Photograpy Fix

Now I'm not pretending to be any sort of photography whizz or David Bailey here, but I really enjoy getting snap happy! My Dad lent me his old Pentax ME SLR a few years ago, but as exciting as shooting film is, it has its negatives (pun-intended). The romantic and annoying feature of using film is that you basically have no idea what the image will turn out like until you've got it developed. With this in mind, I decided to invest in a Nikon D3100 DSLR to ensure I at least took some semi-decent shots. If you were thinking of investing in a DSLR, you can pick these up for around 200 quid now, and I think they're pretty great!

My ever-so-talented uncle is a photographer and film producer, and a few years back spent an afternoon blacking out his garden shed and setting up a make-shift darkroom so that he could teach me how to develop film. It's an incredibly interesting process (science geek) and a lot of fun, albeit time consuming. If anyone out there has some kit they don't want, please please please send it my way as I'd absolutely love to set up my own darkroom.

As well as having the Pentax and Nikon, the same fabulous uncle bought me a Polaroid as my eighteenth birthday present, and I've loved it ever since. It used to be that you could only buy out-of-date film as it was no longer being made, however The Impossible Project launched in 2008 and you can get your hands on Polaroid film now no problem.They even have super cool black, gold, silver, colour and animal print film, which is great! I recently stumbled across an Impossible Project shop in Barcelona which housed rows upon rows of vintage Polaroid cameras, unfortunately I was already over my baggage allowance otherwise I'd have snapped some of those up (pun-intended)!

Me looking a bit grumpy at Palau Guell, Barcelona

Plaza de Ayuntamiento, Valencia

My beautiful sister being anti-social in Valencia

I've wanted to buy a negative scanner for ages, so a few weeks ago I picked up a pretty cheap one off ebay and have been fairly happy with the images I've got from it. The following three snaps are from Fujifilm Velvia 50 negatives I scanned.

Obviously I spent a lot of time photographing kitties

Parc Guell, Barcelona

My sister having a go with the Nikon D3100

Some of the negatives didn't work brilliantly, so I just scanned in the prints I had made from getting the films developed. The results can be seen in the following five images - I love Fujifilm Vevia 50, the colours are amazing! I haven't used Photoshop on any of the images on this blog post!

Plaza de Ayuntamiento, Valencia

Stealth mode photography

Chinese restaurant on Calle de Pelayo, Valencia

My sister outside La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Two ladies buying ham at Mercat Central de Valencia

DO: 

• go out and enjoy this unusually glorious summer we are having - experiment with taking photos, even if you're just using your phone camera! 
• get yourself on Instagram - there are some people out there who take the coolest photos! If you like what ya see, give me a follow using the button on my profile!

DON'T:

• spend crazy money buying things you don't need - you can pick up film from Poundland, so if you're just wanting to start experimenting get yourself down there and pick up a six-pack of Cadbury Freddos whilst you're at it.

Hope you've enjoyed browsing my photos. Any comments always appreciated!

- Beth