myself, so when the opportunity came about to review Kevin Meredith’s book on toy cameras – Toy Cameras, Creative Photos: High-end Results from 40 Plastic Cameras (Amazon UK) I was keen to get my hands on it and see what other plastic fantastic cameras are out there.

So what is a toy camera? As Kevin Meredith states in his introduction, it might be a better to ask: “what is a serious camera?”

The answer to that question is simpler, a serious camera is one that has been designed to capture a scene with as much accuracy as possible. The resulting images, while technically perfect, can seem a bit lifeless to some people. Toy cameras are ideal for photographers who don’t want to capture a polished version of the world.

The books setup and approach is straightforward – 40 toy cameras and examples of photographs taken by those cameras. How the book is structured is also simple – Each camera gets a page with an image of, and a few paragraphs about, the camera in question and then several spreads of photography will follow, the photographs illustrating the cameras foibles and quirks. With many images the film type and other details such as the processing technique are given.

The text is informative and succinct. With each camera a little background or description is given, Meredith giving his opinion on the cameras practicality, drawbacks and quirks; for each camera information is given on lens type, aperture, shutter speed, film type, ISO and similar and variant models. The photography throughout the book is excellent – as well as the photography of the author, Meredith has also roped in a load of contributors all who have supplied quality photography.

I was initially surprised at the inclusion of digital cameras, but by Meredith’s own definition a toy camera can be digital and including them supports the inherent inclusiveness of toy cameras. The random ‘happy accidents’ of light leak and vignetting also add to this inclusiveness – no matter what your proficiency in photography the same random results will happen. This is were the divide happens – to embrace such lo-fi photography you have to accept and embrace these random quirks – control freaks should stick to their high-end SLR’s.

The book ends on brief but informative sections on film formats, processing, and toy camera basics: Film speed, shutter speed and aperture.

I don’t have any real criticisms of this book, It is a simple proposition executed well. I would have preferred to have seen larger images of the cameras but that probably says more about me fetishizing cameras than anything else. I did find that the graphical elements of the book - furniture and colour – is a little derivative. It looks like a Lomography product. Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, an Austrian company set up in the early nineties whose name is taken from the former Russian manufacturer LOMO PLC, and their camera the LOMO LC-A, which Lomographische AG distribute around Europe. Lomographische AG have very cleverly promoted and nurtured a large worldwide community whose interests are cheap plastic cameras, soviet imports and processing techniques such as cross processing and redscale. The design throughout Toy Cameras, Creative Photos… echo the Lomography branding used throughout their publications and marketing material. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, in fact from a marketing perspective it is probably the right approach as Lomography is such a recognisable entity and has such a large community. I guess I feel that there has been a missed opportunity for this book to have an identity of it’s own, and break the hegemony Lomographische AG have over lo-fi/toy camera culture. This is a minor gripe though and overall the important bits – the photography and text – are given plenty of space to breath.

For a newcomer to lo-fi photography and toy cameras this book will be a great introduction. To someone like me who has already got the lo-fi camera bug it is still a great buy. There are cameras featured in this book that I never knew existed, the action sampler cameras really stoked my imagination, I can see myself trawling ebay for an Oktomat sometime soon. The Ikimono looks cute too.

This book also works well as a reference book or a source of inspiration – there really is some great photography featured and anyone with an interest in photography, be it lo-fi, digital or film will appreciate the qualities of the images.

This review also appears on The Designer’s Review of Books.

Dark Chamber: Pinhole photography exhibition

Owen — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:03:55 +0000

My photographer friend Nhung Dang has pinhole photography featured in the exhibition: Dark Chamber. (Dimbola Lodge opening on the 1st April 2011) Outsider extraordinaire Billy Childish also has work featured.

Dark Chamber

From the site:

Dark Chamber is a new exhibition of pinhole photography which opens at Dimbola Lodge on 1st April 2011. The exhibition brings together a selection of photographs by Billy Childish, Nhung Dang, Wolf Howard and Dave Wise.

Selecting pinholes made over the past decade Dark Chamber aims to reveal something of the daily lives, travels and interests of the respective photographers.

Find out more here.

Science Fiction book covers: a small selection

Owen — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:33:53 +0000

Following on from Grahams post about sci-fi and in particular his appreciation of pulp sci-fi cover art, I have scanned and uploaded a small selection of sci-fi books I have picked up over the years.

I have got round to reading most of them but I choose them for the cover art and a few remain unread. Many of these books were bought from Rainbow books on Trafalgar street, Brighton. A few by Azimov I picked up in Solway books in Kircudbright.

I have added the designer or illustrator if one is credited.

06 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

07 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

08 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

09 Cover illustration: Chris Foss

13 Cover photograph: Dennis Rolf

14 Cover photograph: Dennis Rolf

15 Cover illustration: David Pelham

17 Cover illustration: Tony Roberts

18 Cover illustration: Paul Stinson

23 Cover illustration: Paul Monteagle

The Monarch’s Way: Sussex

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:11:17 +0000

The Monarch’s Way is a route that Charles II took when escaping from Oliver Cromwell after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Part of this route is along the South Downs. For more information visit – http://www.monarchsway.50megs.com/

A group of us decided to spend one night camping and two days walking part of the Monarch’s Way, starting from Amberley and ending in Shoreham-by-Sea. We lo-impact camped on the South Downs using Hammocks, Tarps and Bivvi Bags.

