Cars, Bands, People and Colours

Okay, this one may take a while. Lot’s of photos from the last few weeks, I’ve been a bit too lazy to post on here recently. As always, I’ll attempt to do this chronologically, but it may not be exact, so don’t freak out or anything.

So let’s start with Ryan, wearing a sherriff’s hat at 2am in Tesco.

Then a house-party at Michelle’s house. I entertained Jonathan for hours with my puns regarding the fondue machine.

Now, for a story regarding this guy. I was driving into town to pick up some film, and decided to park on the top level of the car park on Sauchiehall Street. I got out of my car, only to find a seagull about 2 metres away squwaking at me really loudly. I thought this was weird, because I was so close. So, I continue to get out of my car, when all these other seagulls start going mental and screeching, and attempting to dive-bomb me – I had to jump back into my car (literally jump) to avoid getting attacked. Just as i got back in, I noticed the 4 blue eggs in the nest/pile of rubbish in the corner. Stupid seagulls.

That night, Simon came round, to learn how to develop film. He brought his 35/2, so I stole it for a while and took some shots with the 350D. Nice lens.

Then he stole some of my film.

Getting down to business.

Yes, hanging negatives on the back of a door is stupid. I have now integrated the ‘hang them up in the shower’ method into my processing technique.

We went into town the next day to pick up some film and walk around for a bit. I bought some superia 800 and some plus-x, both of which I had never shot before.

Banksy.

Pepsy.

Okay, my mum looks strange here.

Jenn and I went for a picnic at a man-made lake, and ate lots of food while joggers jogged past. It was fun.

A few days later, I had a job working for my uncle, taking photos of a corporate day out at Knockhill racing track. However,one person couldn’t make it, so I got to take their place. 9am-5pm of racing cars and taking photos. It was awesome. First up was offroad. This was the only car I didn’t drive that day, I opted to jump out and take pictures instead of my turn. Then it was the skidpan.

This car was mental. Seat Leon Cupra. Awesome.

I got talking to this gentleman, who told me that he had recently sold two M3’s that belonged to his late father. He asked me if I wouldbe interested in any photographic equipment, for free. I have taken him up on this, and will be going to check it out soon, I hope.

Before going rally driving. I think the highlight of the day was being driven down a rally circuit by a professional driver.

I got some weird (drying?) marks on this roll, anyone know what’s up?

Go-Karting podium. I shot a ton of digital that day, for the first time in a while.

Jenn and I went to see Ocean’s 13 the next night. It was boring.

Superia 800 now. Such an awesome film, have ordered 6 more rolls, which haven’t turned up yet. This is bruce, in the locker room at work.

Jade, waiting to swipe out.

Kirsty. Gansta, yo.

Blue Sambas. Oh yes.

Daeve, in the photography store room at college.

Janos and I went for a drink at a cool little Irish-themed pub that had some gorgeous light coming in through the windows. We talked for hours about photography, life and stuff. Janos is from Hungary, and will be doing a series of portraits over the summer of Hungarian couples living here in Glasgow.

800 speed film on really sunny days. Nice.

You may have seen this already.

Okay,so that’s the cars and the colours.  Now for some plus X(dev’d in FX39). My scanner seems to hate 125ISO film, so apologies.

Ryan. Reversing down that driveway of his is a joy.

Ah, I’m always glad when I decide to place focus on an object. Especially at f2.

Jenn, in her awesome chair.

We lunched in the Biere Halle. I decided again to focus on an object in the second frame. Yay!

Heading into town by the subway.

We met Gordon outside Jessops. Not happy with these scans at all.

However, this scan is particulary horrible, which is a shame (HP5 in HC-11o). My cousin Lewis was drawing a birthday card.

We were at my Aunt’s house celebrating my cousin Rachel’s birthday. We went into the garden after the cake.

My dad, going down our stairs.

Jenn again, up at the lake, again.

Then at Kelvingrove park. It was a really nice, sunny evening.

I went to a gig that night at the 13th Note, organised by the man you see above.  It was quite dark. 1 second at f2 at 800ISO dark.

Later, I would blow that candle out with the can of compressed air I bought earlier that day.

Ryan and I saw Nine Black Alps the next night, at ABC2. It was the 4th time I’d seen them, and they put on a great show. First two shots are tri-x +1 in rodinal, the others are delta400+2 in HC110.

Okay, so that concludes a really long entry. Thanks if you made it this far. I may start doing smaller, more frequent posts, because that took forever. I have work in an hour, and a roll of delta to develop before I go, so until next time…

Home processing, Music and David Gillanders

Back after a week or two, got a bunch of stuff to post, will try my best to do it as chronologically as possible. These are all negscans, as I don’t have access to a flatbed scanner at present. There are some digital shots, too.

Starting with a few Saturday’s ago, browsing in the second hand camera shop in town. First time I’d seen an M3 in real life, it was one of those ones where you have to advance the film lever twice for each frame – annoying. Also, the lack of 35mm framelines. Spent a while talking with the guy behind the counter about cameras and stuff, and playing about with the M3. There is just something about old Leicas which is awesome, they feel so smooth.

