This Week In The Coronapocalypse | In An Instant: Lockdown Edition: Pylon

March 29, 2020April 10, 2020 by Gerald Greenwood

I’ve now shot two packs of Polaroid Originals colour film in my SX-70, and I’m starting to get a feel for what works for me: simple compositions, muted or restricted colour palettes. Yellows and blues tend to look nice.

Now it’s time to try some black and white, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I went down by the river on this morning’s walk and shot this. Based on my extensive experience of one shot, the black and white film seems to be a very different beast. A touch more ethereal, a bit more flaky. I’m quite excited to get out and shoot some more. I guess that’s what house arrest does to you.

Pylon, Chertsey Meads / Polaroid SX-70 Sonar / Polaroid Originals SX-70 Black & White Film

Prior to this pandemic, thanks to Brexit and the ensuing culture war, Britain has been engulfed in political turmoil for three years. Each day seemed to bring a new political calamity, which was then promptly forgotten when the next one happened 24 hours later. Weeks felt like months, months felt like years. I really regret not keeping a simple note of events as they happened, just so I could look back and try and make some sense of it all.

So during this period I’ve decided to sum up the weekly events that have struck me the most, from the deadly serious to the absurdly ridiculous. If my tone seems flippant at times…well, we all have our own way of getting through this horror.

See all previous updates here

This week in The Coronapocalypse:

UK officially in lockdown for minimum of three weeks
Nation celebrates Mother’s Day by not visiting mothers
Most vulnerable told to isolate for 12 weeks
Prince Charles tests positive
More than 700,000 heed the call and volunteer to help the National Health Service
PM Boris Johnson leads by example and tests positive
Oh, and the Health Secretary. Oops.
Clap For Carers: households across the UK stand on doorsteps & balconies to applaud efforts of NHS. Grown men ~~weep~~ get something in their eye.
Situation stabalising in China….
….whilst situation in New York and Spain looks ever more grim
Government declines invitation to participate in EU scheme to get desperately needed ventilators because ‘We are no longer in the EU’…
….and then following national backlash ‘clarifies’ by saying ‘We didn’t see the email’. Yep, the grown ups charged with getting us through this crisis basically used the Dog Ate My Homework excuse. Lordy.
Off-licences declared ‘essential’ and allowed to stay open. Draw your own conclusions about us Brits.
Self-employed to be paid 80% of previous year’s profit.
Gatherings of more than two people outlawed. The Nation’s introverts cheer.
US now country with most cases
Britsh Summer Time starts and clocks go forward one hour, meaning nation has one less hour of weekend to enjoy / endure (delete as appropriate) with family members before…
…spending every waking hour of forthcoming weeks with family members…

Worldwide cases: 664,891
Worldwide deaths: 30,893
UK cases: 17,089
UK deaths: 1,019

source

In An Instant: Lockdown Edition: Welcome To….

March 27, 2020March 28, 2020 by Gerald Greenwood

Welcome to….

….the local hand car wash, as it happens.

When these guys started up about six or seven years ago, they started sending out flyers proclaiming to be ‘The Best Hand Job In Town’. They soon stopped that once they realised they were attracting the wrong kind of customers.

The Best Hand Job In Town / Chertsey Car Wash / Polaroid SX-70 Sonar / Polaroid Originals SX-70 Color Film

I took this photo on my exercise stroll this morning. The car wash is just by my apartment, and in the old days at weekends when I’d wake up a bit later and the traffic was light, I could hear the gentle sloshing of the water from their hoses. It’s a surprisingly comforting sound. Of course, now it’s silent, abandoned, and its absence just adds to that dislocating sense of 28 Days Later desolation. The streets are empty, with just an occasional car, and if you do pass a pedestrian coming the other way, both of you give each other a wide berth. This is the new normal. I can’t help wondering if future generations will wonder how it become traditional to sing Happy Birthday whilst washing your hands.

See all of my Polaroid SX-70 photography here

That Was The Month That Was: September 2018

October 7, 2018July 15, 2019 by Gerald Greenwood

Time for September’s round-up of photographic odds and ends…

It’s been an extraordinary summer, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that this has officially been England’s hottest since records began in 1910. That’s troubling for those of us that believe global warming is a reality. The human race is on the road to extinction, and the planet will soon become uninhabitable for all life. Except perhaps for a few mindless creatures, such as cockroaches and Nicotine Fromage. On the other hand, I’ve had some cracking weekends this year, so it’s swings and roundabouts really.

It’s probably been obvious from previous photos that there have been dogs in my life this summer. That’s made me very happy. And they love it when we take them to the pond. Even Daisy, who’s 15 and a bit unsteady on her legs, still enjoys a bit of a paddle.

Pentax KM / Kosmo Foto Mono / Semi-Stand developed in HC-100 1:160 for 45 mins

It’s not entirely accurate to say this is only the second roll of Kosmo Foto Mono that I’ve shot. It’s a re-badged rather than a new film, and as the website says, it’s an “existing emulsion made by a European film producer”. That might be all the clue you need to tell you where it comes from, but if you look at the development chart you’ll see that Arisata chemicals are predominately mentioned. And Arista film is also known to be repackaged from a well-known East European manufacturer….

Kosmo Foto Mono doesn’t quite have the biting sharpness and fine grain of something like Tmax 100, but that probably contributes to its somewhat vintage look. These shots were taken in the South Downs, where Coco The Cocker and Daisy The Springer live.

I’ve read that having dogs can have a positive effect on your health and well-being, and increase your longevity. I totally buy this and always feel incredibly happy and relaxed when I spend time with these guys. Apparently being married can have a similar effect, although that’s something I wouldn’t know. Nevertheless, it’s probably just a case of life just feeling like it’s going on longer. (I’m joking; I’m not quite that cynical. Yet.)

I live in Chertsey, right by the River Thames, which is great to cycle alongside. Upstream is Hampton Court and central London, but I usually head the other way, towards Windsor.

I finished up this roll as I walked back home one sunny afternoon. This was another opportunity for me to try out the Miranda 24mm Lens on the Pentax KM.

My Five Favourite Facts About Chertsey:

Chertsey was destroyed by Martian fighting machines in the afternoon of 8 June 1902. According to HG Wells’s novel War Of The Worlds, that is.
The One And Only 1990s teenage heartthrob Chesney Hawkes lives here. Please try to contain your indifference.
Chertsey has a spooky abandoned orphanage. I dodged the razor wire and surveillance cameras to make a surreptitious visit back in 2015.
Chertsey is home to The Great Cockcrow Railway. This is a miniature railway with over 30 steam – yes, steam – locomotives. These operate in exactly the same way as the full sized, pre-war steam engines they’re modelled on. The drivers stoke up the hot coals on these eighth-scale locos.
Charles Dickens visited Chertsey whilst writing Oliver Twist. He evidently thought so highly of the town that he used it as the location for where Oliver is forced by Bill Sykes to take part in an attempted burglary.

After my successful experiments stand developing 35mm film in HDC-110, I thought I’d try some medium format. FP4 is my go-to medium speed film in 120, and I usually stand develop it in Rodinal. HC-110 gives similarly pleasing results.

Mamiya 645 pro TL / Ilford FP4 / Semi-Stand developed in HC-100 1:160 for 45 mins