On October 29th 2011 we set off to recreate that walk. We might have been fifteen years older than last time around but we were going to prove to the world that such numbers mean nothing. Indeed we planned to walk a few miles further than we had done on our previous visit. Although I did once again neglect to bring a hat with me…

We parked up just below the imposing profile of Hen Cloud and started upon our ascent of the ridge which rises to an altitude of 505 meters (1,656 feet). The Roaches is a popular location for rock climbers and we passed several groups crawling spider like up the cliff faces as we made our own way to the top.

We did enjoy a few minutes in the sunshine to admire the views from the top of the ridge but ominous clouds were already massing to the north, threatening an imminent change of weather. As we made our way along the path to the northwest, towards Doxey Pool the sun vanished for pretty much the rest of the day.

I was quite surprised by the number of walkers up on the ridge. We had planned to stop and take photos by the triangulation point as this has become something of a tradition during our walks together. However the trig point was surrounded by a walking party I can only describe as a herd, so we walked on by and decided to take those photos during the return leg of our walk.

Soon after passing the trig point we were dropping down towards Roach End and then heading north towards Gradbach Wood which contains the next objective of our walk : Lud’s Church.

Lud’s Church is a deep, naturally formed chasm running for around 100 meters through the forest floor and reaching a depth of 18 meters (around 60 feet) in places. The rocky sides of the fissure are covered in thick, verdant moss and the place is associated with legends of the Green Man and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Small trees cling precariously to the rocks above your head as you walk the length of this dank passage.

Fifteen years ago this had been the final destination of our walk. This time around we had determined that we would head onwards out of the forest to the west, heading towards Danebridge.

At Danebridge we only had to walk for a few yards along the road to reach the path we intended to take which would lead us up the Dane Valley and back towards The Roaches. However as we made our way down towards the River Dane I spotted a building on the opposite side of the river which sported the word “brewery”. It was our duty as walkers and connoisseurs of Real Ale to investigate. And it was only a very short walk away.

What we discovered was the Wincle Brewery which had moved to this location just a matter of five months previously. There was a brewery shop which was open to the public offering bottles and kegs of beer for sale along with free samples to taste. We each bought a single bottle of ale and I am drinking my bottle of “Old Hag” as I type. It would have been good to buy a little more, but liquids weigh quite a bit, there is only so much space in a rucksack and it’s possibly not the best idea to be carrying around too many pressurised glass bottles in a situation where you could easily slip over and smash the lot.

After a few minutes sampling the delights on offer from the Wincle Beer Co. we headed back to the river and continued our trek up the valley. After a little while we reached the edge of Gradbach Wood once again and soon had quite a steep climb to head back up towards The Roaches.

The light was fading fast and the cloud had descended upon The Roaches as we made our way back up onto the ridge. The flocks of walkers observed earlier in the day had more sense than we did, they’d all gone back home, or to the nearest pub by the time we were trudging back along the cold, wet and windy path. We did make time to take a few photos including our planned shots at the trig point. Following that it was time to put the camera away, put on the gloves and make our way along the ridge at a fairly brisk pace before it got totally dark.

Eventually, with perfect timing, we made it back down from the ridge just as darkness descended for the night. It had been another wonderful walk on The Roaches and the day was ended by a visit to “Ye Olde Rocks Inn” at Upper Hulme for some pub grub and a pint. It’s amazing how good a mixed grill and a glass of ale can taste when you’ve really earned it.

…Until I took them down after drying and discovered they weren’t actually quite dry. And the way I discovered this was them getting stuck to the protective paper sleeve that I put them on after cutting.

I’ve made rather a mess of the film, but I’ve learned from it. I’ll never do that again. I was just too keen to get them scanned in and see the results.

It’s certainly not the best roll of 12 photos I’ve taken using “Helmut” the vintage Rolleiflex, but it’s a shame to spoil the results in this way having done all the trickier bits just fine.

Chalking this one up to experience and I’ll just have to see what I can salvage.

It had been five years since I’d last climbed up Kinder Scout so I decided to dedicate a day of my week off from work to walking those familiar old paths. Kinder Scout is an old “tramping ground” for me. I used to spend a lot of my spare time up here back in my youth and it’s where I really cut my hill walking teeth. Many a weekend was spent camping at Cooper’s camp site, opposite The Nag’s Head and walking all around this area. The place holds many happy memories for me.

