Found a very inspiring book of black and white photos by Jane Bown entitled
‘Unknown Bown 1947-1967′. Might be partly a nostalgia trip of my mostly
forgotten childhood, but still I found the photographs so excellent, so
restful……you just want to gaze at them. In 1947 she borrowed £50 from
her aunt and bought a secondhand Rolleiflex with a Tessar lens. The skin
tones in her photos are so beautiful, it left me wondering if digital can
ever achieve the same wonderful quality. In some ways hope the answer is
‘no’, because it would be nice to think that the overwhelming convenience of
digital can still be surpassed by film in some areas.Her very first
photograph which pleased her professor at Guilford School of Art was of a
cow’s eye. So I thought I’d try something similar with the eye of my recent
pony shot. Jane Bown worked for the Observer, doing mostly portraits for
many years. However, one can’t help feeling she regarded this as ‘work’,
whereas of the photos in her book, she says, ‘These pictures are the real
me.’

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Taken with the 5D and the 24-105mmf/4L, the verticals corrected with
Lens-fix CI. When viewed on a Imac 24″ you can see that the stonework on
the church is amazingly sharp. ISO 400 at f/10, 1/400sec at 24mm. My
nephew, Iain Guthrie, who recommended I buy a 5D, and who uses his for
professional aerial photography, was quite right in saying that in decent
light, the 5D gives as good quality at ISO 400 than at anything lower.

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My first experiment with fake infrared……..after reading how to do it in
Martin Evening’s excellent book on Lightroom.

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Perhaps the weirdest landscape I’ve ever taken…a strange juxstaposition of
rolling field, and almost exotic domestic architecture. And, of course, you
can’t see it, but there is also a crow sitting on the wire next the
telegraph pole. It reminds me of an illustration from a children’s book.

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I have nice memories of this place……my parents used to belong to a
sailing club just north of Millarochy Bay, so we spent most weekends there.

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I liked the muted colours, and the softness of the light.

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Location: Dalarna, Sweden

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View from the flat window. Those of you who know Edinburgh, will know
exactly where.

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Yesterday evening there was the most amazing light. The sky got so dark,
and yet the sun still got through. The loch mirrored the green fields and
the trees. The colours looked unreal in their intensity. I thought, ‘
Ansell Adams got light like this most days, but it’s the first time I’ve
seen it..’ Perhaps that’s what makes landscape photography so challenging?

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I like this image – it captured the tranquillity of a perfect evening.

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