The Town On T-Max

May 06, 2016 in Film Photography

Following our little jaunt up Calton Hill, my Mum, Dad, Auntie and I went a walk around the outskirts of the city centre. I felt this was a good opportunity to load my Contax T2 with Kodak's T-Max 100 and try to shoot some street photography/architectural stuff. T-Max is a black and white film that I was really looking forward to trying and I'm glad to say it delivered. Possibly my favourite black and white film I've used thus far.

Calton Hill

April 10, 2016 in Film Photography

These images were all taken on and around Calton Hill using my Contax T2 and Fuji 400H. My Mum, Dad, Auntie and I went up early one morning for a walk and the light was particularly beautiful that day.

First up is an image of The Burns Monument on Regent Road at the foot of Calton Hill, the foundations of which were laid in 1831. The monument was built to house a white marble statue of Robert Burns and it did so until the statue was moved to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery due to smoke from the gasworks below affecting the marble.

The Old Royal High School, also known as New Parliament House, is a 19th century neoclassical building on Calton Hill which, despite its name, isn't home to the Scottish Parliament. A proposal in the 1970s for it to house a devolved Scottish Assembly fell through as the 1979 devolution referendum failed to provide sufficient backing for a devolved assembly. Since then the building has been used for various things such as a place for meetings for the Scottish Grand Committee and as offices for departments of Edinburgh City Council. In December 2015 plans to turn it into a luxury hotel were rejected by the council.

The view from Regent Road.

A closer look at the impressive architecture of the Old Royal High School.

Waverley Station and the North Bridge.

St Andrew's House, the headquarters of the Scottish Government.

The top of The Nelson Monument peeking over the nearby greenery.

Overlooking New Street.

It seems that people rarely take a picture of just the Dugald Stewart Monument on its own, it's almost always accompanied with the Edinburgh skyline in the background. For me, I wanted to focus on it along with the subtleties of its surroundings such as the lone tree, the green poles and the shadows on the paths in the foreground.

Old Observatory House on Calton Hill.

Some others enjoying an early morning walk.

Construction of The National Monument was started in 1826 but was abandoned in 1829 due to lack of funds. It was modelled upon the Parthenon in Athens and is a memorial to those who lost their lives during the Napoleonic Wars.

It's an impressive structure but that's not why I like this photo, let me explain why I do. Triangles are a big compositional tool in photography, and whilst I'm not going to go into the details of why (I'm not qualified/knowledgeable/talented enough to do so), they are something I notice quite often in my own work, sometimes after the fact. Which brings me to what attracted me to this picture, the people, particularly the spacing of them. For example the space between white trousers person, monument person and red top person. Or the space between monument person, red top person and the person to the left of the lamp post. Both of these examples also create triangles. I don't have a reason for why I find this visually pleasing, I just do. Another feature I found pleasing was the juxtaposition between the two people at the monument and the two people either side of them. One of the people at the monument is taking a picture of the other, there is a relationship between them, whereas white trousers person and red top person are heading in completely different directions and appear to be singular with no relationship between them. Now, I'm certainly not claiming that I saw all of these things at the time of taking the photograph, I was only aware of the pleasing spacing between the people and, in terms of timing, trying to make sure the two people on the right didn't intersect with the lamp post, but I think noticing visual features that you like afterwards is important because it gives you more insight into what kind of things you like to see in your photographs and also teaches you to look out for these things when taking photographs in the future. Hopefully that wasn't too boring of an insight and apologies if it was too convoluted.

This is the Nelson Monument, built in honour of Horatio Nelson. For £5 you can climb the spiral staircase all the way to the top and see some incredible views of Edinburgh.

The Scottish Parliament, Holyrood Palace. Dynamic Earth, The Crags and Arthur's Seat viewed from the top of The Nelson Monument. Film captures light like this so beautifully.

Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street, Waverley Station and the North Bridge from The Nelson Monument. Not the most unique image I'll ever take but I'm happy with my version of it.

