Aime moi moins, mais aime moi long temps

Paris. Paris has had a weird effect on me and my girlfriends. I must be getting the blues or something there because it usually makes me split up with them. I go back in time… what? six years ago? February… just before Valentines Day. My girlfriend at the time (S) was a psychologist in a prison. She had a 9 months old baby and lived too far away from me. But somehow we dated for nearly 4 months. I met the parents, we spent Christmas together and planned this lovely long romantic weekend in Paris on Valentines.

That was not such a good idea… planning ahead I mean. January was tough… I realised I was happier to the baby that to see her… She had started planning my life and our life together… big things likes babies and shit… February came and we flew to Paris.

Paris in one shot - taken with a disposable camera

She wanted to spend most days inside and be romantic… I could not bear her physical presence… in Paris… In Paris I was feeling I wanted to be free, free and hungry… I wanted to see this and that, spend nights in lovely cafes with life music and observe beautiful, chic people… the kind you probably don’t see anywhere else but in Paris.

Though I had a proper camera at the time, I must have forgotten it or something because I ended up buying a cheap disposable camera in the airport. As I said, despite the miserable weather I preferred walking and spending time out rather than in the dirty hotel in Montmartre… I mean… don’t get me wrong… I love Montmarte. It is my favourite place in Paris. But the hotel was crap and our room had no windows!!

Armed with my cheap camera, I was running away from a failed relationship, which I wanted to end.  We did to get romantic that weekend. And after we got back to the UK I let and never saw her again. Barely thought about her again. Months after I developed the photos from that camera… one strikingly beautiful photo stood out in my eye: an image of the Eifel Tower in the distance, with a close up on a cigarettes tray at the Trocadero…

Beautifully disposed

Disposable cameras can hold small treasures in them. Bought usually out of frustration when one forgets their proper gear at home, they are extremely inadequate and limited in what you can actually do with them. Most people associate them with cheap holidays… I have heard that from a few of my former football mates. You usually buy them (the disposable cameras) from the airport of from a WHSmith in any railway station.

Yet, they hold something almost magical to them… because  every now and again you get that one photo, or two photos that are breathtaking… Perfect instant shots… a good way to trap reality in one shot of magic.

Beautifully disposed - The Irish Sea on fire

One day, when I was still living in New Brighton with the Irish Sea at my doorstep I went to Somerfield (!!!) and bought a disposable camera. I thought… well I have experimented with pretty much every shit camera so far… let’s try this as well. I have fond memories of a wonderful photo taken with a disposable camera… years ago, in Paris…

Wide shut

No matter how much I try to shut myself to the world I feel as if every little gust of wind is blowing away my castle. A good indication that the storm is inside and has nothing to do with the outside world. Exposed to my own darkness and fear I sink into terrifying masochistic tendencies. I fear today will happen again. I know the depths of my darkness…

This morning I picked up the camera when I left for work. When you take a photo of the storm it stays still doesn’t it?

I’ll stop the storm with a click.

There's a storm coming baby

Looking in the mirror

I think this is partly what we do when we look through that viewfinder sometimes…  click!! … and there goes the selfportrait. I know this because I do it from time to time. I hold my camera as if it is a magic box where an upside image of me is trapped inside. And I press the shutter again and again until I finally release it.

Self portrait

 An old one I presume. How would a new one look? Would I wear glasses? Would I smile nicely or embarassed? Would I be wind through the autumn leaves, would I be rain banging on my bedroom window? or some passerby’s feet crushing a snail?

I have no sea now. No mirror. My magic box entraps buses and cycle routes…

Imminent Cr(u)ash

Today I wear a mask and the shutter refuses to click. I feel lonely all of the sudden. And tired.

Kata ton Daimona...

How Polaroid got under my skin I

My journey through photography has been extremely amateuresque. I don’t own high-end top of the class cameras, I haven’t done any photography course… A while ago someone came stumping into my life, telling me about Polaroid. She said she could not ake digital photos any longe r because she can only see through polaroid “viewfinders”. When she left my life she left a polaroid camera at my place, an SX-70, old but apparently very rare. The camera was loaded with 8 shots of Polaroid SX-70 film, expired and again very rare.

