Whichever city or country you visit these days, you'll always come across "Street art" in some way or form. Some good, some bad but they all have one thing in common, expressing and displaying their work where ever they can. On a recent visit to Lithuania, I came across some of the Eastern Europeans artists work. I only captured the best.
Brutal design
I hadn't planned to visit Vilnius but seeing as I was only one and a half hours away in Kaunas, I thought Id travel up there and see what going on. I wasn't really sure what Id expect to find but as long as it wasn't just uninteresting tourist related stuff then Id be happy. My first and only interesting find was what can only be described as a piece of brutal soviet influenced architecture. Concrete and grey this shocking attempt at design has all the typical characteristics of eastern European design minds gone mad. It was more about a statement of communism than a functional building.
The building and the surrounding land appeared to form part of a leisure complex that has clearly been left and now sits on the Vilnius landscape like a carbuncle. A shame really.
Female and strong
Jeannie, Jeannie, yellow and black
lying empty and waiting to embark.
Into the bay and round the mount
Real Cornish elm helping you out.
Oars in the water
oars in the air
powering through the salty swell
I was once called "Sally" and built by Peter
Im solid, Im solid there's is no mistake
of wood that is seasoned and designed to shape
My oars lie waiting for hands to grip
Im branded with white lettering
and "Mounts Bay" in black.
Come race me, come race me
in Cornish waters
and see if you have what you need to challenge me
Polaroid Spectra Giveaway
Don't miss out you lovely peeps on another cracking giveaway from Ray Larose. He's teamed up with Micheal Pretzsch who has kindly donated a sweet Polaroid Spectra plus 8 packs of Impossible colour/B&W film and a Tamrac camera bag. Cracking prize. What do I need to do? Well, follow this link and good luck. My submission is in! Fingers crossed
Radical Acts of Kindness - Budapest's Maffia
I spent some time recently with Budapest's Maffia. Armed with their bikes, they set about bring "Racial acts of kindness" to those less fortunate than ourselves. I refer to the Budapests homeless.Thank you to the girls at Casimir for publishing my article and thank you to Voltan & Kata for allowing me to join. Check out their web and Facebook links below:
www.bbm.hu/en
www.facebook.com
Salty tales from salty folk
A big thank you to those lovely Salty people at Salt Magazine for publishing the recent "foraged & free" piece I put together in and around the town of St Ives. These guys publish some great on line content from a selection of some very talented photographers. It's nice to be considered to sit along side these guys & girls that provide some inspiring work
Please keep up your salty work...
Keeping a visual
Along the coast there are extra eyes
keeping a visual on how we run our lives
checking the weather and routes we travel
on the seas and over the horizon
Our powerful optics record our visuals
noted down and filed religiously
to ensure we do what we’re told
completing the log of how our days unfold
St Ives, St Ives, this is our station
where Steve & Clive make their observations
keeping an eye on all that sails past
from hidden wrecks to rocky outcrops
We volunteer our time keeping our visuals
ensuring safe passage for ships & vessels
travelling our seas on business or pleasure
so make good your journey
and we'll bid you farewell
Go safely, go safely and remember this
we will keep watching
just in case there’s something a miss
www.nci-stives.org
Todays weapons of choice
I got myself this Petri 7s a few weeks back and haven't had chance to use it as yet. So, I thought why not try it with a roll of Kodaks Portra.
A cracking film offering a high speed with little noise. Great in low light situations,superb sharpness and unmatched colour saturations
As for the Petri, its another one of those "poor mans Leica" rangefinders we here about. It will never be a Leica but it will always be a good quality budget end rangefinder. I'll post the results..
We're British, British, how very British - Part 1
We are very British, no matter how you see us. Over the next few months I will be documenting just how very British we are.
Part 1 - bowling
Bowling, bowling, green grass and hats
woods, mats, slacks and cracks
rolling at speed, then slowing it down
scoring the points and writing it down
Flat shoes we wear to keep our greens fair
so our woods will travel with the greatest of care
numbers turn over as we score the points
from end to end then we bowl again
Keep them clean, count them all
home, away the scores on the doors
we're highly competitive when we step on our green
and hopefully win the game we spin
We're watched from all angles and from behind the club glass
passing the odd comment and perhaps even a laugh
at the way the games going and how they all play
hoping that Penzance will be win their game
Bowling, bowling its a love of ours
with most of us play when we're retired
Its not the fastest game in the world
but lets not forget were British and proud.
Second roll on a Trip
It's really interesting to see the difference that can be obtained with the same film. I'm referring to the £1 Agfa 200 film I used about a month ago. That was shot on my Yashica. This time I used the second roll on a Olympus Trip 35. This roll was run at 200 asa unlike the first roll, that was at 100 asa. However, I'm so pleased with the images. A slightly richer feel to them. Quite sharp too bearing in mind that the Trip is a point and shoot camera.
What does four of our very British pounds get you?
What does four of my very British pounds get me? Well, I'll tell you. It got me a Weston Master V meter and a Soligor UF meter. Absolute bargain! Where? My local car boot sale. Both came with the original lanyards and the Western came with its original Leather case. One happy chap
35mm on a budget
A great budget introduction into the world of 35mm point and shoot photography market has to be the Olympus Trip 35. The Trip is a 35mm compact camera, manufactured by Olympus from 1967 to 1984. The "Trip" name was a reference to its intended market, those who were looking for a compact, functional camera for holidays.
So, what do you get for your money? Well, you get a wide 40mm f2.8 Zuiko lens with 4 elements in three groups. The lens is coated and stop reflections and flare which helps to increase sharpness and contrast. The viewfinder is standard Albada with parallax marks. There's a sweet little feature the trip has in the form of a red pop up indicator to show you there's too little light. There's also this tiny peephole so when you look through the viewfinder it shows your exposure and focus settings on the len. The ASA settings on the camera runs from 25 up to 400.
For 35mm on a budget, the trip is a craker...
For those of you who know of the legendary British photographer David Bailey, then you'll remember the amusing TV Advertising campaign he put his name and face too. Check it out below. "David who"
What sort of money can you expect to pay?
There's a really good selection out there at the moment. Expect to pay between £20 to £30 depending on condition. I grabbed mine for £15...