A lovely view of the City Observatory. In 2009 the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh moved out of the Observatory and the buildings reverted to the City of Edinburgh Council. In 2012 the Council started redeveloping the complex in partnership with the Collective Gallery who relocated from their old premises in 2014. Today they run exhibitions in The City Dome and they aim to finish redeveloping the rest of the site and have it fully open to the public in 2017.

Another Edinburgh cityscape. I love the orange house down the bottom left.

This is my final image from up at Calton Hill and I think it might be my favourite. Like I mentioned with my photo of the National Monument, the placement of the people and the triangles they create really stood out to me. Specifically the couple admiring the view, the girl emerging from the shadows at the bottom of the path and the person under the tree. That was my focus with this one because, quite frankly, the view takes care of itself.

Anatomy in Black and White

January 01, 2016

A few weeks ago I grabbed my recently purchased Canon AE-1 Program and shot my first roll of film. I did so at my Dad’s work, Edinburgh University. Through chance, the Head of Anatomy at the university had saw my Dad carrying a camera he had picked up for me at a charity shop. My Dad explained that it was for me and the Head of Anatomy suggested that I come up and take some photos. So the following Sunday night my Dad and I were free to roam the majority of the Anatomy buildings by ourselves.

I was unsure whether to shoot film or not since the lighting was going to be challenging for the type of shots I wanted to take and barring basic point and shoots and the odd disposable in my youth, I had never shot film before. Nonetheless I stuffed my AE-1 into my bag along with my Canon 5D Mark II just in case and I'm glad that I did. I ended up shooting both film and digital as, quite frankly, I thought there was a very high chance I'd load the film wrong, or that the pictures would be totally unusable. Thankfully that wasn't the case and the scans I received from the lab turned out way better than I expected. Ilford HP5+ really delivered the look that I had in my head and this post will contain a mix of shots from that night, both film and digital. Hopefully you like them.

All in all it was a successful trip and long overdue since circumstances meant I hadn't been out to take pictures for over a year. I had to get by posting old stuff and the odd photo taken at home. It’s nice to finally have new stuff to share.

Canon AE-1 Program taken with my Nexus 6P

Edinburgh University’s Anatomy Lecture Theatre, which dates from 1884, is a very striking room. Its steep, tightly packed rows of seats gave students a great vantage point of the small teaching area where live dissections of human cadavers once took place. These days it serves as a normal lecture theatre and I'm led to believe that it's rare for the public to gain access to it. Therefore, I did my best with the short time that I had to try capture both its architecture and its mood from a different perspective to that of the handful of photos that already exist online.

This is the second shot of the Anatomy Lecture Theatre that I felt showcased it differently from how others have. The ceiling of the room, with its curves and beams, is really quite lovely. Even more so with only the back row of lights illuminating it.

A nice little staircase just outside of the lecture theatre.

Empty corridors.

I loved the way the light emanated from this little passageway.

The Anatomy Museum's lobby has a few exhibits of its own, with the most eye-catching being the two imposing elephant skeletons that sit either side of the main doorway.

A closer view of the lobby's other elephant skeleton.

Some of the lobby's other exhibits include busts, statues, death masks, paintings and a whale's jawbone. Quite an impressive collection to view before entering the museum itself. This shot shows some of the aforementioned, including a replica of Rembrandt’s "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp".

There's a whole load of staircases located around the medical school. This is one that my Dad reckoned I'd like to photograph. He was correct and I'm glad it turned out the way I saw it in my head.

A single lamp over a little stone archway.

Peeking out of a medical school window onto Teviot Place.

A scaffolding on one of the various medical school buildings.

Archibald Tait was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1868 to 1882. This bust of him is tucked away in a little lane within the grounds of the medical school.

This is the final shot from my night spent wandering the university, and coincidentally, it was also the final exposure on the roll of film. All in all I'm really happy with how the images turned out and although I enjoyed shooting the digital ones, I'll remember the night as being the night I fell in love with film.

Thanks for reading!

The Town On T-Max

Calton Hill

Anatomy in Black and White

Wells Blog

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