That Hipstamatic App. Over the past couple of months, more and more of my friends have been posting photos from this app and they’ve kinda been grating on me a bit. I don’t know why this is, it’s more of a reflex than anything. I guess, being a bit of a purist with everything I try, it makes me sad to see such a beautiful artform distilled to an iPhone app and consumed by people who don’t really appreciate it. I’ve got to stop being like this – it’s great that people take photos loads now, and the voyeur in me enjoys looking at all of them really.

So, why have I now decided to try this app-I-once-hated? I’ve been lusting after something a little more organic, photographically, for a while. I really want the purely mechanical Nikon FE and the beautiful Polaroid SX70, but it’s impossible to find 35mm film that doesn’t contain the ground bones of dead animals, and that Polaroid is such an expensive habit that I don’t think I can justify it. At least not now.

The problem with the above is that the camera porn is a pretty substantial part of the battle. I mean, look at that FE. So industrial. You could beat someone to death with it, load some film and shoot away and it wouldn’t even know the horrors of its past. Without wanting to sound like I’m 90 years old, they just don’t make ‘em like that any more. And the SX70 is a gorgeous piece of kit, lovingly restored by actual Polaroid engineers – what camera/gadget nut wouldn’t swoon over it?!

The major aspect, of course, is results. Analogue photography has a certain way about it. I see a lot of people on flickr emulating the way film looks, and they do a great job, but I don’t like to change things. If a photo comes out of a camera with perfect colour representation, I don’t like changing that. If I accidentally screw the white balance or the focus is way out, I usually quite like that. It seems organic (well, as organic as a digital photograph can be). So playing with the sliders on a digital photo to make it look more film’y just doesn’t compute (awful, awful pun). Shame. With the iPhone 4 camera being the great quality it is, I’m going to start trying some of these kooky photo apps to try and fill the void of the film cameras I lust after. It probably won’t work, but I feel like I have to try it. This is the first thing in four-ish years that I feel like I’m missing out on, being vegetarian, but I just can’t bend my own rules to justify it.

So far, I’ve bought IncrediBooth, Camera+ and Hipstamatic (the latter needing an update to really bring it in line with the 4′s capabilities). What else do I need?

Before anyone points out that jelly uses ground animal bones, these little pots don’t. The only one that isn’t veggie friendly is the red one, because of the food colouring. So there

I’ve always wanted to capture the quintissentially British red postbox (and phonebox, but that’s by-the-by) but it always seems really cheesy to make it the main focus of an image, so here it is vying for attention.

Another example of Southampton’s glorious architecture. It’s clear that cab drivers in their wisdom do not like this style, so this is an ode to that glorious and emotive man.

My favourite Rush album, I think.

I decided on Friday that I wanted to give film photography a go. There’s something about the results from a film camera that seem so natural and unaffected and I love that. After trawling the amazing Ken Rockwell‘s site for a day (I must donate to this man, and if you use Nikon, so must you), I set my heart on a Nikon FE and began watching eBay for them. There weren’t too many, but there seemed to be some excellent examples so I quickly got really excited about it. I even bought some film! Upon unboxing said film, Charlotte delighted in telling me that she was surprised at my foray into film, as the rolls contain gelatine. My heart hasn’t sunk quite so low in some time (yes, a great indication of how easy I have life, but it’s really all relative!), and I simply had to find some vegan-friendly (my non-consumption of any animal-death-derived products isn’t really characteristic of vegetarians) film. Turns out, there’s no such thing, so that killed that!

I have, however, resolved to shoot like a film photographer. As all users of digital cameras, I am occasionally guilty of chimping, an act that I find repulsive, but occasionally useful (especially in low-light!). I am now giving this up in favour of trusting my instincts. On top of this, I will not be processing images (unless they absolutely need white balance or a touch of levels) to see if I can emulate a more natural look to my photos.

Why? Because I can (hopefully).

I love going to Birmingham. We never go anymore, mainly because we live on the South coast I guess, but I seemed to have forgotten how awesome the shopping is there. It also doesn’t appear to be as full of tunnel-visioned, inconsiderate retards as Southampton.

There are also some really amazing buildings and places dotted about. Next time we’re up, I’m going to take a day off and wander round taking photos. I could’ve spent all of today doing it but we had to do shopping. Guh.

Also saw a side of Evesham I haven’t seen for a very long time. Went out to walk the Terrierists with mum.

This was a total accident, but I love the way she appears to be impossibly sitting on the stairs. Too impressed to take credit!

We’re at the bottom in the middle (below)

And we have a lake…

Which can sometimes be seen in black and white!

Let me tell you right now, clipping the claws of rabbits is a painful business. That having been said, they’ve been so good tonight. I don’t know whether they’re grateful or whether they just don’t want us to be mean to them again. Either way, it’s been nice. Rabbits are awesome pets.

I entered one of my photos in an arbitrary forum-based photography competition. The theme fit so well with what I’ve been doing this week, I couldn’t not enter. I don’t care about or expect to do well, but who knows – some validation is always nice. It could, however, go either way!

On a totally unrelated note, the film 25th Hour is very good, if you watch it, don’t be surprised if the end makes you feel like you wasted 2 hours.

Yeah, it’s very similar to last night’s. I’m so incredibly tired, I thought I’d take advantage of Southampton’s architecture again. The way this week’s going, it’ll probably be more of the same tomorrow, too!

This is slightly late (though it was taken on Friday!). I had to be in Salisbury today for a mate’s birthday party, so I thought I’d kill some time with my camera before we all had to meet up. I remembered that I’d never actually spent any time in the grounds of the Cathedral; it’s an incredibly beautiful building so I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult. I spent about an hour wandering round the building, getting frustrated that I couldn’t get the perspective right and it was too late in the day so the side I wanted to shoot was in front of the sun. It was a disaster. Most of the shots I ended up with put the tower in totally the wrong perspective and made it look tiny, so about 75% of them were binned straight away!

It really came down to 2. The one I ended up posting (the favourite for everyone but me!) and my favourite. The black and white conversion of the tower posted below. I love the textures and I’m really proud of the conversion on this, but my wonderful girlfriend and a couple of others I showed them both to preferred the favourite so I had to post it. However, because I love it so much, I’m posting my favourite too. I make the rules! Ha!

This whole thing is beginning to become quite stressful. I can tell that I’m going to find it difficult to find inspiration every day. I guess that’s why they’re called challenges!

Today, the picturesque village of Lyndhurst taught me that just because you’re picturesque, doesn’t mean you’re photogenic. Forests are not really that interesting, and neither are graveyards (which is annoying because I was hoping they would be!).

I do, however, like horses (well, all animals really) and this guy wasn’t scared of me at all. Good for him!

This really sums up today’s weather. It rained, then some more, then some more so we stayed in and had cookies. I wanted to take some macros but all the bugs are probably in having cookies too. Charlotte went and grabbed this fuschia flower, and water droplets were clinging to it and retaining their shape (there must be a name for this).

I have no idea what the magnification of this is, but the droplet is about half a mm across in real life. It was taken with 64mm of stacked tubes and a Raynox MSN 202 at 70mm. It’s ridiculously difficult not to shake when taking photos at this magnification, I think VR will help one day!