For the easily distracted…

I’ve been really unorganised with the photoswap this year and a lot of people taking part have also been really busy, so its been coming along slowly… I don’t really mind to much, as its not an urgent project and its the sharing of photos process that I enjoy the best rather than the speed of it.

I used my holga camera, as I haven’t used it for a while and I sent my film to Dianna to get developed and I’m really thrilled with the results, I love how soft they look.

I’m also really thrilled that the photo of the goats head around its shed worked out, it was only there for a minute and I thought I’d missed it.

These photos are also making me excited about our holidays this year, hurray!

Camera: Holga 135bc
Film: Lomography CN400
Location: Whitby, Yorkshire

Camera: Double Dip
Film: Lomo CN 400
Location: Whitby, England.

{My Dad likes to take photos too}

I wasn’t that blown away originally by this roll of film. I think it’s too easy to compare colour negative film with cross processed slide films sometimes but now I’m quite keen on the muted colours and subtle contrasts, they seem suit my memory of Whitby so much better.

I’m know Anna doesn’t do her Much Love Monday posts any more, but with the lovely heart that is in one of these photos (did you see it?) I couldn’t resist.

Location: Whitby, England.
Film: Lomograpy Colour Negative 400
Camera: Refurb LC-A

p.s. It’s December! I added snow to my blog. It’s silly I know, but I don’t care, our Christmas tree is up, my Christmas desktop background is in place and I am ready to get festive, woohoo!

I know… I’m still posting photos of Whitby. We’re getting there with them though I promise.
I definitely need to go out and take some new photos soon.

Whilst we were in Whitby we went for a ride on the replica Endeavor (which you can see here, I think I’ve posted that photo already). The original Endeavor was built in Whitby and it was fun to think what it would have been like to see it in the harbour.

I also pretended that I was a pirate, just for a second :) then I took more photos.

Location: Whitby, England.
Film: Lomo Colour Negative 400
Camera: Refurb LC-A

These are actually a mixture of photos from Whitby, Robin’s Hood Bay and Staithes but I like them together and saying Whitby is just easier. I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

I was a little distressed when I realised that this was my last Lomo Redscale XR film and they haven’t had it on the Lomography website for a while… (don’t panic yet?) so I was conservative with this film.

I kind of wish that I hadn’t been though – I’ve never been that precious with film before and I think that in worrying about ruining it or wasting the film, I forgot to just enjoy it as much as I usually do. Luckily I did enjoy it enough to get some pretty photos though. The last one is my favourite.

Location: Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, Staithes.
Camera: Superheadz Yellow Peace
Film: Lomography Redscale XR

Oh gosh I miss the sunshine… the only light I see now is my ten minute walk to work and out of my window… but I’ll be honest, a car park does not make for inspiring viewing all day. Even when occasionally a crow gets in a fight with a magpie (its rare and the crow always wins)

This last photo is what happens when I attempt to take a photo over a wall that is a good foot taller than me, by jumping and guessing :) I love it!!

Location: Whitby, England
Film: Lomo Xpro Chrome iso 100
Camera: Refurb LC-A

These are my last photos with this roll of film and I’m pretty sad about that. I never expected to really love black and white results as much as I love these (I am a huge fan of colour) but I really can’t get over these, I think its because there is so much black in them. I love the colour black (it was my teenage favourite for a long time, much to my Nanna’s despair) and the contrast in these is so appealing to me.This is definitely another film to add to my regular films to use (much to my purses despair, haha).

p.s. Did you spot Robin Hood amongst these? I was pretty chuffed that I managed to find him and get a photo.

Location: Robin Hood’s Bay, England
Film: Kodak BW400CN
Camera: Refurbished LC-A

I’m not really sure why its called Robin Hood’s Bay considering that it isn’t anywhere near Nottingham…
perhaps the smugglers that used it stole from the rich to give to the poor?

