Straw Inspiring - Whittlesey 2026

Before we get on to the second of three films that were very much showing their age, some light relief in the form of the one that actually came out well. As we know, expired film can be a bit of a lottery, you wouldn't use it for the important shoots in life, but a trip to the annual Straw Bear shenanigans in Whittlesey-on-the-Fens is just what this camera was made for.

First a few shots around Stamford that demonstrate some of the limitations of this camera and its user. A rare overcast but rain-free day, certainly nothing like sunshine to break the monotony of grey Winter tones. Even the colour splash this old pub window brings to the town (right) has struggled to escape from its dull surround. There is colour to be found though, within the jolly environs of the Kings Head, if only I could capture it in focus.

I've not had much success with taking film photos inside the pub (above), dark spaces that are full of interest but... dark. A flash is out of the question for all kinds of reasons, but principally because this camera doesn't have a flash trigger, the way I'd have to do it would be intrusive and give poor results without decent equipment set up. Besides, the FED has a fully working 'Z' (aka. 'B') shutter speed setting, and I've had very good results from long exposures with the old Olympus PEN over the years. A slow-ish lens on this camera means that exposures can be quite long though. Long enough that I should probably use a tripod and cable release but I'm not one for setting up tripods in busy pubs. I'll be looking out for a cable release though, because balancing the camera on a pint glass may by an acceptable solution for stability, holding the shutter release down for several shaky seconds clearly isn't.

Here's another photo that displays the limits of the FED as a handheld camera. I was keen to get a photo of this Ghost Sign, located in one of the many narrow alleyways between Broad Street and High Street in Stamford. This was the best angle on the sign that I could achieve with a 50mm lens, and the low light of a narrow alleyway is once again not my friend. Neither is the wide-open aperture required to get anywhere near a reasonable hand-held shutter speed. Hence some of this is in focus, most of it not so much. Ho-hum!

Straw Bear day dawned bright, wonderfully sunny, and not nearly as 'Fenland' cold as I've experienced in previous years. A truly wonderful day of Morris, Molly, Sword, Clog, and Garland dancing. There's something of a 'Pagan' feel to the Saturday of this annual 'Tuesday following Plough Monday' event, helped in part by the copious amount of beer consumed on the day. I got good pictures of the Bears, but not on the film camera as they were moving fast through the town and my camera work was necessarily slow. On balance though, reasonably pleased with this old roll of film, nice colour, sharp enough when correctly focussed, a good subject for faster shutter speeds on a sunny day.

Cocked this one up a bit, and really bad scratching too.