It was back in May of 2006 that I last climbed Kinder, in the company of my sister on that occasion. We had a wonderful day, complete with horizontal hail. I managed to twist my knee and I’ll never forget the slow painful hobble back down Jacob’s Ladder.

That previous visit had been before I had started my “walking commute” for the first time, I was the biggest I’d ever been. Right now my jeans are 6 inches smaller around the waist than they were back then, so it was going to be interesting to see what difference that would make to my walk. I managed okay last time to be honest, although the twisted knee didn’t help.

As I was walking on my own I decided not to head across the top of the plateau. The summit of the Kinder Scout plateau is one huge peat bog several square miles in area. Visibility up there can be atrocious, the top is over 2,000 feet above sea level and is often covered in cloud and mist.

I have successfully navigated my way over the top alone in the past, but to be honest it’s a rather silly thing to do, much better to do that in company.

My plan for the walk saw me starting at Grindsbrook Booth in Edale and heading along the first few miles of the Pennine Way, up Jacob’s Ladder and then north to Kinder Downfall before heading back the same way as I’d come.

(the Old Nag’s Head, Grindsbrook Booth)

The Pennine Way starts at The Old Nag’s Head in Grindsbrook Booth. The signed path leads away over the fields to the west, the Kinder plateau looming above on the right side. I followed the path to Upper Booth and on past Lee Farm.

After Lee Farm there is about a mile of easy walking before reaching a little packhorse bridge known as Yongate Bridge.

(view of Yongate Bridge from Jacob’s Ladder)

Beyond Yongate Bridge, Jacob’s Ladder ascends steeply and I normally take a short break sat by the bridge before continuing up Jacob’s Ladder.

With Jacob’s Ladder behind me I had a few hundred yards of a more gentle ascent to enjoy before reaching the point where the path forks. Carry straight on to head west towards Hayfield or turn north to follow the path of the Pennine Way as I did.

I continued up over the “Swine’s Back” and on towards Edale Rocks, at which point I felt I was on Kinder “proper”. From there I made my way towards the trig. point at Kinder Low and then stuck to the western edge of the plateau all the way to Kinder Downfall.

(view back down into Edale from Edale Rocks)

Kinder Downfall was the target of my walk so I sat down and enjoyed my lunch there. As ever, the sheep seemed to hear the rustling of sandwich bags and came to investigate.

Kinder Downfall is the point where the River Kinder cascades over the edge of the plateau and forms a spectacular waterfall in so doing. However on this visit the river was completely dry (see photo at the head of this post). There was just a puddle of water gathered by some rocks near the edge. In all the years I’ve been visiting this spot I’ve never seen the river completely dry like this. A sure sign of the dry spring we’ve been having.

I completed my walk by returning along the same route as I’d followed on the way. That may be more dull than a circular route, but I was happy. I’d done what I set out to achieve which was to get to Kinder Downfall and see how my body coped with the walk. As I started my return journey the heavens opened and the rain which had been threatening all the time I’d been up there finally decided to fall, along with some hail. It wouldn’t be a proper Kinder day if there wasn’t rain and hail.

I have to say that it seemed considerably easier than my visit five years earlier. I can thank the loss of several inches off my belly for that and I look forward to returning when I’ve lost another couple of stone.

Today was the day. I got out of the house with “Helmut” (my WW2 vintage Rolleiflex Automat) and shot a roll of 120 film. This evening I processed the film myself at home and I have to say I’m fairly pleased with my results.

I have to get used to composing in the square format, but it really does look like this lovely old camera is light tight and working pretty well. I was rushing a bit with my shooting today, I was keen to get the roll finished and get it processed.

As I expected, the trickiest part for me was getting the 120 roll film onto the developing spiral correctly. I think I’ve learned some lessons and hopefully I’ll find it easier next time around. It was a huge relief when I finally got it to wind onto the spiral. Once that’s done it’s simply a matter of popping the film into the development tank, snapping the lid shut and you know you’re safe to get on with the actual developing.

I was using Ilford chemistry and ended up developing this roll at 19C (66F). It didn’t seem worth the bother to try and bring the temperature of the chemicals up by just 1 degree from the temperature they were sitting in the bottles at. I just adjusted my timings accordingly and it seems to have worked out pretty well.