After months of keeping the camera hidden away (with her other things she carelessly left behind), one day I decided to look through that magical viewfinder she was talking about. So I took the camera out and started shooting Polaroids.

This is my first ever Polaroid photograph:

Vanilla Sky

A while after I asked google to help me and tell memore about Polaroid: cameras, films, etc. Then I begged e-bay for a Land Camera using peel-off film (Type 100) and for exprired Sx-70 or Time Zero Films. It has to be said that the SX-70 camera only works with these rare most expensive expired films (as production stopped years ago). But people do lots of things to get round difficulties and still use their apparently usless cameras. Some use 1 or 2stops ND filters with the SX-70 in order to use the Type 600 film (although production was discontinued for this film as well, one can still find it here and there).

So I bought filters and started shooting 600 film as well. I quite like it, though many of the more ‘professional’ types would rant about it. I use to take sunny photos, getting used to the Polaroid viewfinder:

Sun Bathing

 The beach in New Brighton has become one of my favourites site to experiment with Polaroids. It’s a wonderful tidal place, moody and rough.

The great British summer

 On this beach rein the Fort and the Lighthouse! I must have taken dozens of photograps of the lighhouse and it is never quite the same. Perhaps the beauty of photography lies is this: you can almost transposed some of your own perceptions of a place, time, happening onto the printed image. I mean… if you can do that it is great. I have always thought that no two shots of the lighthouse came out the same.

New Brighton Lighthouse in vintage

Framed

This is not the whole story of how I got to love polaroid. I suppose, if anyones wants a summary, the story goes… I had to fill in an empty place left by someone… as a means of healing if you want, healing without hating.

The pinhole experiment

What do you need in order to trap images for eternity? You need completele darkness and light… and a medium, a magical substance that stabilizes the trapped image. You need a dark space, a tiny pinhole which lets the light through, and a film or a photographic paper. It is a bit like alchemy if you ask me.

I think I am taking a reverse journey through photography in a way. I have started from using ophisticated film and digital cameras, then I went back to old, fully manual, mostly cheap and rubbish film cameras, Polaroids and now this: a pinhole camera. The simplest of them all. I made one myself.

My first matchbox pinhole camera

The first results are not necessarily encouraging. Nor are they totally disappointing.  Here are some examples:

Autumnal

Along the Canal - London

Girl in my life - Blurred

Liverpool from above

Film. Most commonly used for amateur photography. Disappearing with the explosion of the digital image. My first film cameara was a Minolta with automatic focus, bought from Jersey (Channel Islands)on my first trip to the UK. I think my mum still has it and still uses it when she goes abroad. The second film camera was probably one of the most expensive things I have ever bought back home… years ago. My salary for two months. Canon 1000FN with a Sigma 28-200mm lens.

Nowadays I use a Practika camera. pretty basic and rubbish. I am yet to take any decent pictures with it.

Going back to basics

I had this dream of going on an epic journey around Spain. I said I would travel by bus when necessary, but mostly by foot or, if I find one there, by bike. I would leave my mobile phone  and my computer behind.  I would camp and write postcards to my mum and my friends. I would leave my digital cameras behind and arm myself with old, fully manual film cameras instead.

I haven’t got round to doing the 1 month trip around Spain, but I did buy old cameras… It’s like I have started a trip towards the simplicity of photography. I now own about 10 film cameras, really old and crap: east-german Practika, Polaroids, etc. I like them all… and the more expired the film is the better.

And I did go to Spain for a week, in the summer. I look at photos documenting that trip: Andalucia, mountains, sea, blue, water, sky… olive trees… They were among first experiment with an old Polaroid land camera (340 ) I bought from e-bay.

Espagna - Sierra Nevada

My favourite place in Andalucia is Granada. I had been there before but never explored the wonderful suroundings of the Sierra Nevadas. I remember taking dozens of photos from the miradors overlooking the Alhambra. This time round, I was armed with expired blackand white film and an old polaroid camera. A totally different perspective. A totally different feeling.

Alhambra