Vertical Hold

Landscapes are great and all that, but looking through my most recent scans I've become aware that the majority of them were taken with the camera on its side, aka Portrait Mode. Prior to this, if you'd asked me which was more common, portrait or landscape, I'd have probably guessed the latter, so this came as something of a surprise. Perhaps I'm systemically Landscapist!

Of course our own vision is formatted in landscape, the periphery of our ‘stereo’ vision at its widest to the left and right. A handy format from the point of view of keeping an eye out for predators, or spotting tasty land-born prey that we might want to hunt.

So our superior 'landscape' calibrated vision is clearly optimal for spotting things that we might fancy photographing, but once we've focussed in on the 'thing' of interest, perhaps a vertical alignment of eyeballs might be the preferred option.

Sadly evolution hasn't equipped us with a rotating eyeball setup for day to day use, but thankfully most cameras come with this facility built in.

Interestingly, those of us who came to photography in the era of 35mm and modern Compact Cameras may well regard the landscape format as the universal 'standard' for photography, the vertical option being just that, an option. But truly old-fangled formats like Plate Cameras and Medium Format devices (and the more modern oddity of Half Frame 35mm Cameras) more often than not came with Portrait as the standard format, presumably because taking ‘Portraits’ of people would have been their primary commercial use at a time when cameras were very expensive.

So here's the proof, a selection of architectural and other man-made subjects, almost all of which were taken in portrait mode. I've included a landscape just to rest your eyes from the relentless uppy-downyness of it all.

📷 Balda Baldessa 1a

🎞 Kodak Kodacolor 100

Green and Pleasant Landscape Photography

Photography for me is a multi-disciplinary hobby. Less the whole point of the exercise, because I'm not a 'Photographer', more an interesting add-on to whatever else I'm doing at any given time. Which means that most of what you see on here will reflect my many other interests, however minor they might be.

I’m now of an age where a regular walk is not just a pleasant diversion, but pretty essential to keep from regressing to a couch potato. Not that I have a problem with Couches, or indeed Potatoes, but neither provide the physical workout I need to keep joints and muscles taught and lubricated for when I truly need them, whenever that might be...

A walk, as many of you will know, provides great opportunities for photography. The Countryside and it's near neighbour the Urban Landscape are literally littered with visually interesting subjects, the trick I find is to not walk around with you eyes closed, particularly in cities. The old adage of 'Look Up' is also useful to remember in the towns and cities, many of which have been utterly ruined at street level over the years but retain much of their historic interest from the first floor upwards.

There's no such problem at eye-level in the rural environment, in fact it's often where all the interest is, and everyone loves a good Landscape don't they!...

These photos were all taken with the Balda Baldessa 1a whilst the FED was still away for repair, loaded with Kodacolor 100 in anticipation of the sunnier days of May.

Sheep with their Lambs, using an old Bedford truck to shelter from the midday sun near Uppingham in Rutland.

The view from the Rutland Round walking route toward Eyebrook Reservoir through clouds of Cow Parsley.

A footpath through Buttercups near Lyddington, Rutland.

The Gartree Pill Box near Market Harborough, against a horizon of arable fields and dramatic rain clouds.

It doesn't get more pastoral than Belted Galloways grazing in a field of Buttercups at Wistow in Leicestershire.

Windows On The World

It’s a story as old as time itself. You wait and you wait for a bunch of scans to drop from your (extremely busy) preferred developer, then 82 arrive at once! An embarrassment of images to play with then, from what will be forever known as 'The FED-less Days', aka fun in the sun with a Baldessa.

And it was fun too. This year's unseasonably hot month of May, when Summer seemed a very real possibility, and interesting, photographable things started appearing all over the place. It was also a time when the grey skies of Spring turned a fetching shade of blue and billowy white. A time for those hitherto unexplored tight apertures and fast shutter speeds, and all the vibrant colours I long suspected were in my film finally started to express themselves.

I seem to have been looking through windows a lot recently. Mostly out of them, occasionally in. Nothing creepy though, I won't be looking through your window anytime soon.