It was a magical feeling to finally take the film out of the tank and see that I had images. This is the first film I’ve taken using “Helmut” from which I’ve seen the results. I did shoot a roll a couple of weeks ago but sent that off to a professional lab for processing and I’ve not had it back yet. That was the main reason I wanted to try processing my own negatives – the delay in seeing my results.

I’ve scanned all the negatives at 4800 dpi this evening. I could scan at a higher resolution, but I’ll only do so if I need to print them out big. The examples I show below have all been downsized a lot. The original scans are something like 10,000 pixels square, so 100 megapixel images. Yes, I can scan them at a higher resolution, but there’s absolutely no need to do that for presentation on screen. If you click through to Flickr on any of the examples you’ll be able to see them at 1500 x 1500 pixels.

For my first shots I visited Leicester’s Welford Road Cemetery. This is my favourite statue in the place and this seemed a good place to start off my shooting today. I was sorry to see that this statue had suffered more damage since last time I had seen her, a finger she was holding up to her cheek is now missing.

It was a little on the bright side so I had my aperture closed down to f11 for most of the shots I took today. If I can get myself a hand held light meter I’ll be able to shoot using slower film, but for now I have to use my EOS 7D as a light meter for the Rolleiflex and the lowest ISO I can set on that is ISO 100. The Ilford FP4+ is rated at 125 and as my 7D can be set to ISO 125 I’ll be sticking with FP4+ for now. I am keen to see the results I could get with the ISO 50 rated Ilford PAN F Plus – all in good time.

This photo was taken on “Main Street” in Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire. I liked the motorcycle propped up against the old cottages. I got a bit a flare towards the top of this image. I was shooting partially into the light so I can expect that.

Wistow church, Leicestershire. I had the camera sat on the ground for this one so you can see some very out of focus blades of grass in the foreground.

Just a small sample of my roll of 12 photos. Considering that I’m still learning my way with the camera and that this was the very first roll of film I have ever processed for myself then I’m pretty pleased with the results. I certainly nailed the exposure and focus on every single shot on the roll. A couple needed a little straightening, and on a couple I had rather less depth of field than I had anticipated.

The processing went amazingly well. I just need to gain confidence in getting the film onto the spiral and then I’ll be a lot happier. I know I’m bound to have the odd developing disaster from time to time and I’ll need to find out from experience just how long my fixer will keep “on the shelf”. I’ll be mixing fresh developer for every roll, but the other chemicals I’m going to re-use.

I’m not planning to use “Helmut” as my every day camera, he’ll come out on special occasions and when I just feel like I really want to go a bit retro. There is something amazingly satisfying in producing photos from purely mechanical and chemical means and doing it all yourself, manually. Hopefully I’ll soon get better at composing square photographs.

Following the acquisition of my vintage Rolleiflex Automat I was naturally very keen to get a roll of film through the camera and see the results. Quite apart from wanting to see what this lovely piece of photographic engineering was capable of, I wanted to see that everything was light fast and working as it should. It all seems to be okay, but I won’t know for sure until I’ve shot a roll of film and seen the negatives.

It was no problem finding somebody who would process the film for me and the price wasn’t too bad. However, the two week wait before I got to see my results was something of a downer. I paid my money and sent my film off, but this got me thinking about processing my own film.

After doing quite a bit of research I decided to take the plunge and invested in a batch of the required chemicals and various basic bits and pieces of equipment. The main investments on equipment would be a developing tank and a changing bag. My aunt said that she had her old changing bag and I was welcome to have it. For the development tank I went for the Paterson “Super System 4 Universal”. It seemed a popular choice and I can see why. The tank is very well thought out and seems to make everything very easy and secure. It’s capable of handling both 35mm and 120 roll film using an ingenious adjustable spiral (it’ll take 127 film too).

The basic process is as follows :-

• Remove film from camera.
• Place film, development tank, developing spiral and very importantly the lid in the changing bag.
• Within the light fast changing bag, unfurl film from spool and wind it onto the developing spiral.
• Place film, now on spiral, into developing tank.
• Snap on the light tight lid of the tank.

Once this is done the developing tank can be removed from the light tight changing bag and the chemical processing can begin in normal day light / room light conditions whenever you’re ready. Your film is safe and secure in a light free environment, so you can wait a while before kicking off the chemistry if you want.

