This is a strange photo!

I didn’t think I’d get anything from this roll. Handheld with the monster Nikkor 80-200/2.8, Tri-X pushed to 1600, little available light, plus a very strange dev. How wrong I was, I’m really pleased with this.

@BearspaceART

Outside The Albany. Uncle Trevor steals some of the limelight. As if he could…

St Paul’s Church, Deptford

I’m amazed this came out as well as it did. Nice shapes and lines

Funny what you find down The High Street

A year ago Nicola asked me to photograph her wedding. Not in a million years was my initial reaction… We’d never met, just exchanged emails & comments about the photos on this site. Nicola liked the photos, is local, and loves Deptford. She had the idea that following the wedding ceremony, they would walk from St Paul’s Church to the reception at The Albany, down Deptford High Street, through the market. Now that sounded inspired. I was interested.

“I’ve got a wedding photographer, I just want you to do your ‘Deptford thing’ down The High Street”.

How could I refuse?

So eighty wedding guests squeezed through the market following Nicola and Jimmy looking for a good deal:

Bargain!

My ‘thing’ was to use a film camera loaded with B&W rather than the ubiquitous digi. Perhaps a little bit more on this choice in a later post, it certainly made things ‘interesting’. No pressure there… But it was exciting. Me bouncing round like a paparazza, the response to the procession from the Saturday crowds and stall holders was incredible!

Let us not forget that once, all weddings were photographed on film… how times change. Respect to wedding photographers (all wedding photographers, whatever format to be honest).

Outside St Paul’s Church

A brilliant idea Nicola & I hope you don’t mind the preview on this site

Congratulations to you both.

Back in the day (early 1980′s) I spent (quite a lot of) time protesting outside Lambeth Town Hall supporting a Labour council who fought Thatcher’s cuts tooth and nail.

Here we are, nearly thirty years later, outside another Town Hall, outraged that a Labour council is rolling over on its back to implement the Tory cuts as painlessly as possible for the coalition government. Fuckers. This isn’t why Lewisham council got the Labour vote in the recent elections.

Megaphone photos are obligatory…

I turned up with the vintage Nikon F4, which seemed appropriate somehow for such a back-to-the-future protest. And it wasn’t working as it should. The winding mechanism in the old warhorse is obviously feeling its age and slipping. Like me really.

Bemused of Lewisham

Not happy people

For such short notice there was a decent turnout with several unions represented. The NUT organised the rally, and I saw GMB, Unison, Unite, PCS and others represented (and NUJ if I include myself as a [non-]partial observer), plus the Green Party, SWP (quelle surprise) and Labour Party. Goldmiths too.

I knew the winder on the F4 was fucked when I looked at the counter and somehow had only shot 15 frames. I knew I had pressed the shutter release more times than that! However, the results could have been worse. Sometimes double/triple/quadruple/quintuple exposures are lucky accidents:

This my personal take on the protest. It is hard to be objective in your own back yard.

More coverage of the protest, interviews with local people affected by the cuts and videos by Hangbitch

(Usual disclaimer not applicable)

Scott Tracy and stiletto shoe… whose icons?

More brick wall from the Deptford Project.

As usual, fabulous coffee. The cake is made by Ajay and highly recommended – as is all his cooking.

One more;

Note the noose

Just off Crossfield Street by the dog park

Deptford seems to be littered with car/motorcycle detritus at the moment. Today Deptford Broadway was covered with broken glass too

There is a big old lab lumbering towards the dog park in the background

This rather nice Olympus 35 ED rangefinder can be seen at The Deptford Project Cafe. Probably dating from the mid 1970s. It is the cheaper cousin of the RD which had a f/1.8 lens. Enough retro-geeking.

It just felt right to be taking a photo of a classic rangefinder camera with a classic rangefinder camera. The other side of the camera etc etc.