Anyway, this bay is kind of what I would imagine my quiet, safe place to look like and every time I look at these photos I feel the same as when we were there, calm and relaxed.

I was a bit worried about using a black and white film as the colours were so lovely but I think that I actually prefer the look of the black and white tones here, the contrast is perfect.

Location: Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire
Camera: Refurb LC-A
Film: Kodak BW400CN

So I may have already ordered another few rolls of this film, as I absolutely adore it already. I’m so glad that I tried it (even if I should really have tried it sooner) as I feel that its going to be one of my favourites for a while.

These are the last photos I took with this film around Whitby after our journey on the train, I posted all my post cards (and some gifts) from the Post Office, I thought it was so cute! I also loved the men rowing the boat across the harbour, I’m glad that I caught them next to the other rowing boats too, hurray.

Even though its been well over a month since we in Whitby, I’m still loving these photos, I hope you’re still enjoying seeing them too.

Location: Whitby, England
Film: Kodak Ektar 100
Camera: Refurb LC-A

I’ve already posted some photos of Whitby Abbey taken with Lomography ISO 400 film and my Double Dip camera which were so colourful that its almost amazing to believe that these were taken on the same day at the same time…

Whitby Abbey seemed to have so much character and I love that my different cameras have managed to catch the different aspects of the Abbey, these photos in particular seem to capture the spookier aspect of the Abbey that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula (see what I did there, today being Halloween, haha).

Film: Kodak Portra NC 160
Camera: Refurb LC-A
Location: Whitby Abbey, England

Camera: Refurbished LC-A
Film: Kodak Ektar 100
Location: Along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

Oh, I miss the beach! It’s cold in Leeds. Really cold. My right hand is a little bit blue. So I kind of wish I was back here right now. Not that it was much warmer on the day, but everything just seems more tolerable to me at the beach.

I’m going to go find a nice hot chocolate to warm me up I think now, brrrr!

Location: Sandsend, England.
Film: Kodak Portra NC 160
Camera: Refurb LC-A

After visiting Staithes, we came back along the coast towards Whitby and stopped at Runswick Bay. Although not quite as quaint as Staithes, I really liked it here as it was so calm, we wandered along the beach, enjoying the soft sand and sound of the waves and saw some fun little sights.

I also want to live in this white cottage now. So cute!

Location: Runswick Bay, England
Camera: Refurb LC-A
Film: Kodak Portra NC 160

Oh how I love this film. I think I’m going to have to slowly stock up on it as its so pretty and soft.
I love how its captured the pretty details and colours of Staithes.

Location: Staithes, England
Camera: Refurb LC-A
Film: Kodak Portra NC 160

As well as looking around Whitby on our week away, we also explored the neighbouring bays, including the fishing harbour village of Staithes which I became quite taken with. A lot of the area around Whitby seems to be frozen in time, I can imagine that Staithes in particular hasn’t changed all that much in the past 100 or so years.

Location: Staithes, England
Camera: Refurbished LC-A
Film: Lomo Xpro Chrome

Our last stop on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway was Pickering, where we spent a couple of hours grabbing food and having a look around before getting the train back to Whitby. I thought Pickering was cute, it’s a small market town, so there wasn’t a huge amount to see and we didn’t really have time to look around the castle but I still managed a few photos.

(populating my photos win)

One highlight was Pickering Church which had wall paintings dating from the 15th century covering nearly all the walls.

We didn’t really plan much for our week away but the one thing I was excited about was going on a steam train and we weren’t disappointed. It felt a little bit like we were on Hogwarts Express which I loved and there was so much to see and to hear, the whistle in particular made me smile everytime.

This is my first roll of Kodak Ektar and I think I’m smitten, the red tones are just stunning and I love how they completely suit the subject. I probably should have used a faster speed film for the inside shots as they are just a little bit blurry (although that could have been the train moving too thinking too) but I would happily use this film over and over again.