The tricky bit in this is getting the film onto the spiral. I sacrificed a roll of 120 film so that I could see how the paper backing was attached and get used to winding the film onto the spiral. Keep in mind that I have to do this blind with my arms stuck inside a light tight changing bag. I got to the point where I could do this with my eyes closed fairly easily and decided that it was time to try it in the changing bag my aunt had given to me.

Oh dear! The bag was made out of very heavy duty PVC and must have been at least 40 years old. It did appear to be light tight, but it was very cramped once I had everything I needed within. And then the real problem became apparent. Humidity. Once your hands are inside the changing bag they start to sweat and the sweat has nowhere to go. This might not seem to be too much of a problem – until you realise that the humidity increase makes the film jam as you try to wind it onto the spiral.

So I had to order a new changing bag. I actually went for more of a “changing tent” which gave the advantage of being a bit roomier to manipulate things in. The fact that it had a supported “roof” would also help as I found the heavy PVC of my aunt’s old changing bag kept falling on top of my hands, and the film as I worked. 120 film is much wider than 35mm film and this makes it a bit trickier to work with as it is. Things become very much harder once you add a heavy PVC bag falling onto it from above and all the humidity which is trapped inside the bag.

The changing “tent” arrived today and I was keen to give it a try. I thought that the modern fabrics and the extra space within would sort out any problems with humidity. I was wrong!

It was certainly way better and much easier to get the film “started” onto the spiral. But from that point on there was no change. The film kept jamming. And of course the more this happened the more frustrated I became and the longer the process took so the more my hands sweated and the worse the situation got.

I tried plunging my hands into some very cold water and drying them well before starting, but that didn’t really help.

I tried blasting a fan at the back of the tent but that didn’t help either.

Finally I decided to try cooling the tent using a couple of ice bricks from a cooler box. I popped them into a plastic bag and left them on top of the tent for a few minutes. My thinking was that cool air sinks so it should cool the interior of the tent. My hands would sweat less and cool air holds less moisture than warm air.

It seems to work!

Now I’m just waiting for my thermometer to arrive before I can have a bash at processing my own film. I’m sure my hands will be sweaty as heck when I come to trying this for real using a film which has potential photographs on it. I’m certainly going to have to be a whole lot more careful about handling the film than I have been with my practice roll.

For the record I am shooting on Ilford FP4+ ISO 125, 120 roll film in the Rolleiflex. I still have my old 35mm SLR camera so if the processing goes well I can see myself trying some of the 35mm equivalent or maybe some Ilford PANF+ which is rated at ISO 50 and should give some of the finest grained results possible. It’s also quite important for me to make sure I use a fairly slow film with the Rolleiflex, especially when it’s bright. The fastest speed the shutter is capable of is 1/500 which might cause a problem if I use a fast film and want to shoot “wide open” at f3.5. ISO 50 rated film would be ideal.

Oh, and following a bit of a vote on Facebook, my Rolleiflex is now named “Helmut”. With a bit of luck you’ll be hearing more about him and seeing some photos he has helped to create in the near future (my fingers are incredibly well crossed).

Helmut seemed a good choice of name for a vintage German camera which was a bit shabby looking but solidly built. The first Helmut that sprang to mind was Helmut Kohl, and he is certainly solidly built (I know nothing of his politics so this took no part in my decision). Then there is the photographer, Helmut Newton and last but not least “Helmut” sounds very similar to “helmet” which meant that I also got the benefit of a bit of amusing double entendre by naming him thus.

I’ll be back with a “Part 2″ to this story one way or another over the next few days.

I’ve been wanting to dabble with medium format film photography for quite a while. It appealed to me even before I bought my first DSLR, but the prices of new equipment put me off and anyway, digital was where everything seemed to be heading.

Digital photography has some major advantages. Things like instantly being able to view your photo as soon as you’ve taken it, simply downloading your photos to your computer without having to scan them and never having to buy film. But part of me was rebelling against all the technology and electronics. Photography seems to have become more and more melded with the world of the computer over the last ten to fifteen years. I see reviews of digital cameras in computer magazines and I wonder what on Earth they are doing in there. Yes, a digital camera contains a lot of electronics, but so too does a washing machine and they never seem to review those.

I recently stumbled across some old negatives shot from the 1920′s through the 1930′s by my grandfather using 120 roll film and seeing the quality of the images they produced re-ignited my interest in film based photography and medium format in particular.

