The Low Down:
I had an idea to run off a roll of medium format film, placing the Yashica camera on the ground for each shot.  I don't know about you, but I seldom look at the world from ground level, so it was certainly different.

The film I used was Arista EDU Ultra 400, which was billed as "having a relatively fine grain with a mild contrast, wide exposure latitude, and very pleasant tones".   Developing it was fairly straight forward.
Ilfotec DDX  1 + 4,  for 8 minutes.  Personally I think the pictures are interesting but not spectacular and the quality might be less than great, but some of that might be due to my management of the camera settings.

Whatever the answer, taking these pictures was remarkably fun.  Crouching low on my knees, placing the camera on a rock, or on a path, or on the grass. In several cases I had to place the camera in way that I couldn't see the view-finder, so I had no real idea of how some of the pictures would turn out.
Sitting under the wharf was a good one, with rumbles and shaking overhead, and then the people who arrived in a dinghy looked rather surprised to see me sitting under there.

There's an old saying that comes to mind,  "It takes all sorts......", well it seems I'm one of those.
Lol 😀


These pictures were all taken around Waitangi, Northland, New Zealand.
Click in each picture to see a larger view..................

 Here we go........ 2020.
Another photography year begins.
I notice that many of my fellow photography passionistas (i.e. people overzealously enthusiastic towards something) are setting themselves new goals - e.g. a photo a day, black and white week, challenge a friend, share more, etc.

My idea this year is to use my film camera more. My favourite is the Yashica Mat 124G. It's such a beautiful thing and a real work of art.  If you click on it's name, here, you can read all about it.

To begin with, I've written an article and taken some film photos about, Russell, a small and most delightful town very close to where I live. I wrote the article as a participant in a world-wide initiative by Stephen Dowling entitled "Around the World in 80 Cameras".  If you click on the word Russell, it will take you to my article. Once the main project has been launched, I'll share that too.

For now, my plan is to do one blog post each week featuring my latest film photos, each set being taken to a different topic.  I reckon it will take me a week to take the photos, develop and scan them and then write the article, so once a week it will be.

For now, here are a few film photos I have already taken.