A recent cold snap coincided with a morning away from my screen looking after my 9-month old son. He slept as I happily strolled around our neighbourhood enjoying testing the camera on my new iPhone. The results are a big step up from the iPhone 13 mini I was previously using, and the proRAW files in particular were must easier to work with in Lightroom.
The preset is named Tama and I developed it as a lofi, filmic look specifically for iPhone snaps.
I was inspired to get out and take some photos in the crisp evening air of Copenhagen in December. Just days away from the winter solstice, it is dark by 3.30pm, and by 10pm when I took to the streets, it is pitch black. Small groups of locals gathered on benches and corners holding tins of beer, the bars closed as COVID cases shoot up across Denmark. The blanket of grey cloud which has covered the city for the past week reflected the lights of the city creating a ghostly halo across the sky, and Christmas lights sparkled from balconies and windows.
When asked, Lucy, myself or Magnus would probably choose our day trip to Minna Island as the best day of our trip to Japan. We got off to a bad start…
Link to full post on our family blog: Minna-jima
I had a choice when packing for this short trip to Morocco in 2007: pack my beloved OM10, knowing that the likelihood of losing or breaking it in the dense crowds of Essaouira’s annual Gnawa music festival were high, or try to get by using just the camera on my phone, a Sony k800. Reminding myself that I was going for the music, not the photography, I settled for the phone camera.
Needless to say, phone camera technology has come on quite a bit since then, and the quality of the resulting images is not great, but looking back I’m not so unhappy with my decision. I was able to relax and focus on being in the moment, whilst still capturing just enough in the grainy black and white images I took to be able to look back at the photos and relive the energy and vibrancy of an incredible weekend of music, adventure, and friendship.
When walking around with my camera I’m often drawn to people. Particularly on bright winter days, documenting the day to day errands of city folk – the clothing they choose to keep themselves warm, the bags and trolleys they carry, their facial expressions – are all fascinating subjects.
Most of these taken with my Olympus OMD EM5 mkII and the 17mm f1.8 prime. This set up is super compact and discreet – perfect for this sort of daytime street work. More of my thoughts on the camera in an upcoming post.
Armed with tripod and trusty old OM10 I spent a cold evening in the streets around my home shooting long exposures. Portra 400 did well, yielding some nice colours and exposing consistently whether under- or over-exposed. I was impressed with the accuracy of the Lux light meter app on my iPhone – on all but a few exposures the metering was pretty spot on.
Whilst exploring the area around Banff on a day’s break from snowboarding up at Lake Louise my mate Stu and I followed a freight train as it slowed into Banff station. The driver picked us up as his train hit walking pace and we talked to him about the experiences he’s had over 20 years of driving trains through some of the world’s most spectacular scenery.
