Back to the Forbidden Corner

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The buildings have eyes here

We went to the Forbidden Corner a few years ago. Today we went again. It still rocks. They don’t give you a map. They give you a page with pictures of things that you might see on the way round and then just turn you loose. It’s probably the worst place in the world where you could say “Let’s split up and search the place”. You might never meet again…..

It is in a beautiful area and we were blessed with lovely weather (although it did get a bit hot in the afternoon). If you’ve not been, an you’ve got kids you want to amuse, it is a great place to visit. The café is great too. You have to book in advance though.

Hull Looks Excellent

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I was up town yesterday for the hardware meetup and the lighting was rather good. So I took a few pictures of the place. Above is City Hall, where I used to help with degree ceremonies back in the day.

This is part of Hull Maritime Museum, which is just undergoing a massive refurbishment.

This is an awesome mosaic which is now being preserved.

The design looks even more impressive close up.

Polaroid SX-70 camera tips

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My “new-old” camera arrived last week. It’s the one that I’m selling a receiver to pay for. It’s a Polaroid SX-70 which was made in 1974. So it is very old. Up until a few years ago such cameras were completely useless as Polaroid had stopped making the instant film that they used. However, the Impossible Project (which has now assumed the Polaroid mantle) stepped in and started making films again. So a whole new generation can now discover the joys of instant shooting using a fold-up single lens reflex camera with an really nice glass lens.

I’m probably going to have to sell a few more things if I want to take lots of pictures with it though. Every time I press the shutter it costs more than two pounds to produce a single colour photograph. Which might be blurred or too dark or light. I’ve taken 8 pictures so far and I’ve only had a couple of duds. Pro tips for using the SX-70 that I’ve discovered so far..

  • make sure the focus is sharp in the viewfinder. Use the rangefinder prism (if there is one) to check.

  • Make sure you fill the frame. It’s square which means that you might find you only put your subject along the bottom (see above). Note that the rangefinder prism doesn’t mark the middle of the frame, it is towards the bottom. This can confuse your framing efforts.

  • If you are going to get exposure wrong, try to under-expose so that things come out a bit darker than they should. If they are over exposed they are just blown out to a white part of the image. If things are bit dark they look moody, which you can sometimes get away with. You can twiddle a little adjustment towards the dark side to do this.

  • Get the picture out of the light as soon as it comes out of the camera. Put it in an inside pocket (or even under your armpit) to give it somewhere warm to develop. After a few minutes you can take it out and have a look at what is appearing, but do this in a shady place.

In absolute terms the pictures that the camera produces are not that great. Your phone will be able to beat them for sharpness and colour. But that is not the point. These are tiny little works of art. You have to work hard to get a nice one and when you do the feeling of accomplishment is great. I’m enjoying taking very few carefully composed pictures rather than my usually process of taking a bunch with the view that I might find one or two good ones when I get the camera home and download the files.

Beverley Westwood

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westwood.jpg

This picture wasn’t taken with my Floppy Disk camera. I used the phone for this one. It illustrates quite well how we’ve come on in the world of photography. The picture is brighter, sharper and technically much better. But when I look at it closely I get the impression that there’s been some image trickery going on. the brightness of the sky seems go up and down a bit around the trees and the horizon. It brings home to me that the primary job of a phone camera is to make pictures that look good on the phone. But I think that sometimes the software tries a bit too hard.