Black out curtain

Black Out Curtain

Setting up the blackout curtain experiment was more time consuming than actually taking the photographs. Using black PVC rubble bags and joined together with duct tape I attached them to our French doors and windows to ensure no sunlight was entering the room. I can only image what our inquisitive neighbours thought was happening. Once attached to the frames I made a small hole into the curtain to allow the sun to shine through.

The first photographs were too dark with only the coffee table casting a shadow on the floor. I then sealed the hole with duct tape and made another hole in a new position. The sun with passing clouds could be seen as an image on the carpet and more photographs were taken. Unfortunately there was no other scenery from the garden as our garden archway in front of the French doors was blown over and damaged by the high winds.

During the experiment I changed the camera setting adjusting the ISO settings and aperture time and this resulted in different photograph brightness. When I repeat this experiment I will reduce the size of the hole to see whether the resulting image is clearer.

The only negative point of the experiment was the heat within the room caused by blocking the windows with black PVC rubble bags.

Book project

Book Project - 

Having investigated a number of different themes for my book I wanted a subject that would not only be interesting to photograph and write about but would also be personal to me. I initially considered steam trains which I remembered vividly from my childhood, leaning out of the window with the wind and smuts in my face, but I felt this was limited so I expanded the field. Although growing up we could not afford anything greater than a Robin Reliant, I remembered that Cars from the fifties and sixties had more character than the mass produced aerodynamic vehicles of today.

With steam trains and cars as my main subject I started to investigate possible museums and collections that we could visit to photograph, only to discover that some of the collections had additional exhibits which included Aircraft. I therefore decided to expand the book to cover all forms of transport and my idea for Trains, Planes and Automobiles (from the John Candy film) took place with a few ships thrown in.

A list was possible attractions were created in my notebook with their locations and post codes to allow me to group nearby places together. I also added opening times, the entrance fee (including student concessions) and worked out the journey time to allow me sufficient time to photograph the exhibits.  

All other possible factors were covered including allow additional travel time to account for possible road works, motorway closures or even accidents. Alternative indoor locations were planned to allow for bad weather to ensure travel and time was not wasted. All camera equipment was taken including fully charged batteries and enough empty SD cards. Finally a Satnav to ensure we could find the places.

Fortunately we had already booked a week off work and this will allow us to travel to locations spread across the country to Beaulieu, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and York National railway Museum. Local steam trains in Blaenafon and Merthyr were travelled to on Sundays to ensure the trains were running.

So now the fun part, I am ready to go out and start taking the photographs.

Below are copies of the list I made in readiness for my journeys:-

Store Fronts

Store Fronts
by James T and Karla L. Murray
Published 10th March 2014, first edition

This book was written by James T and Karla L. Murray. They decided to go around New York photographing shop fronts and did so for many years.  They made it their mission to document the stores thoroughly and also arranged the book into five chapters to correspond to the five boroughs of New York City which are Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

They spoke to the shop owners to get as much information on the history of the shops themselves.  The book is an A3 hard back size and it has 330 pages in it.

Some of the shops in Manhattan are covered in graffiti and one or two are in dyer needs of repair, but then as you work you way through the book the majority of he businesses are fully laden with stock and look quite inviting, they range from Restaurants to flower shops to electronic & appliances to ice cream parlours and sweets, so they have a good range of shops and not forgetting the liquor stores, they have also included in the the book panoramic photographs over a couple of pages to show the entire block.

Unfortunately years on some of the shops they photographed have closed down which was astoundingly almost one third of the stores they captured.

This is happening everywhere as one would notice in Newport, Gwent, many of the shops have either closed for good or have moved out to the Retail Park and after a while you forget what shops used to be there so I found the book a good idea to log down all the shops for prosperity

Pin Hole Photograph

Explanation courtesy of internet

Pin Hole Photograph

The contact sheet of images is my attempts of recreating Sir David Brewster pinhole photography.  Whilst on a trip to Lydney to photograph some trains for my book we stopped off at a forest area of natural beauty to allow me try out the new camera body cap with a freshly made pinhole. 

With the cap in place of the lens I took various photographs changing the speed and the exposure time. Although some looked like a scene from the Blair Witch project I was relatively happy with my first photographs using the new method.

After investigating on the internet why the images were not as clear as some published I discovered that my pinhole was probably too large. To remedy this problem the jagged edges caused by the pin should be filed down and tin foil can be placed inside the cap. With a finger one side the needle tip should be pressed through the foil until it slightly touches creating a smaller hole.