mike o photo

2012

Mike — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:50:35 +0000

New year, new outlook.

The Christmas break gave me time to think about stuff a bit more, where I’m going as a photographer, and what I need to do. First steps – I’ve altered and cleaned up the layout of my portfolio site so now I can separate genres a bit better. I liked the design of my last one, but it was a bit of a mishmash trying to show what I shot. Now I have space for projects and extra pages, and I’ve also added in a new ‘journal’ that I’ll use to put all my shoots/work/business related things. Because of that, I’m going to keep this blog as an archive, but maybe the odd the DIY post every now and then. For RSS readers, the new journal feed address is http://www.mikeophoto.co.uk/?feed=rss2 If it wasn’t for the four-years-plus worth of stuff on here then I’d probably remove this. It’s not like I post regularly anyway… :-)

I think this will give me direction, and will be good in the old site-promotion stakes, which is my next area of attack. I have started to use twitter - follow me here. I can’t promise anything ground breaking, but I will also try not to post up what I’m having for breakfast either. It’s usually coffee.

But for now, on this blog, Adios, and have a good 2012…

Real DIY Photography

Mike — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:55:14 +0000

I enjoy shooting on film. After my friend Tom sent me an email linking a diy pinhole camera, with a small ‘challenge’ added, I thought it couldn’t be that hard. After a couple of hours in the shed, I had made a box. A couple more hours later, I had made a film holder/winder mechanism out of Lego to shoot 6×7 120 film, specifically some Pan F I had lying about in the fridge. Pinhole was constructed from card and tinfoil.

Next step was to work out how to develop film on the cheap. I didn’t want to send it off and wait three days to get a blank roll back, or buy some developer just for one roll of film, so I decided to make my own developer from Coffee, using some recipes off the Caffenol blogspot.

The developer was coffee, washing soda and salt. I had these ingredients lying about the house, as well as some white vinegar for the stop. I had some old fixer and paper from when I was doing lots of developing at home, so I just used that to keep the costs down. The only think I had to buy was ascorbic acid, (vitamin C) that I got in a health food shop for the princely sum of £2.

OK, it’s not the best image, the pinhole needs to be smaller, I think it worked out about f/109, and I need to refine my coffee developing technique, but based mostly on luck and guesswork I do at least have an image, and you can see what it is… Sharpness is overrated anyway. The Coffee adds a nice ‘vintage’ photo look too. Instagram? pfft.

Mmmm. Fuzzy.

Bath

Mike — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:29:15 +0000

I went to Bath last month to visit my friend Tom who is also a photographer. I’m starting to get back into shooting film, so took the old Contax loaded with some Portra 160 up. Visited William Herschel’s house, as well as a couple of museums. Very cultural. Also visited a few nice Pubs…

I have also finally managed to get my new portfolio website built. It took a lot longer than was expected, but I’m pretty pleased with it. In setting it up I managed to delete my entire database, oops. Luckily I managed to restore it, but a couple of posts have disappeared for good. I’ll re-post the cool Blackgang chine one soon though.

Adam Holleyman

Mike — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:19:39 +0000

I’ve not shot any MTBing for a very long time, so was nice to get out again and shoot some stuff. Adam rung me with a ‘vision’ he wanted to try out, so we built and got some good results in the bag and some new ideas for other things to try. Then we moved on and shot a little log drop in the dappled sun. Adams recovering from a broken wrist so nothing too crazy.

Check out his blog here.

Yarmouth

Mike — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:25:33 +0000

Continuing my on-going ‘Old photos’ posting, this is one of the more local/personal photos in my collection. It is a postcard posted by my great uncle, Reg Osborne, back to his parents in London when he arrive on the Isle of Wight. He later went on to become Mayor of Yarmouth, and in a nice coincidence, this shot today would have his memorial bench slap bang in the center of the shot.

The post date is August 20th, 1928.

Lost and Found #2

Mike — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:47:25 +0000

Been doing a lot of film photography lately, have a batch ready to send off, quite looking forward to seeing what I’ve got in a few days. In the mean-time, here is another from the glass-slide archive…

Mosque of Mohammed Ali, Cairo c.1890′s

Cowes Week

Mike — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:45:46 +0000

A few pics from Cowes Week of the Extreme 40′s sailing off Egypt point. Despite a small sailing background, this was the first year I’d gone to Cowes to watch any sailing. Mostly because they start then disappear off around the Solent for three hours, but the Extreme 40 series has been especially designed for spectators with short three-lap races lasting 20 or so mins each. With six races a day it makes for some close sailing with a few collisions and the odd-capsize. This plus the hospitality bar right on the waters edge…

After the racing there were a few head-to-heads with some wind-surfer, which were pretty close. With a good wind behind them, these boats will easily hit 25 knts+.

More info on Extreme40′s and the Extreme sailing series here…

http://www.extremesailingseries.com/

http://www.extreme40.org/

Freshwater Bay

Mike — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:55:54 +0000

A nice blowy day down Freshwater bay. Lots of people out photographing the sea…

Steam Fair

Mike — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:26:03 +0000

One of the many cliches about the Isle of Wight, is that its stuck in the past. to me, this is (mostly) a good thing. Bank holiday monday, and we went to a Steam up at Compton Farm. Basically its a nice afternoon out drinking some local ales, and watching men with beards talk about steam engines and tractors. There was also a ploughing match.

Rural.

Shanklin

Mike — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:55:44 +0000

Two posts in as many days! Finishing a photo-weekend with a walk around Shanklin. A much nicer place than Sandown…