Fresh start

Recently I have been all about fresh starts. Admittedly, I haven't yet started my fresh start, but things are beginning to move forward.

Perhaps now is a good time to start moving my photography forward, to start again with some things, leave some things behind and look to a snap happy future. I have sadly fallen out of love with my DSLR camera, I find it easier and simpler to take a photo on my phone, either upload it straight to a chat conversation and Facebook, or put it through Instagram for the world to have an opinion on.

I found this photo on the National Geographic website apparently this photo was taken on a phone camera. This sounds like a good challenge to me! I have loads of photos of flowers on my camera, but are any of this quality? I am not too sure!

I think though, that I may have found something to get a little excited about. After hearing a talk from a chap at the Ashmolean about lomography, I decided that a sprocket rocket might be the way forward, but one of the issues with this is where could I get the film developed. That would understand that I wanted everything developed even the stuff that was printed over the sprocket holes? With high street photography stores rapidly disappearing, it leaves me a little stuck. Whilst pondering this dilemma I came across a concept that I had read about on the BBC news website, being able to build your own camera. Ok, so I know that people can (if they know what they are doing) build pin hole cameras, but this concept for me went a step further. When researching the sprocket rocket I came across the Konstruktor, and the different parts of the Konstruktor. That was it, order placed. One lomo camera on its way to me, in pieces, for me to stress over, meet up with friends over and find a film for.

 

This is my photography fresh start!

JHQ

This week, I have managed to spend a few days in Germany, visiting the places where I grew up. Some of the places could have been new to me, they have long been forgotten: the mill where we used to eat, the nearby town of Monchengladbach where we used to shop and the place where we ate chicken in the basket in the place in the woods.

The main reason for our trip was to see JHQ before the base is closed next year. This has always need a different place, not easily found on a map, definitely not to google street view, a place where military personnel lived side by side with a handful of civilians, after we left it became a NATO base (there is no longer any sign of Americans ever being there), but now is rapidly becoming a ghost town.

Of the few people left living on base, most of whom are heading home (apparent by the sheer number of removal vans) the rest are moving in Cassel's house.

It was very weird being back there, a place where I spent 6 and a half year of my early life. We still remembered the stories, that will go down in the Perry story book:
The roundabout that Mum went the wrong way around
The steps that apparently me or my sister fell down at the Naafi
The shed and the kitten saga (think it has to go down as a saga)
The stories that my brother created from visiting us there

But now this place is almost deserted. The traffic lights are all out, the houses for the most part empty, the Naafi has very little stock, the buildings are being stripped, the shops are empty, the buses will stop running in a few months, the grass is becoming over grown. All in all, the place is not the vibrant base that I grew up in. I spent a little time wondering if the people currently there knew what it used to be like, or if this (as it currently is) is all that they know of.

 

 

Old photos

Whilst hunting through my old files, I always come across photos that I have forgotten about.....

Please don't be too distracted by the poor varnish quality :(

Ok, so they may not be great, but they bring back some good memories.

Bournemouth

Recently I have spent a bit of time at the beach. It is sometimes nice to get away from life in a city and get some sea air. Here are a few photos from both trips.

A weekend in Bournemouth

A day in Bournemouth