Kodachrome

Summer 2009, Kodak announces that they have discontinued production of Kodachrome film. The scramble was on to get the remaining stock, knowing that the deadline for exposing and processing is december 2010. (there are only two labs in the world which can process Kodachrome and they will be de-commissioned at the end of 2010)

I managed to get 5 rolls of film from shops in Cheltenham (the price includes processing, so the end product is a box of 35mm slides: individual frames of film in cardboard mounts)

This is a selection from the first film I exposed. The camera is a Contax RTS II, the lenses are a Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4, and Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2.8

I entered a photography competition, and won!

It was in order to promote the west-end of Cheltenham. I had already taken an interest in the High Street as a subject with it's variety of alleys and historical features, so I decided to have a go.

I looked at the diversity of shops, take-aways, restaurants, pubs etc and entered a photo which highlighted that feature. I expected the winner to be some photoshopped novelty. Imagine my surprise at seeing my picture, taken on film, full-frame, no editing, not even tweaking, displayed as winner!

Tales From A Northern City

Saturday 11th of July. Blueprint Studios, Manchester.

My good friend John Herring performed in concert, his new album, "Tales From A Northern City". Accompanied by his band of accomplished musicians, he played the twelve songs from the now released CD, to an enthusiastic audience of around two hundred.

The lighting made getting decent photos a challenge, especially for my medium format camera. I was glad to have brought a monopod which came in very handy.

I used Fujifilm 800 for most of the live shots and 400 for those of the sound-check (below). The lenses on my Contax 645 were the 80mm f2 Planar & 140mm f2.8 Sonnar