The Secret BatcaveAnybody who has passed through central London in the last few months will have seen the new tower block being built in Southwark. Its called “The Shard” and its massive. When its finished it’ll be bigger than Canary Warf.
Film scanning is a pain. Some scanners have attachments for 35mm stock and only the really expensive ones can scan 120mm. You can send your film off to be fingered by proffesionals, but thats expensive and time consuming. You’re also relying on royal mail, which is never a good plan.
Ghetto Scanner MK1
As negative film is transparent, you need to have some backlight before you really see the detail. You can stick your negatives to the window and let the sun do all the work, but your prone to funny colours & patterns reflecting off whatever is outside
However frosted glass provides a even diffuse light, which averages out the colours reflected from outside. Nine times out of ten frosted glass produces a nice even white-ish light. Perfect for illuminating film.
Its not very elegant, and there isn’t much space. but its better than nothing.
and here are some results:
I entered a Photography competition last week, one of the themes was “Urban Views. I decided to go out for a quick 1 hour Photo session. I was initially going to take a panorama of Trinity square, because it wonderfully twee.
However I figured that everybody else will be doing that so I decided to do something more “edgy” (I use that word ironically.)
So here is the finished article:
Everything is grey and dull, just like the Heygate estate. There is only one flat in that block that is still occupied. Apparently they are going to smash it down and start again in the coming years, in an attempt to make things better.
I’m going to catch a big one, I’M NOT SCARED. However, here is the epic journey that me and a mate did. All 33 miles of it.
Sadly I can’t show you photos of my new house just yet, however I can show you some arty shots of the setting sun:
It really was that colour, I’ve not fiddled with hue at all. London pollution really does look like that.
It appears that even in deepest darkest suburbia its still possibly to have fun:
A bit late obviously. Heyshott Bonfire is possibly the best bonfire night you can go to. You pay £2.50 for a torch. Once they’ve sold them all you “precess” down the only road in the village. To aid proceedings you are of course led by a Scots band. Once the signal has been given, everyone lights up.
At the end of the precession you jostle for position round an unlit bonfire. 
some brave marshals oversee the “touch bearers” as they line up. Once everyone has got into position and the marshals have mounted the guy, the word is given to throw touches onto the fire.
It doesn’t take long for the fire to catch hold.
Taken last year when the pollution was at its best. It was genuinely this orange. and by genuinely, I mean enhanced by Photoshop.
Or “Vooo” as its pronounced in Norfolk
Yes, I know its massive, but you need to get the full majesty of south london on a cloudy day. On the extreme left is the railway line from london bridge, a useful source of white noise late into the evening.
I borrowed a Canon 5D mark II from work. Its a nice camera. Unlike the
previous Canons I’ve tried the thumb wheel goes in the right direction.
(unlike the light meter.) I also borrowed Canon’s £90 50mm lens, which
is utter shite.
I did some night shots to see how well the high ISO sensor performed. I’ll post some pictures later.
roughly translated as: nice exposure settings idiot.
