Today my awesome and beautiful fiancee arrives in Scotland to come and live here. I have the day off to go collect here and while I am waiting I don’t know what to do with myself so here are some pictures of her to mark the day

Liz and I spent a nostalgic (for me – not for her!) afternoon at Mudeford Beach in Dorset when we were on holiday. My family used to stay in a holiday camp near there when we went on our summer holidays. We would rent a beachhut in Mudeford and spent a lot of time down there…anyway here are some pics I took when we were there. As usual here is a slideshow with a few extra pictures….

Liz and I visited the New Forest recently. My family and I used to go there when we were kids and it was exactly as I remembered it.

It is kind a unique place (at least in the UK). The landscape is shaped by the fact that commoners are allowed to let Horses, Donkeys and Cattle graze there and roam freely. Horses have the right of way on the roads so its not unusual for them to be standing in the middle of the road.

Here are the same pictures as a slideshow… they look better big and also I will add more when I finally get round to more scanning.

I have not been inspired to get out and take many pictures recently, partly because of the weather I think. Last weekend we had some sun for a change though and I also found a roll of Provia slide film that my friend Filip gave me a while ago (Filip is a new Dad as of Friday btw!).

I dont usually shoot much slide film because processing is kind of expensive but I enjoyed it and it has reminded me that I bought 10 rolls of velvia for 50p each a while back so maybe I will take some of them when I go to America later this month. At the the same time I do think that slide film is not so different to digital in some ways so maybe I am wasting my money?

Anyway here are a few from the roll I shot….

More pics from Liz and I’s walk along Gullane beach, these ones come from my old Rolleiflex Automat. Its an ugly beat up old thing but continues to make nice pictures.

Liz and I went for a bracing (in other words bloody freezing) walk on Gullane beach last week. Despite the temperature we saw both man and beast paddling in the water.

These were taken with a new panoramic camera I bought from Ebay – it is a Praktica CM1000 which is a slight step up from previous panoramic cameras in that it has a flash (which I havent been able to get to work yet) and also motorised winding. It also detects the film speed although I am not sure why because I think it only has two shutter speed / aperture combinations! Also you can switch between panoramic and normal modes which basically removes the mask. Anyway from what I can tell the lens is not as wide as the other panoramic cameras I have used so it gives a slightly different look. Also the lens seems a bit sharper to me…

Here are the pics as a slide show…

[Edit]: for the proper camera geeks such as myself here is the lowdown on this camera. Turns out it has 1/125 sec. ,1/60 sec. and 1/6 sec shutter speeds.

Here are some pictures from a film I shot with my toy panoramic camera on Liz and I’s recent trip to Niagara falls. I think these look best as a slideshow (there are also some extra pictures here)

The center of Niagara is tacky beyond belief – the automated voices that blare out incitements to come and see a wax work of the world tallest man etc. were a first for me. The falls themselves did not disappoint though and the Maid of the Mist boat trip really is a lot of fun.

I shot 2 rolls of film on the short boat ride – this one and what thought was a roll of tri-x pushed to 1600 with a deep red filter on it. Unfortunately I had actually loaded that camera with portra so the results are terrible – 2 stops under exposed and red coloured! Oh well at least I am pleased with the toy camera pics.

Actually one of these pics got a comment that really tickled me, hence the title of this post

As I have mentioned before I am trying to use my digital camera more for financial reasons. One thing I enjoyed while using it in New York is being able to play with slightly more unusual exposures (for example trying to go for deep black shadows). Shadows are a novelty for me – the light in Scotland is often not strong enough to cast strong shadows because it is overcast so much of the time.

Anyway I still love film but maybe I can find room in my heart for my neglected digital SLR again

I stuck some nice Portra film in my panoramic camera for a change (previous to this I have only used either black and white or very cheap expired colour film). I really like the results – the colours have a kind of vintage feel to them that I like very much.

These look pretty good as a slideshow in my opinion. The slideshow actually contains quite a few more of these….

Finally a sunny day in Edinburgh…