MorseBlog

Last September I made a couple of posts about using my Fuji G617 panoramic camera for intimate landscapes. Part of this was to try and defeat the summer photography blues. I got some rather good results.  Now I am facing another photography drought and Spring has arrived, and I have never really known what to do with Spring photography. Indeed, Spring and Summer are the worst seasons for me. Fall has color, Winter has forms, and both have frost and fog. Right now, we are at peak bluebell season. I find photographing flowers generally unsatisfying, and bluebells are a bit of a cliche even though they are amazing to walk amongst this time of year. Don't get me wrong they really are spectacular, but I really haven't gotten an image of them that makes me say 'wow'.  And so, I find myself out on a brilliant and cool spring morning that quickly warmed as the sun rose. The bluebells are spectacular right now in Monk's wood and are accompanied by Wood Anemones, Celandines, ...

Last year I was watching a Steve O'nions' video where he used a Horsman 6x12 roll filmback on his Intrepid 4x5. I had picked up years ago an old 6x9 MPP filmback that I have used on the Intrepid I have. I am a sucker for the panoramic format (I really enjoy shooting a Fuji G617.) so when I saw the 6x12 I thought that might be something I could use.  With rollfilm backs on a 4x5 the inevitable question why not just crop the 4x5 image? The usual response is economics. 120 film is cheaper than the 4x5 equivalent. Processing is easier to find as well and more affordable.  I researched 6x12 backs and stumbled across the SINAR film backs and the Zoom model in particular. These backs fit like a sheet film holder and so do not require the ground glass to be removed for each image. The Zoom model allows one to shoot a variety of formats on the same roll of film. This means 6x12, 6x9, 6x8, 6x6, and 6x4.5. I am a sucker for versatility and fortunately at the time I found one for sale fo...

It seems I am making regular rounds to my 3 local woodlands. Each has a unique character and rather than being repetitive I find new areas to explore afresh in some and comfort in the familiar places of ones I know better. Of course these woodlands change all the time, with the seasons, the weather. If one looks carefully enough and is sensitive to subtleties there is change all around.  This morning it is Monk’s Wood. Growing up a a hillside on determinedly clay soil it is markedly different from the he two fen woodlands of Holme and Woodwalton. These latter two are pancake flat being in the drained marshes of the fens. They are also relatively new.  The silver birches of Holme would not have turned up until after the draining of the fens as they prefer well drained soil. The nearby area of Whittlesey is the last of the fenlands to be drained so the forest is perhaps 150 years old.  Woodwalton Fen was purchased by Charles Rothschild in 1910 as a nature reserve. I am not ...