2003/2004 - Photography

So it seems I was quite into photography in 2003.

After finishing my graphic design course at college I followed my group of friends and moved over to North Devon. With lots of new sights to see and such grand sweeping scenery it’s kind of not surprising I grabbed a camera and indulged in being snap happy.

Although I should probably mention the camera I had at that time was an ancient SLR, actually it was an Olympus Trip35 that looked pretty much like this:

However I seem to recall my Olympus having a plastic shutter lever next to the lens as opposed to on top of the body as well as a few other minor differences, anyway, point being it was ancient back then and is probably currently on show in a museum somewhere today.

Now despite the fact that this camera was likely made in the 60’s and spent most of its life gathering dust in my dad’s cupboard until he gifted it to me and despite the fact that it was an entirely manual camera with limited functions encapsulated in a reassuringly rickety case that would often pop open and ruin entire sections of film, plus the fact that the winding mechanism would get stuck midway on intermittent negatives - I have to say it was the best damned camera I have ever owned!

Here’s what happened one day when unbeknown to me the film inside wasn’t clipped properly into its runners and hence only wound forward every second or third exposure:

Yep, a happy accident probably caused me to take the best experimental photo’s I’ll ever produce in my lifetime!

That’s not to say it didn’t take a cracking photo on other occassions, here’s a few from my visit to the Broomhill Sculpture Park in Illfracoombe that year, quite an inspirational place to wander around if you like sculpture.

 

Certainly some interesting work on display and yes this is how I looked in 2003. Hopefully this is only how I looked specifically for the few seconds the photo was taken, jeez what an awful picture! Bit of a shame as I really liked the sculptured I was standing in front of.

I also found these intriguing: 

My mum was visiting (sorry hope you don’t mind me posting a pic of you mum!) I like the way she was unknowingly mirroring this sculpture ^^

Funnily my favourite photo from this day trip wasn’t a sculpture but one of reflections: 

I rarely frame a shot as well as this; it was such a pleasure to see once I got the film developed. I had always intended to turn this particular photo into a painting but sadly never got around to it.

One photo I did end up painting was this:

(Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the painting I created, since it is currently in England)

Now that’s a ye old warming filter i.e. bit of yellow plastic I held in my spare hand whilst taking the photo – which is trickier than it sounds with a clunky old shutter switch.

Also that was a real butterfly that coincidentally died on my windowsill with its wings spread open. Obviously when I found it my first thought must have been, must put this on fruit and capture the moment! As I’m sure most people think when they find dead insects in the house…

That aside this photo was taken in a small village called Braunton. I was renting the upper/attic level of a fantastic old house, I remember the ceiling was so low up there I could touch it if I stretched upwards and there was an odd walk-in cupboard space in the living area with a mid-level doorframe that meant even I had to crouch down to get inside.

Incidentally I spent a lot of time painting inside that quirky little cupboard space as it was the best place to store my large dragon painting. (That’s also currently in England and I’m working on get a photo of it) This is also the room in which my water tiger painting was created, mostly in the dark, seeing as the only windows were an angled skylight in the stairwell, a small one in the bedroom and a single glass pane in the bathroom.

This was the one in my tiny bathroom:

Quite the view :)

Speaking of views I will leave you with one final image from my 2003 photography splurge.

We travelled everywhere in a bright orange Beetle in those days, exploring the coast with no particular place to be. Hence this image typifies the closing of a journey; travelling back to nowhere as the sun dips lower with rose-tinted memories of a day well-spent.