This isn’t a very interesting shot, but just as I took this photo, the football fans inside started pounding the windows at me. I reckon this would only happen in Glasgow. Man, those stretch hummer’s are horrible: america should hang it’s head in shame.

Me and Jonny at the train station, reflected in a mirror which makes me look like a pear.

Janet, by a window.

Now, for something special. The wednesday before last, I received a text message from Gordon about 5pm informing me that the Glaswegian photojournalist, David Gillanders was giving an illustrated talk that evening at a gallery in town. Gillander’s work has been majorly influential for me, so I was really keen to attend this talk. The talk lasted for a couple of hours, and gave everyone there (about 50 people) a real insight into how passionate he is about what he does. Stories were shared, photos were shown, and it was awesome.

Near the end, the conversation drew towards one of his recent projects, violence in our shared home city of Glasgow. He admitted,despite having been to some very dangerous places and photographed very dangerous people, it was Glasgow that he felt most intimidated working in. He said this is because the people are so unpredictable, and consume so much alcohol. I can vouch for this, having lived here pretty much all my life (you can see some of his photos of Glasgow’s knife crime problem on his site.)

I stuck around for a while after he had finished, looking at prints. 3 different people came up to me while i was looking at the prints and reading some articles, only to talk to me about my camera. Two guys in particular interrogated me about it, but before i could answer the first’s questions, the second would answer for him; ‘Oh, it’s an M6TTL, I can tell from the shutter dial’. I found this boring and slightly embarrassing.

So anyway, I hung about until the end for a chance to speak with David himself. The gallery was closing, so myself, David and a guy called Adam went to a bar for a chance to talk and for a drink. I found this slightly surreal. I had been printing that day, and had my print box with me, so I asked him if he would have a look through some of my photos. This lead to further discussions while he looked over my stuff, and gave me tips and told me which ones he liked and didn’t like.

(Excuse the negscan, the print is much nicer)

I gave Adam a lift home afterwards, and we saw this outside the bar, a band had played that night.

Spent the next day in college, printing.

Using up film so I could develop two rolls at the same time. I made a print of the last one and the middle one, again, much nicer than the neg scans.

Walking around town on friday. Not terribly happy with this shot. Could have done much better (closer).

In the car park.

Friday night, at the end of my shift at work.

After work, I drove over to Sam’s flat, where he and Jenn were retouching images for a job. Serious discussions.

Nice light, need to print this.

Downloading ‘Afternoon Delight’ sometime around midnight.

The next shots are from last Sunday…

Andy in the canteen at work, early in the morning. Too early.

Bubblegum for breakfast. I also bought some really sour candies – the ‘Toxic Waste’ next to the salt and pepper. They were pretty horrible, but we had a competition to see who could keep going the longest.

John trying a ‘Toxic Waste’.

Martyn. This is a pretty rubbish shot, but I guess it will be fun to have photos of my workplace in 20 years time.

That night, Ryan and I went to see Silversun Pickups at Sleazies. Sleazie’s is a pretty small venue, that has a pillar right in front of the stage, so we made sure to get right up the front. I could kick myself for cutting off the bottom of the guitar in the first picture. I have photos of the other bandmembers, but the lights in Sleazies aren’t great, and they didn’t turn out so good. The drummer was mental! It was their first time playing in Scotland, and they got a great reception from the crowd.

I spent a lot of Monday walking around town. Thought these shots would turn out a lot better than they did, I was disappointed. They were all shot at 800 ISO, probably not the best choice.

Wet streets and guitars.

I really hoped this shot would come out better than it did, I’m not sure if I messed up the exposure due to the glass or whatever, but yeah. Maybe printing this could save it, but I reckon it’s just a boring shot, any opinions?

Needed a lower ISO for sure here, her expression while checking out jewellery was funny.

Fashionable!

I cooked a steak/potato/rocket salad one night last week.

Sometime during the week, I met up with Niall, and we spent a few hours shooting in town.

Good old camera phones. This shop sells useless gadgets that cost a lot of money.

Street art. Need to get closer.

Self portrait taken in the mirror of a moving street-sweeper.

I like the tones here, but not much else. (Still delta400+1 in HC110)

Nialls legs. Sex-ay.

I bumped into Stephen at the end of the day. I went to University with Stepehen, we used to have an awesome time making stuff up in english tutorials and such. Stephen is taller than me, but I was standing on some steps.

Some other awesome news; I now have all the materials necessary to develop film at home. Apart from the first bunch of shots in this entry, I processed all these at home. I didn’t have a thermometer that read below 25 degrees, and i think my water was a little cold, so the first two rolls came out a little thin, still printable though. I gave the next roll and extra minute and a half, and some more agitation, and it came out pretty nice. I’m really glad to have somewhere of my own to develop film, sharing a processing area with other people is really annoying, there’s always fix everywhere, and people opening the drying cupboard while it’s on with film inside. Gragh.

I have been selected for jury duty this week, so I will be at court from 10am-4pm everyday. Which is a bit rubbish. I tried to take my camera with me, but the metal detector and bag search found it.

This is turned into a really long entry, I doubt anyone will have made it this far. Thanks if you did.

- H