120 roll film is still available so I started to look seriously into the possibility of obtaining a working camera which would utilise that size of film. I kept an eye on eBay for ages, but so many which were on offer there had internal fungus on the lens. I didn’t really want to start my ownership of a camera by stripping down and cleaning the lens so I started to look for specialist dealers in vintage cameras.

I ended up calling Collectable Cameras after seeing their advert in Amateur Photographer. I explained that what I was looking for was a 120 film camera, capable of shooting 2 1/4 inch square negatives which was in full working order – but I had a very limited budget. I didn’t expect them to have something available for me right there and then, however they did mention that they had a Rolleiflex which worked but was in a rather sorry state cosmetically. As the average camera collector wants a camera which looks nice on a shelf the price for this one was eminently affordable. After asking a few questions and obtaining the answers I wanted to hear, the order was placed and the camera arrived on Friday morning along with a lens hood and a “Focal Press” camera guide to the Rolleiflex printed during the early 1950′s.

On Friday evening I familiarised myself with the basic functions of the camera before I loaded any film. Certainly everything seemed to be in full working order, even the self timer worked. The dials for selecting shutter speed, aperture and focus were all as smooth as butter and the shutter certainly sounded healthy.

I checked the the serial number of the camera at the RolleiClub web site and was rather pleased to find that this actual specimen was made sometime between April 1939 and October 1945. Judging by the range of serial numbers I would have thought it quite likely to have been built anywhere between 1942 and 1944.

Suddenly I had a huge sense of the history of the object that was sitting in my hands. What photos had this camera taken during nearly 70 years?

Time for a few technical details. The taking lens is a 75mm Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar f3.5, the viewing lens is a Heidoscop Anastigmat 75mm f2.8. On these cameras it was quite common to have a wider aperture on the viewing lens than the taking lens; if it was in focus on the viewing lens then it certainly would be on the taking lens – quite a clever idea. This Tessar has apertures of 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11 and 22. The shutter is a Compur Rapid with speed settings of B, 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/250 and 1/500. There is no built in metering and I don’t have a hand held meter yet, so for now I’m metering using one of my more modern cameras (today I was using my Canon EOS 7D as a light meter for the Rolleiflex – the idea of which sort of makes me chuckle). Focussing is possible from a range of about 3 feet to infinity.

Talking of focussing, here is the view you get looking down into the waist level finder :-

The brighter spot in the middle of the focussing screen is used for “critical focus” and works a bit like a rangefinder. First you get what appears to be a “close enough” focus by looking at the whole image. There is a fold out magnifier (not shown in the photo above) which flips out so that you can get a closer look, particularly at that split prism focussing spot in the middle. This spot is split across the middle horizontally. When the top half of the image lines up with the bottom half of the image you have your focus nailed.

There is also an “eye level finder” at the back of the camera. A mirror is ingeniously included as part of the waist level finder and this can be flipped out to reflect the image from the finder screen to the eye hole at the back. It’s all so very well thought out and engineered. I might have to see if I can shoot a little video of the focussing mechanism when I’m a bit more used to it.

I put a roll of film through the camera earlier today. I want to look at the results before I take any more. I’ll report back on the photos when the film has been processed. My plan for now is to send the films off to a professional lab for processing only, no prints. Once they are delivered to me I’ll scan them in and do any post processing I want to do – and of course upload them so that you can see them on my blog – if they are worthy! I’ll be amazed if there’s anything acceptable from this first roll. It feels so very different to using a modern DSLR and there’s a lot to get used to (particularly seeing everything reversed horizontally on the focussing screen).

It has been a week now since I completed my “Project 365” and I’ve had a bit of time to reflect. I never really had the chance to stop and think about it much whilst I was actually working on it. Life became a blur of work, family commitments, whizzing about the place to take photos, setting up shoots at home, processing, printing, blogging. I really must stress the printing. I decided to print each and every one of my 365 photos out on 6×4 paper and pop them into albums. For too long my photography was something which only ever appeared on a computer screen.

But just why would anybody decide to do something as crazy as the 365 in the first place? What could I possibly have gained from forcing myself to take at least one photo every day for a year?

