Weekend motoring

Over the years my collection of old cameras has grown and, with the best will in the world, I can’t use them all simultaneously. Every so often I dig one of them out and take it for a spin and it either reminds me why I’d put it away in the cupboard or I remember why I love it so much. Back in September it was the turn of my Olympus Trip 35 and this camera definitely fell into the latter category!

The Trip is a camera with limitations - a fixed 40mm f2.8 lens and only two shutter speeds - 1/40 or 1/200 of a second. However, I love having restrictions on my photography as that forces me to be more creative so it’s really the perfect camera for me. Pair it with a 400 speed film and you’ve got a compact and light camera which can shoot pretty much anywhere - on this occasion it was a weekend of car shows.

We started off at the JD Classics showroom near Chelmsford where they had a gathering for anyone who wanted to come and nose around their workshop. I wasn’t sure how well my little Trip would cope indoors, so I was pleasantly surprised when I got my developed negatives back.

The following day we were up early for another classic car show - this time at Tewin in Hertfordshire. The sun was out and we had an amazing array of vehicles to admire - what more could I ask for?!

Click on any image to see it enlarged.

Photos taken 23 & 24 September 2023

Goodwood Festival of Speed

My effort to catch up with my photo backlog continues, this time with a selection of images from our visit to the Goodwood Festival of Speed back in July. For some reason I struggled to feel inspired during our one day there but I came away with a few photos I like, from the central Porsche themed sculpture to today’s F1 cars and a classic Porsche.

Photos taken 13 July 2023

Anything but unexceptional

A couple of days after our jaunt to Harpenden we were on the road to another classic car show, but one with a difference. The Festival of the Unexceptional is the show for the sort of cars we all grew up with - everyday vehicles which wouldn’t have turned heads at the time. These days they tend to be the last survivors of their type - the cars that no one thought to care for at the time because they were so ordinary.

Photos taken 29 July 2023

Classics on the Common

My photographic strategy at classic car shows tends to vary according my mood - sometimes I’ll go digital for the spontaneity; on others occasions I’ll take the slow route and use a pinhole camera. For Classics on the Common in Harpenden I chose the latter, using my 6x9 pinhole camera to capture the cars and the people milling around them.

Classics on the Common is an all day event, so lots of people bring their own seats and picnics along to socialise.

The interior of a Bond Bug

Trotters’ Independent Traders even turned up!

Photos taken 27 July 2023

Classic motoring

We’ve had a busy summer with numerous car shows. At some I’ve used a digital camera to take pictures, but at Welwyn I plumped for my pinhole camera. The advantage of this is I have relatively few photos to select from when the films are developed so I’m not left wading through hundreds of digital files!

Photos taken 1 July 2023

Travelling light

My experience of teaching a smartphone photography workshop last month proved to be a great way of learning more about my own phone’s camera, but not without its temptations. As I researched what the cameras we all carry in our pockets can do I realised just how much more the latest iPhone can do now.

After much indecision I took the plunge and upgraded from my three year old iPhone SE to the latest iPhone 14 Pro and I haven’t regretted it for one moment. Yes, it still does all the phone stuff the same as any mobile, but having a larger sensor and three different lenses to play with brings many more possibilities when I want to travel light. The day after I bought the new phone I decided to use it as my sole camera for our monthly visit to the Barrington car meet and it was strangely liberating.

The super-wide angle lens offers some fun possibilities if you get really close.

On the new phone’s camera it will allow you to use the portrait mode on subjects which aren’t human which allows for all sorts of creative possibilities.

A beautiful 1948 Healey.

Photos taken 2 June 2023

A fix of chrome and petrol

It’s been so long since I had an opportunity to photograph any cars that the first Barrington car meet of the year (a monthly gathering in Cambridgeshire) felt like an oasis in the desert!

I spent an hour or so exploring the cars using a longish lens which gave me the chance to isolate some interesting details among the chrome laden classics on show.

I’ve seen this beautiful classic BMW there several times before and am always drawn to its unusual shade of green.

A duo of door handles…

It was lovely to see that Gordon the Gopher has finally been released from his broom cupboard. Readers who weren’t teenagers in the 1980s can learn more about him here!

Photos taken 7 April 2023

Taking things slowly

Back in September we went to the monthly car meet in Barrington for our fix of classic cars. Instead of taking a digital or pinhole camera I went with my uncle’s loaned Rolleiflex - a camera I haven’t used for a while. Photos are composed via the camera’s focusing screen, which presents everything reversed horizontally. This messes with my brain and makes me slow down, although that’s probably no bad thing!

Photos taken September 2022

Friday evening at the Barrington

Following our day at the Festival of the Unexceptional I had some photos left on one of my film cameras so I took it with me to the Friday evening car meet at the pub in Barrington. The RETO ultra wide and slim camera is very simple - a plastic body with a 21mm plastic lens, although you’d never know its minimal budget from the sharpness of the photos!

It was a beautiful summer’s evening and the light became even more glorious as the sun gradually dropped in the sky.

Photos taken August 2022