MorseBlog

I decided now at the end of this year to go through the exercise of defining and selecting my best landscape photos of 2018. I wanted to make the list short so figured on 6 photos and finally ended with 7. I started with a short list of 18 from the 378 film photos I took this year. The process of whittling the short list down was not too easy. I rejected ones that had imperfect focus, bad film, or were not strictly landscape images. Here they are in roughly what I think is reverse order leading up to the best. Here is a video summary of the same photos... Whernside:  Force Gill.  (Fuji 690 GSW--Ilford FP4+) This I took as we hiked up Whernside in Yorkshire. Initially it seemed wrong to feature this waterfall from such a distance with a wide angle lens (65 mm). However on reflection I became really taken with the composition. A conventional photo would have made the waterfall fill the frame substantially. This places it in the broad open country of the Yorkshir...

On a business trip to the US I had the chance to stop by BC to visit my son. Since he had to work the first day I was there I had the chance to visit a few places in Vancouver. I started out at Granville Island an old industrial area mostly turned over to nice shops and galleries. No brand names or outlet but mostly artists and craftspeople. Quite enjoyable. I got this one photo below there. Next I went to Stanley Park which is a really big park with lots of hiking trails. It is mostly wild with one highway running through the center and road around the edge. I was blessed with  a very clear but cold day and there were patches of frost in areas where fog banks had coalesced in various areas. I brought my Rolleiflex 2.8F as a good portable travel camera. I shot Kodak Portra 400 for the speed as these shots would all be hand held. The conditions were challenging however as the winter light is relatively dim and shooting in a deep forest made it much worse. Very often I shot wi...

Retropan 320 film has been around for a few years now. Made by Foma it is a ASA 320 black and white film called retro as it is supposed to look like older film. (It is panchromatic so not that old.) There are some enthusiastic reviews online (as well as some detractors). I got swept up in the enthusiasm and decided to buy a few rolls to try out. I can say now I regret it. My goto film for black and white is Ilford Fp4+ (ASA 125) as a slow high resolution film it is very consistent and pretty cost effective. I have shot some Kodak and Fuji which I like but here in the UK Ilford is a quality product and good value. Normally for high speed film I have shot Ilford HP5+. However having been caught up in the Retropan reviews I decided to see if it would work as my high speed film. I was recently in British Columbia to visit my son so I took a couple of rolls along to try it out. I brought my Rolleiflex f2.8 as it is an easy to carry camera and simple to use. I brought my Sekonic light...