Lots of Friends

It amazed me just how many people followed my 365 and left comments and encouragement either here, on my Flickr stream, on Facebook, on Twitter, by email and indeed face to face. I feel rather guilty that I’ve not yet spent the time I should looking at the work of all the fellow bloggers who got in touch with me over the last year as a result of my 365. I intend to spend a lot more time looking at other people’s photos and reading their blogs. I’ve long known that looking at photographs is a great way to learn new things and to see the world in a way you’ve never seen it before. I’ve been very bad at actually investing the time to do enough of this however. It’s a win / win situation, I get to improve my eye by looking at people’s photos and they hopefully might gain something from any constructive comments I may leave.

Creative Focus

Very soon after finishing my 365 I realised that it had been providing a real focus to my photography and my creativity in general. I don’t think I’d ever realised the motivating force of working on a project like this before. I have a few ideas for more projects to work upon and I need to come up with more.

This really struck me on the evening of 3^rd April, just three days after completing my project. There was what appeared to be a stunning sunset and I’d not even noticed or thought about it until it was too late to head out somewhere and take advantage of it. That would never have happened during the project, I wouldn’t have let a photo opportunity like that go to waste during the project, and I really need to make sure that I don’t let them go to waste now I’ve finished the project.

Everyday Subjects

One thing which helped me to decide to attempt the project in the first place was admiring the skill that some photographers seem to have of being able to make an interesting photograph out of just about any everyday object. It was something I just couldn’t seem to do and I saw it as one of the main targets of the project to improve my ability to do this. I think I can say that I have improved in this respect and that alone would have been enough to justify the Project 365.

Off Camera Flash

This is something I am probably still at very early stages with, although I used the technique way back on day 3 of my project when I took some smoke photos. Using a flash gun off camera opens up all sorts of interesting lighting possibilities and it’s something I used a lot during the project. I started off with one flash gun which I couldn’t get to fire independently of my camera’s built in flash. I added a wireless trigger, a couple of cheap umbrellas and a light stand. Eventually I picked up a very cheap second flash gun and I want to try to learn how to work to good effect with both strobes. I certainly need to spend more time reading the Strobist blog.

Improvisation

Referring back to day 3 of the project again as an example, I soon learned that you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money to get the results you want. That day I made myself a very basic snoot out of a simple piece of black A4 paper – and I’m still using the same one a year later. That is excellent value for money. You know what you want to achieve, you don’t have the “right kit” to do the job but if you can cobble something together it might just work. And you might just obtain way more satisfaction in the process than had you gone to the camera store and spent loads more money.

Experimentation

Having to take a photo a day for year can lead to quite some degree of desperation at times. It can also lead you to experiment with things which you might not have otherwise tried. Smoke photography and water splash photography are two examples of things which I doubt I would have tried if I hadn’t done the 365.

Shooting People

I learned during the Project 365 that this is something I don’t do nearly enough of. I have a real dearth of willing models, though fortunately my daughter can sometimes be bribed. In terms of “something gained” from my project, this is simply a realisation that I want to take far more photos of people and something I am going to need to work on in the future. I would like to do some street photography, take more portraits of my family and friends and also work with models should I have the opportunity.

I think those are the main things I’ve learned, along with just how difficult it can be to come up with an idea for a photo day after day for such a long period of time. Now it’s time to move on to other things. In the week since I completed the project I’ve only taken a couple of photos, and they were shot using my old 35mm film SLR. I think I needed a bit of a rest from the shutter release for a while but now I’m keen to get back out with my cameras and start working on new projects.

And finally, Day Three Hundred and Sixty Five is here. I can hardly believe that I’ve done it. I know to some it might not seem like a huge achievement, and certainly if I was able to dedicate more of my time to photography then it probably wouldn’t seem like such a big thing at all to me.

There have been ups and down along the way, some photos I’m very pleased with, others I will never want to see again. When I started this on April 1st 2010 I never really expected to complete it. I started on that date in order to give myself an easy get out clause, “just an April Fool”. There have been many times I can’t believe I managed to take a photo. Back in December I spent four days ill in bed, but somehow I managed to crawl out to take my “Photo of the Day”. Just a week or so ago I spent another twenty four hours with a fever following a dental infection – or more likely a reaction to the anti-biotics I was given. I think that was the closest I got to failing and I still can’t believe I managed to drag myself out of bed for long enough to take this photo. I was barely functioning on a conscious level, but still I managed it somehow.

