Category: Blog

Blog, Mono

Mono Monday-Encased in crystal

Dave Wares

Title – ‘Encased in soda crystal’

Wow, it’s Monday again already. The time seems to be flying by these days.

So I thought I’d offer up something a little different today. After the the first two weeks both being candid street photography I felt a change was needed to mix it up a bit. What you see here is a silver charm bracelet that had been left in a bowl of soda crystals over the course of a weekend. Once the water had evaporated the soda gradually formed crystals around the bracelet ending up in an interesting abstract form. This wasn’t done purposely for  the sake of art, rather it was a happy accident created by a work colleague forgetting to take it out of the bowl before going home.

Being something that happened at work meant that I didn’t have my SLR with me, but I did have my new HTC android phone and this gave me a great opportunity to try and do something a little more creative with it. I used the Vignette app with the Ilford Black and white setting and one of the grunge borders.

‘The best camera is the one you have with you’, so the saying goes.

Which handily allows me to plug a new side project I’ve embarked on based entirely on using my phone for taking pictures, I’m calling it ‘Cellpix’. I’m certainly not the first person to do this but what the heck, I’m going to have fun with it. You can find it at http://davewares.tumblr.com and I’d be very pleased if you could pop on over and take a look.

As always, comments are very welcome. Thanks for stopping by.

Blog, HDR

Pett level Pillbox

Dave Wares

This past Tuesday our camera club met up at Pett level for an evenings spot of photography along the beach. However, even though throughout the day we’d been blessed with blazing sunshine it didn’t end up giving us (or at least me) that wonderful golden light I’d been hoping for. It just seemed a bit lifeless and just a little too hazy to get anything half decent. Heading up from the beach towards the houses I bumped into another club member and we decided it might be a better idea to head up towards the old World War 2 pillbox. A very good decision this turned out to be too, with just enough golden light hitting the bickwork.

This is one of my favourites from the eve but I took a couple of others both inside and out of this building.  The part you see here is the lookout, but there is also another section that was used for the gun emplacements that we didn’t get to. Another visit me thinks.

A very pleasant evening had by all, rounded off with a nice chat in the pub too. 🙂

Blog, Mono

Mono Monday ‘Tenderness’

Dave Wares

Title ‘Tenderness’

Candid photography is not something I usually do but when I saw these two I just had to get the shot. Taken on the Millennium Bridge, with the Tate Modern in the background. I think this type of subject lends itself perfectly to being presented in black and white, giving it that ‘timeless’ quality.

Blog, Holga

The Past inside the present

Dave Wares

Just a quick post today. This is something of a grab shot that I did with the Holga HL-N attached last weekend. For a fleeting moment there was a slice of Hastings seafront that looked as if it were showing some sort of past echo, with no real sign of present technology.

Always be ready to capture the moment.

Have a great weekend.

Blog, Holga, Nine through Plastic

Nine through plastic

Dave Wares

‘Bleak Wednesday’

Recently I’ve been trying to come up with different ways to keep my photographic mind working.

Whether you have a day job or if photography is your primary source of income, it can sometimes be difficult to find the time to focus on your own photography projects and interests, or you may just find yourself in a creative rut. I think we all experience this from time to time and I’m no exception, so I have come up with a couple of ideas to help me focus on producing something on a regular basis. This is my first idea and is one that was inspired by my recent purchase of the Holga HL-N lens. I’m quickly falling in love with this lens, finding the low quality being something of a refreshing change from using my sharp 18-50mm f2.8 Sigma.

So here’s the idea; When out in a particular location I will throw on the ol’ Holga and take a bunch of shots with the idea of putting nine of my favourites together as a panel. I took these shots last Wednesday when the weather was far from being ideal, but I had an feeling that the inclement weather combined with the crappy quality lens may produce something interesting. When I got home I was quite pleased with a number of the shots but felt that they would work better presented together rather than as stand alone images. The whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts, so to speak. And so Nine through plastic was born. 🙂

I’m sure these images won’t appeal to everyone but I’m seeing it as more of an experiment, at least at this stage. Thoughts and comments are always welcome and if nothing else I hope it stirs you enough to come up with projects of your own.

On a side note I produced this image while listening to ‘Soundtrack to a vacant life’ by The Flashbulb. A stunning album with a mood that seems to fit the subject matter of this image perfectly.

Happy shooting.

Blog, Holga, review, Tips

Holga HL-N first outing

Dave Wares

So some of you may remember me mentioning in a previous post that Holga had finally brought out both Nikon and Canon mount versions of their lens. I ordered mine from HolgaDirect as soon as I heard the news, and 10 days later it arrived in the post.

Made of cheap plastic, it looks like it has been fashioned from an old detergent bottle top, but then that’s the charm of the Holga line up and similar Toy camera systems. Once attached to the camera body (rather loosely), operating this lens is quite simple. Depending on your camera you will either have to switch to manual ( as I have to) or if you’re lucky Aperture Priority, which will allow you to use the cameras light meter. Usually the light meter will only work if you’re using either a Canon model or pro spec Nikon bodies. On my camera however the light meter will not work, meaning that I have to sort everything out by taking a couple of test shots and checking the histogram. You could also use a hand held light-meter. Doing a little research on various Holga sites I found that the shutter speed on their film cameras is set to about 1/100th sec with a number of folks using iso 400 film, so I thought that this would be a good place to start, and indeed it was. This is based on taking shots during a normal bright day. At this point it is also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Sunny 16 rule. Focus is achieved by rotating the lens, which has a range of roughly 3ft to infinity with four symbols depicting various distances in-between.

One thing that differs using a Holga lens on an SLR is that you are actually looking through the lens (an obvious point I know), but this isn’t the case on a traditional Holga as it has a viewfinder separate to the lens, like your old point and shoot. The lens is supposedly a fixed F8 meaning that it is very dark when you’re looking through the viewfinder and can be a bit of a challenge, especially in lower light. I just see this as even more a part of the fun of using this lens.

As of yet I have not had a proper chance to get out and about with it, but I did manage to grab a few minutes during my lunch break to take some test shots to give you a flavour of what this lens produces. As you can see, the traditional Holga trademark look is still there, the only thing you wont get is the light leaks produced by the cheap construction of their film cameras.

All in all this lens is a great compromise for those not wanting to go down the film route, and if soft and heavily vignetted photographs is something that appeals to you then there really is no reason not to get one. It costs around $30US with P&P making this about £18.50ish in my money. Bargain!

Happy Shooting.