At the risk of stating the obvious, windows have a tendency to frame things, which is something the human mind seems predisposed to. Perhaps it's simply a matter of aesthetics, images just look nicer presented in a well-judged frame. Artists will often use framing as an important part of their overall composition, to the point where an unframed work can often appear unfinished. The physical frame itself can be an attractive thing, at its best a work of art that adds a certain something to the overall image in addition to smoothing off the rougher edges.

Framing can also be an act of visual reduction, imposing an artificial boundary on the subject that restricts the information on view, making it easier for our puny human minds to make sense of what we’re seeing... well it does for me at least.

Of course framing is one of the four primary considerations when taking a photograph, in fact for most of us it's a wholly unavoidable discipline of photography, a more often than not useful, perhaps even essential restriction. So windows and other apertures present us with a secondary opportunity to positively contextualise our image within a frame (within a frame)!

Through cast iron apertures to the interior of an unused warehouse at the former Ordnance Depot, Weedon Bec.

Looking out from the bar of the Malt Shovel in Northampton. I love a bit of stained glass, modern ecclesiastical interpretations and commercial examples like this in particular.

The unfinished Lodge at Lyveden near Oundle (above & right) is a good subject for architectural study on a bright day, though the interior is currently closed for structural repairs.

I spent quite a while photographing this surviving WWII Pill Box and Bunker in an arable field near Market Harborough (below), a striking contrast to the wide horizon and rain-heavy clouds that day. I chose not to investigate the interior, usually a disappointing experience I find, but I managed to get a good shot through the Loopholes of the distant horizon, giving something of the effect of gazing out I guess.

A 'window' of sorts at the boundary of a field, looking toward Lyddington in Rutland. Leaving one field for another, usually via a Stile,  presents an opportunity to pause, look back, and assess progress.

A confusing image into the interior of one of the buildings at the former Ordnance Depot, Weedon Bec, with reflections of the exterior on the glass.

Things They Don't Tell You About Vintage Cameras

Bulky old 'Ever Ready' camera cases with their fashionably thin leather straps are what all film photographers want for their cherished vintage cameras. When it comes to the 'vintage look’ that we all (surely) desire, safe and sturdy UV resistant Nylon straps just won’t cut it. In fact true vintage status can only be achieved with a filthy, worn strip of dried out and heavily cracked tan leather, rusted rivets and buckle, and (ideally) the magic word ‘Leica’ stamped on the strap somewhere. Literally nothing else will do!

It will of course fail! Throwing your prized camera onto the very hardest of hard floors when you least expect it. All part of the authentic vintage camera experience though, a talking point amongst Shutter-Chums© in the way that athletes swap notes on career-threatening sports injuries.

Mine failed of course (right), as I knew it surely would at some point. Lucky for me the camera descended in (horrific) slow motion, bouncing first off my hip, then knee, before clonking with moderate force to the ground. Thankfully it was in it's sturdy Balda branded case and no damage appears to have been done. Phew!

I've strongly disliked this case from the day I bought it. The bottom half of the case is decent enough, flexible leather, a good look, with all the correctly located apertures for this quirky bottom winding camera. But even this fails when it comes to the screw attachment that attaches the case to the tripod mount, a substantial chunk of aluminium that prevents the camera from sitting upright in its case. It's the (thankfully removable) top half that's the truly ugly bit though, albeit it protects the camera and lens from damage heroically. A chonky box of hard plastic and aluminium in the style of a 1940's suitcase, over-engineered and oversized to protect the workings, it not only looks horrible but turns a neat compact camera into the kind of boxy lump I've tried all along to avoid having.

So the plan is to find a diminutive soft leather case that hopefully fits the camera perfectly. This could take some time I admit. But first a new strap because it's bad enough having the camera in a suitcase, I don't want to have to carry it around by hand as well.

This Kinokoo leather job looks the part for my taste, and in fact tastes the part too. A subtle Almond from the leather conditioning cream that's clearly been applied. The eventual plan is to mount the camera itself to the strap (left), but for now it'll just have to make do on the horrible vintage case.