Camera: Refurbished LC-A
Film: Kodak Ektar 100
Location: Along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

God I loved this place, it was so perfect for taking photos, there was just so much to see. Even with as many photos as I took I’m not sure I got everything. I can’t get over how quaint it was, the lovely colour of the bricks, the bunting… I loved it.

Have a great weekend, amazingly we’re going out to take more photos together (in an attempt to catch up with my 12 for 2012 project). I’m already looking forward to it :)

{Looking down across Whitby – this was my favourite view – click on the photo to see it bigger}

I mentioned yesterday that I was hugely excited about this camera, and although I loved the results from the single exposures (the colours!!) this is where all the excitement really is – in the double exposures.

I’ve always enjoyed multiple exposures but I’m reluctant to do them too often, I guess because I don’t want to lose that first exposure and often I just don’t make the time to take them.
However, having a dedicated camera for doubles was liberating and so much fun.

I really love these results. Really really. I think sometimes I take my cameras too seriously, and most of the time I’m happy with that, but sometimes you need to kick back, mess around, play with the light a little and have fun. And that’s what I did with this camera and I really love it for that.

I think next time I’ll try and shake it up a bit, I really love the splitzer look and as my LC-A is a refurbished one rather than the plus I can’t get the Lomography attachment to do that so I may have gone a bit overboard with that look here but in the name of having fun and being a bit more abstract (perhaps) I think it was totally worth it.

p.s. The lovely Dawn from Candidly Clyde included me in her list of ‘ten photo blogs you should be following‘. If you love photo blogs then you will love this list, I even found some new favourites too.

I have a soft spot for ruined buildings… and Whitby Abbey didn’t disappoint in terms of photographic potential. In fact I have more photos of the abbey with three other cameras and films, which I’m looking forward to sharing at some point but I knew I had to share these first from my Double Dip as I find them so exciting.

 How gorgeous and saturated are those colours, I can’t get over them, especially as it wasn’t that sunny a day and it’s a colour negative film, not a cross processed slide film – though it is iso 400 which I think definitely helped to get these results.

I realise that I am probably the only person excited about these, but I may have already found the film that suits this camera and I always love that feeling, that click where it just feels right, its almost like I can imagine all the future photos I’ll take with that camera and film, as they are perfect for each other…  In fact, I think I’m more excited about this cheap, home modified, small, plastic, unassuming camera and its potential than I have been about a new camera for a while and amazingly, I almost didn’t take it with me.

Everytime I looked through my photos trying to decide which photos to share next, I kept coming back to these four photos and looking at them it was pretty obvious the connection between them.

{Can you see it?}

I can’t even chose a favourite between them!

Sometimes I can be stubborn about things for no reason… It took me years to watch Moulin Rouge because I decided that I didn’t want to. Of course as soon as I saw it I completely loved it and kicked myself for not watching it sooner.

And, for some reason, when I started taking film photos again, I was reluctant to use black and white films, I’m not sure why, I think because I love colour so much. I eventually tried Ilford XP2 and adored it – especially with my Diana Mini – but I’ve been quite stubborn about trying other films. After some recommendations from friends, I decided to try the Kodak BW400CN film. Like the Ilford XP2 this is a C41 developed film, so not a true black and white technically, but wow… WOW!!!!

I’ve been looking at these photos since I got them developed and been wondering if I really took them… the results of this film – the contrasts and the tones – with my refurbished LC-A are truly gorgeous (I haven’t edited them at all) and I think now, I truly get the appeal of black and white film.

I can’t wait to use it again already!

Have a great weekend.

I wasn’t really sure where to start with these photos, so I decided to pick a camera and a film and then choose some of my favourites from that, and I think these photos are a pretty good way to kick it all off.

I still can’t believe how pretty Whitby was and how lucky we got with the sunshine, its no surprise that I took as many photos as I did really, I would have been crazy not to… right? I’m telling myself right.