Photographs taken with a Holga, shot on out of date Velvia film, X processed.

The Monarch's Way

gh & op

Photos of Saltdean coast

Owen — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:58:09 +0000

I finally got myself out of Brighton for a while at the Easter weekend. Being a confirmed pedestrian I don’t often get the chance to visit the Sussex countryside, and Brighton can seem a very small place sometimes – gives me cabin fever.

So, the wife and I took the number 12a bus to Rottingdean, just out of (but officially part of) Brighton. After a disappointing pub lunch at the Badgers Watch we walked along the cliff tops to Saltdean, were we did a U turn and walked back along the seafront back to Rottingdean and the bus stop.

I took my Holga and a couple of rolls of film, here are the best shots:

Saltdean cliff tops

Saltdean sea walk

Rottingdean bus stop

Saltdean cliffs (film slipped with this one)

Saltdean cliffs

Booth Museum of Natural History

Owen — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:41:58 +0000

The Booth museum is just down the road from were I live – it’s a Brighton institution – The collection housed in the museum is an extensive array of British birds from the 19th century, all housed in mini dioramas. Edward Booth built the museum in 1874 and bequeathed the museum and collection to the local authority in 1890. I took my Holga down there the other day and took these shots:

Booth Museum, Brighton

Eric Gill, a onetime Brighton resident, used to visit the museum when he was a child. Here is an exert from the biography ‘Eric Gill’ by Fiona MacCarthy:

There were many opportunities in Brighton for Ruskinian self-improvement. Just around the corner from the Gill’s, in Dyke road, stood the Booth Bird Museum (known in the Gill household as the birds’ museum, since the children imagined it belonging to the hundreds of stuffed birds displayed within it, Warbles and Buzzards and Bitterns).

The Booth museum was and still is an extraordinary monument to Victorian enthusiasm, the urge to collect and collate. Edward Booth, who formed the collection, was a wealthy man whose preoccupation with birds approached mania: he once kept a train under steam in Brighton station for a week waiting to rush him to the highlands as soon as his gillies had informed him that the white-tailed eagles were nesting.

(I had no idea what a ‘gillie’ was so I looked it up – here’s the definition from dictionary.com: ‘a male attendant or personal servant to a Highland chieftain.’)

I recently found out from the Brighton Prestonville blog the sad news that the opening hours were being reduced because of cuts in public spending, a situation that would be hard to revert. You can read more about the situation and find out how to help here.

Photographer’s stamp

Owen — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:08:17 +0000

Just before Christmas I designed a graphic for photographer Nhung Dang. She had a clear idea what she wanted, a homage to the Carte De Visit, popular in the 1800’s. In particular Nhung wanted me to produce a graphic that mimicked the photographers stamp usually placed on the back of the Carte De Visit. These stamps are a wonderful example of typographic execution in the decades before Modernism finally took hold of popular culture and revolutionized typographic design.

Here is the graphic I produced:

Here are some of the original designs I ripped off used as reference.

Holga Experiments

Owen — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:00:39 +0000

Inspired by my photographer mate Nhung Dang I recently got myself Holga medium format camera. I love lo-fi tech, analogue shit etc and the accidental light leak and dodgy lens of the Holga gives you unpredictability and creates those ‘happy accidents’ that digital cameras and hi tech equipment have done their best to erase.

Here are a few images from the first couple of rolls I shot.

My back yard

Lightning Bolt, Brighton, 11.12.09

St Anne's Wells Gardens, Brighton

Photographer: Nhung Dang

Owen — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:00:00 +0000

I have always been an acolyte of handmade tools, deliberate restrictions, dogmas and other self imposed limitations that can stimulate the creative process. This might sound contradictory but a self imposed restrictive methodology can produce interesting results that could have never come about any other way. The manifesto of Dogme 95 and the cut-up technique (also called fishbowling for some weird reason) used by Bowie and William Burroughs are two examples of a self imposed set of rules or a tightly defined working process used for creative purposes.

..So all this brings me onto the photography of Nhung Dang. Nhung is a prolific photographer, but I am particularly inspired by her pinhole photography. There is something nostalgic and timeless to her photography, in both subject matter and appearance, almost like looking at an alternative past through the warm fug of memory.

Nhung makes her own cameras and her obvious skill with them has produced some amazing atmospheric imagery. There is something of the outsider (art-brut) in the idea of handmade implements, whether this is my romantic notion of the ideal of ‘craft’ or a celebration of the rejection of technology, who knows, but when I look at Nhung’s photos I want to make cameras out of biscuit tins and take photos of butchers…

I have chosen a couple of images for this post but please check out the following links to see more of Nhung’s work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhungsta/

Nhung’s ‘The Lost Promenade’ project – “Starting with the pieces around the edges…”

A short interview with Nhung Dang

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