So, no great big “grand finale” shot? I had been thinking about this for the last couple of months I suppose. What to take for my final “Project 365″ photo? I came up with a few ideas which might have made a fitting end of the project, but dismissed them all one by one. I really wanted to get outdoors this evening to shoot my last shot for the project, and I really wanted Michelle to come along as she has done on so many of my shoots for this project. A return trip to Wistow felt right, quite a lot of my photos have been taken there and Michelle and I always enjoy a walk through the fields by the church.

The buttercups were just beginning to flower and the lambs were bleating next to their mothers just a bit further down the field. Sadly the sun didn’t really want to cooperate, but that didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves. It seems a fitting end to me – what could be better than being outdoors, walking through the fields, laughing and joking with my little girl? Perfect.

I’m not going to rattle on for ages about lessons learned tonight. I’ll come back another time to blog about that. For now I’m just looking forward to taking photos when I want to take photos. It will no doubt feel rather odd for a few days or weeks not to have the constant “what can I shoot?”, “where can I go?” running through my head every single day.

So, following my Project 365 I plan to :-

• Produce a few “tutorial” style blog entries which go into far more detail than I could during the project about various different techniques and set-ups.
• Look properly into the possibilities of stock photography.
• See if I can purchase a fairly cheap vintage, medium format, film camera – maybe a folder : would love a Voigtländer.
• Carry on enjoying my photography and learning more and more – especially about light and lighting.
• Shoot more people :^)

And as I assured Michelle tonight, just because the project is over doesn’t mean that we don’t get to go out and have fun any more. It just means that Daddy won’t be stressing over making sure he gets a photo taken each and every day. I’m sure we’ll be back out again soon, both of us taking photos and enjoying ourselves so very much whilst doing so.

And finally… A very big thank you to everyone who has followed along over the last year. Thanks for your comments, thanks for your encouragement, thanks for your suggestions. There certainly have been times when all that has kept me plodding on was the encouragement and support I received from you all. I hope that now I’m done I can go back and spend way more time looking at other people’s photos, which is such a great way to learn. I’ve made quite a few new friends in completing this project and I feel a bit guilty for not looking at their work as much as I would like. That is one thing I’ll be putting right with some of the extra free time I’ll now have each evening.

And I should also thank my wife and daughter for putting up with an often cranky Chris over the last year. Your help and support finally saw me get through what is actually a deceptively challenging project. I know some nights I’ve been in a foul mood because I’ve just not known what to shoot, so thanks for putting up with me :^)

And on that note I will sign off for now before this turns into an awards ceremony acceptance speech. Time for a big mug of coffee. Back in a few days!

I was struggling once again tonight. I suppose it’s hardly surprising after three hundred and sixty four days. It was a lovely evening, but the car was not available for me to get out and about anywhere. I spent most of the evening doing other things and then came back to think of a “Photo of the Day” very late into the evening.

I’d thought that I might be able to get a photo out of this bouncy ball, full of water and glitter. I decided to light it from below, once again using my dear old home made snoot (still using the same one I made back on Day Three).

I used my favourite trick of highly directional light and a narrow aperture so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what was in the background. The flash was set to manual at 1/32 power with the ball held just a few inches above the tip of my snoot. Although I was shooting at a focal length of 55mm, I had the shutter set to 1/30 of a second. When shooting with flash like this it’s the flash which stops the motion so I didn’t have to worry too much about the shutter speed.

I’ve noticed that I seem to enjoy composing in a square format more and more these days. I’m currently looking out for a reasonably priced but working vintage medium format film camera. There might be many more square photos to come in the future if I do go down that route.

Canon 7D, EFS 15-85mm IS, 1/30 at f11.

I knew it was going to be a tough one tonight. After the glorious sunny evening I enjoyed out with Michelle last night, tonight was rather dull and grey and I just couldn’t think of anywhere to go and take a photo that might “take advantage” of that. By the time I’d sat around thinking about where to go, it had very nearly got dark anyway so I went off and did other things.

So, on Day Three Hundred and Sixty Three we come to this. Real desperation. The screw-thread of a lightbulb. Does life get any more interesting than this?

I had been thinking that it would be nice to end this project with a special effort of some sort for day Three Hundred and Sixty Five, but I’ve not been able to come up with any ideas I really like. However, just two more days to go and I suppose I should console myself with the fact that I’ve shot some photos I’m really pleased with over the last year. Today’s effort certainly isn’t one of them :^)

Canon 7D, EF 100mm f2.8 macro, 1.6 seconds at f5.6 .