photography

52 Rolls Weeks 15: My Grandad’s folding Brownie /  by Jacqui Booth

Well, I said they’d be some cheats, and seeing as I’m falling behind then this is going to have to do!  I started this roll of film last summer and because the camera belonged to my Grandad Booth, I wanted to run family shots through it…and these things take time.

But with a squeal of delight which alarmed the baby and just about shifted the sorrow caused by my realisation that I’d wasted a frame AND most likely blurred a couple of shots in snap happy haste, the roll of Neopan was ready to meet its Rodinal.

So, I was kitchen bound…the soundtrack was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Tender Pray and much singing and dancing was done between agitations.  This is how Saturday mornings should be.

And lo, there were pictures!  Pictures of the wife and descendants of the Booth man himself.  Not all of the family by a long shot – I may have to round them up.  And enter into some sort of unholy alliance with a tripod…

This was risky – a indoor shot with only bright sunlight from the window to the right.  That’s my expectant sister with my Grandma.  I should probably have left using the camera to her to be fair – she must have used it before!

And here’s a motley selection of 1st and 2nd generation descendants – with a 3rd generation in utero.  I can’t have taken the 2nd pic as I’m in it!  I suspect Mr Z was called to help again.  I may have told him to stand too far back.

And later, here’s my newly adopted fave pub for lunch – you’ll notice that there’s now four generations all out in the open!

And a few months later, here she is valiantly tolerating her first day in my sole care.  And I was treated to smiles.  And I messed it up!  Still, I’ve tested it and I can fit a tripod under her pushchair.  Next time.

Note to self:  Just stop it with the light leaks!

52 Rolls Week 13: Holga Wide Pinhole Camera. Cornwall /  by Jacqui Booth

Alright, this is chronologically wrong, but what the heck.  April has been mental, to say the least.  This last week has been rather wonderful photographically, give or take Week 12’s disaster.

As I mentioned, I spent three nights at the Eden Project as a participant on the Big Lunch Extras course for people who do astounding stuff in their communities.  It was pretty intense and I responded to the challenge sensibly by having six whole hours sleep on the first night.  I followed this up with two nights of five hours kip.  What do you know – these were nice people to be around.  BUT despite being so tired that I was more or less mute until lunchtime on World Pinhole Day, I managed to get a few seconds out of the hectic schedule to snap the iconic biomes.

Below is part of our small regional group, on the way to another workshop.  There were sixty of us in all, from all around the UK.  The loon in the middle is my mate Lisa Pidgeon, who, when she’s not sticking her bum in the air, is the brains behind Little Bird SOS – who we were working hard for all weekend.  Well, in the daytime at least

And then it was time for us all to make our way home.  Except I sort of didn’t.  After travelling so far the draw of a day’s camera play was just too much, and after so pathetically thankfully being allowed early access to my Premier Inn room in St Austell and a couple of hours dozing whilst the sea winked at me from outside my window, I headed out for a walk along the coast.  THEN I SLEPT.  The next morning I stuffed some Eden Project chocolate into my gob and headed out behind the hotel, followed the fence until I found a me-sized hole and hopped into this quarry.  Though I did make my way all the way down into it, this is taken from the lip of the quarry using a travel sized two legged tripod that for some reason I still have, like its broken leg is going to miraculously heal or something…

So, this is what happens when you use your own knees as a tripod, whilst trying not to slip over the edge and sort of hide from the quarry landrover.

And, thank f**k, they more or less worked!

Massive massive thanks goes to Tony S who got in touch after reading Week 11 and gave me a beautiful Agfa Isolette and the stonking Holga Wide Pinhole Camera that was used for this post.  I really appeciate this and am very much looking forward to not messing up the next Agfa film…

52 Rolls Week 12: The film that could have been… /  by Jacqui Booth

Except it so utterly wasn’t.

It was full of pictures of the Eden Project where I’d been for four amazing days as a participant on the Big Lunch Extras course for people who do astounding stuff in their communities (and they let me in too).

It was full of coastal paths, deserted beaches and an abandoned quarry that I’d explored alone, daring myself to stay an extra day and enjoy a bit of freedom far from home.

Hell, it even had conclusive proof that fairies existed.

Then I got tired and carelessly pulled the whole thing out of the dark bag with the backing paper.


