St Nicks Market

Long time no post, I've been using Tumblr for my photoblogging needs. It's seductively simple to post a photo from my Flickr on there. Sorry Blogger.
This is cross-posted from there, it's a collection of photos of one of my favourite places in Bristol, St Nicholas Markets.





 

See No Evil

Last week the whole of Nelson Street in central Bristol (UK) was shut off for a rather exciting project. Nelson Street is normally dull, grey and a bit manky - it's home to several nightclubs, a derelict magistrates court and the back of the police station - but someone had a good idea.
Bristol is well-known for its street art scene and Inkie, a local, brought the city council and street artists from all over the world together to brighten the area up. The whole thing was called See No Evil.
I missed the street party that accompanied the finishing of the project on Saturday, as well as the temporary boards which had been painted on, but what's still there is pretty awesome. I went down on Sunday and took a load of photos, so here they are in a neat slideshow.

More photos will eventually end up on Flickr but I don't see that happening for a while yet.
You don't want to see those anyway, there are loads of great ones over on Flickr.
There's a dedicated group, the Bristol group and Swishrelic's set, then there's the ever-awesome F***YeahBristol tumblrlog, and the project's own website.

I've been very quiet around these parts of late, but that's mostly because I've been being good and doing University work rather than faffing on the internet. The faff I have allowed myself is over at dichohecho.tumblr.com where I've been posting a picture a day (or as often as I manage) from my Flickr (which is also lagging a bit). I thought I should probably post something on here since Jess linked me :)

So, I shall try and keep this more updated; never mind that the last photos I posted were from September, I'll start afresh.

Here's Sporti:

He's an Iford Sporti 6 and makes square pictures on 120 film. In Niall's words the English Holga (well English company, they were made in Germany). He works a lot more reliably than a Holga though, no wrapping him up in electrical tape to avoid light leaks, plus a choice of apertures!

Of course he still has no metering so I have to guess (or use my ME Super to meter) but *so far* I've managed alright. Being a Sporti 6 rather than an earlier version he has double exposure prevention, but I don't mind too much. I've got my Lubitel(assuming it works) for that!

Here are some photos from my first film, shot on a cold, grey & misty February Sunday.

 Up in Kingsdown, I love these narrow streets that give you a slice of view down to the city centre.

Shiny old car, Kingsdown Parade 

 Ben on his bike

Me, taking a Bristol cliché photo

When I developed these it was pretty hot and I had a massive special and merrily started developing the roll with the chemicals I'd used for my 35mm films. Just as I started agitating the tank I realised I should have a couple of hundred ml more developer in there. Oops.

I hastily made up some more and chucked it in and carried on, for the stop & fix I just used the smaller amount and agitated it more than you're meant to. Amazingly they came out ok, you can see tide marks vertically on some of the photos, but clearly that's the aesthetic I'm going for, yeah?

They could still be horrible negatives but the lovely Niall scanned them for me so I got away with that one.
Next time I will get it right. I hope.

Bits & Pieces from September

One of my favourite buildings in Bristol - just a fantastic colour ; Tasty lunch from the genuine Italians in St Nick's Market, eaten by the river in Castle Park ; A little bit of eccentricity in the midst of the concrete mass of Broadmead.




Rustiness & decay, countryside style ; A view to make me nostalgic - the Somerset Levels ; Bringing the outside in - hops from the hedgerow with added wildlife.


A gaggle of geese (or ducks?) at the house of RWA artist Lucy Willis who does the most lovely watercolours, with a liberal amount of Venice. She has a great way with light. Mum & I visited her house when it was open as part of the Somerset Art Weeks.

Double Win

After Jith and I had a double fail, which was probably due to camera issues on her end, I decided to collaborate with myself instead. I found myself pretty easy to work with and didn't have to worry about letting myself down by filling the roll with rubbish.
I even managed to make some pictures, fancy that!


Harbourside Bokeh x Honeycomb Wall at the Chemistry Department

Coffee at the village flower show x Park Street in the morning

Wallpaper at Papajis x Water in the fountain outside the Victoria Rooms


Leaves & a lantern on Birdcage Walk x Sculpture on the fountain outside the Victoria Rooms

Clifton Suspension Bridge from down by the swingbridge x Chipboard

Nightglow at the balloon fiesta x Advertising on a car

These were all taken on my Pentax ME Super with Kodak Colorplus 200 film from Poundland & developed by the nice people at Clifton Colour.
The rest of the roll can be found in my Doubles! set on Flickr.

Bristol Balloon Fiesta '10

On the Thursday the fiesta started I drove up to Bristol and realised, as I drew up outside my house, that I'd forgotten my keys. Facepalm moment. Luckily my flatmate L was scheduled to arrive about half an hour after me, so I arranged to pick her and her twin up from the coach station so I could get in.
While I was waiting I could hear meowing, so I went to investigate and met this little chap:

He was sitting on the pavement meowing at anyone who went past and seemed very pleased when I went to say hello. He wove in and out of my legs and rolled about on the ground, and when I moved my foot suddenly he tried to grab and bite it! I put it down to playfulness...

That afternoon L, R and I took an exciting trip to big Sainsbury's, and I unpacked all the junk I'd brought up with me. My room looks much more homely now!
Later on we met some other people for tea (as organised by the lovely Jith) before heading down to see the nightglow at Ashton Court. (via the blackberries of Clifton)


It was very crowded and there was a huge chavvy funfair, which isn't exactly my thing, but it was fun for photos and the balloons were rather nice.

On Friday evening I went to the Square Sessions in Queen Square with Niall and Alex among others.

The music was decent too, but it was just a nice atmosphere lying around with nice people and nice cider. Niall (1 2) took some nice photos which sum it up pretty well. I could've sworn Matt did too but I can't find them!

On Saturday I had arranged to have a tea party at my house at 4pm. I got home later than I intended and baked rather panickedly. Luckily L & R are amazing bakers and made sparkly brownies and pink cupcakes, the angels! While I was hurriedly makeing whoopie pies in a saucepan on the coffee table in my bedroom and ordering Alex about, my friend C from home arrived with her boyfriend (J). She'd come up to see the balloons and I cruelly had her make cucumber sandwiches.
After lots of faff and flouryness various other people arrived, I made a big pot of tea, and we ate cake. Jith, Josh and Tom made something rather interesting. It was a small iced sponge cake with Hello Kitty's face on top, perched atop a lemon cheesecake. It was magnificent.

(Couldn't find a version without the cat... I have strange friends.)

After the tea party C (and J) and Niall and I decided it was too wet and miserable for the night glow (the 6pm ascent had got rained off) so we got an Indian takeaway and went to The Jersey Lily (a pub on Whiteladies Road) for a quiet drink instead.
The next morning we had brunch at Deco Lounge (shocking extravagance with the curry as well) before C & J went off for a day in Bristol and I ran away to Cornwall.

Cross-Processing Adventures Part II

To follow on from the previous post.
After London I returned to Bristol for a day or two. I finished the roll there and took it to Photographique to be processed and scanned.


Oakfield House, University of Bristol.


Secrets, near the university union.


Some lovely wysteria overhead.


A coffee break with books and photos.


Buttons, St Nicholas Markets.


Finishing off the roll outside Photographique.

As ever the full set is here.