This blog was first published on 52rolls.net

52 Rolls Week 11: Zeiss Ikon colour 120. The pits. /  by Jacqui Booth

Due to only having enough chemicals to cover 35mm film, not 120, I eventually had to send this to Peak Imaging for processing. The delay in popping this in the post meant that there’s been a strange hiatus between taking these photos and adding them here.  In terms of writing about them this isn’t good.  My mood has changed.  I’ve been really busy making myself a website at last, and sorting out some Instagram snaps for an exhibition at Brewdog in Leicester – plus all the other delights things that having two jobs and two kids entails.

Anyway, anyone who’s seen my Instagram stream will know that I’m not that keen on where I live.  A trail of photos entitled ‘Leicestershire: A Difficult Place to Love’ has most likely pissed off anyone who believes that Leicestershire is the bees knees.

Week 11 saw me heading to Watermead Park – basically wasteland, sandwiched between a few overgrown villages that reaches almost into the city itself.  The reasons for not really liking this place go on and on – in the last year my visits have been marred by me being hassled, meeting quite a scared runner who’d warned me away from an area from which she’d just been harrassed, giant clouds of gnats, floods, the vast amount of litter that hangs from the trees and the river banks after the floods and a path being closed whilst a poor woman was fished out of a lake.  Add that to my slight apprehension some years ago as a man with an entire spider web face tattoo appeared out of the mist one dawn and the traditional drowning of dog owners whenever the lakes ice over, then it’s a pretty grim place to hang out.  It’s not the first time I’ve taken pics here – a previous lot included a dead fox, a loo seat and a sodden stuffed hippo.  The weir quite often harbours a bizarre catch of ghee oil drums and coconuts.  And on my last visit I nearly trod on a condom.

But it’s within walking distance and vaguely countrysidey. It isn’t countryside of course.  It’s flooded gravel pits, but I’ll take it.

And sometimes – just sometimes – it can feel like an escape.

This blog was first published on 52rolls.net

52 Rolls Week 10: Polaroid Lifts. Sort of. /  by Jacqui Booth

It’s all got a bit manic here and I’m making some mistakes with my film choices.  Lots of them.  Basically I’m using whatever comes my way…which means that often I can’t get the processing done.  I need a batch of colour chemicals for 120 film – but I don’t drive and postage rates are high so they might as well be on the moon.

SO.  Keep it simple – do some polaroids on some expired film and lift em…job done.  I even watched a tutorial.

What follows is a how NOT to polaroid lift.

First of all, the pics turned out okay – praps a bit greyish blue, as the film is expired as usual to keep costs down, but better than last time.  I had pictures.

So – I looked at the tutorial closely, with squinty eyes and everything – my, that water looked nice and warm.  So very hot water was used.

By the end of the first evening I’d breathed in a lot of chemicals, peeled some layers and poked them around with a paintbrush, then chased my etherial gel like pictures round a developing tray or two, caught them on some different types of paper, hung them up in the garage and gone to bed feeling like quite a happy lassy.

Fortunately, the garage door was locked with the key in the morning so I couldn’t check them before I went out.  I can’t unlock the bloody thing myself, so it wasn’t until the evening that I discovered that all four of them had DIED in the night.

An anguished tweet was issued.

The next night I did nothing.

BUT – this thing has to be done.  So, I pulled up my big girl pants and thought really hard about how I could mess around with the pics without actually killing them.

This time, it seems prudent to do a ‘before’shot.

The crazy decorative edging was peeled off, and then what was left was popped into some warm water.  This meant I could peel off the black square that makes the backing.  I might have done this a little early…here’s another Leicester beauty spot!

And, as threatened, another photo of the new Little Bird SOS studio that we’ve been settling in to this last couple of weeks…well, mostly.  My bedroom is FULL OF WOOL, as is the dining room table.  Oops.

Anyway, for the last two Polaroids (below) I just kept the backing on and took off the fiddly silver strips.  Welcome to Polaroid half assed peels.  They’re scanned on black paper so you can imagine what they look like a little better.  I had a brief escape to the moors just South of Hebden Bridge as the House Mamil wanted to do a crazy bike ride.  The kids and I tagged along so I could navigate my first solo grown up hike.  Okay, that’s cheating really as one of my offspring is bigger than me and just as good with a map, but hey – we still got a bit lost.  If it wasn’t for my compass we’d still be there (I stupidly didn’t listen to the nice hippy wizard man who stopped for a chat).  This lack of navigational prowess/listening to good advice is worrying as the lanky offspring is away for the weekend soon to do his Duke of Edinburgh award.  Hmm.  At least I know he’s very calm in the face of being really quite lost and gradually sinking deeper and deeper into a marsh.

I rather liked some of the leftover backing papers too!

And that’s it.  I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be visiting this again in a hurry, but you never know!


This blog was first published on 52rolls.net