York Railway Museum

I’ve had these photos sat for a while now as we visited not too long after my Grandad died. My Grandad loved trains and his particular favourite was the Mallard which sits pride of place in the museum.

Its been over 7 years since my Grandad died now - which offends me so much - and I still get those punches in the stomach of devastating loss regularly. More so when we do activities I know he just would have loved doing with my nephews and definitely when both boys get so excited about trains. I know they’re little and kids love trains, but I like the idea that interests like that can be in the blood sometimes.

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: Kodak 400 TX
Location: Railway Museum, York

Scarborough Castle

When I first developed and scanned these photos, I remember feeling quite disappointed. Which considering that I had no film developing skills at all and that I developed these during a lockdown in a global pandemic - might have been a bit harsh ha. Now its been a couple of years and I’m coming back to them with fresher eyes, Im reminded how much fun I had taking them and just how lovely it is around Scarborough Castle when you’re there.

A funny (funny unexpected, not funny haha) side effect of CFS/ME and learning how to pace and rest is that you are forced to let go of the idea of perfectionism. Done and OK is always better than not done - and most of the time done and ok is more than good enough. Done and perfect has gone out of the window - which for a chronic perfectionist is a tough lesson to learn! Two years ago I didn’t feel confident sharing these because after however many years of blogging, taking film photos, sharing film photos etc, these ‘should’ have been perfectly developed, blemish, bubble and dust free and definitely not grainy as f*ck haha. Today instead I notice the appealing image framing, the details of the walls, the two birds overlooking Scarborough, the gorgeous views and I take a deep breath and imagine the sound and smell of the sea.

Film photography - the never end lesson in accepting what is - rather than what you think should be.

Camera: Canon EOS 750
Film: Silberra 200
Location: Scarborough Castle

There are no rules

So its been a while. And its been a year. I ,um, don’t even know where to start to be honest… I had all the good intentions to only be away for a little while and then I got really poorly. In the end I had my gallbladder removed in the early summer and unfortunately one of my scars became infected - all throughout those crazy summer heatwaves we had here in the UK. I would not recommend surgery and recovery during a heatwave! Especially if you have CFS/ME on top. Sadly not too long after that, we also lost our Grandmothers and it feels like I’ve only just had time to catch my breath and really process how hard the past few months have been - both physically and mentally. I’m ok - I’m not ok. You know how it goes.

However, there is some good news - in having my gallbladder removed, I have had a bit more energy to take a camera around with me - and after a serious photography/blogging drought this year - I finally got some photos developed huzzah! It feels a bit strange to have hardly taken any film photos for a while, but I’m hoping to carry a camera around a lot more often now. The other good news is that other than Jim and Helen who I think perhaps will still probably read my blog (Hi both if so! I hope you’re ok and thank you) - I generally have no clue if anyone else does - so it doesn’t really matter what I do around here. This is my playground all - join me if you will.

First up - lets just get into some juicy photos shall we! Some of my favourites from the last few rolls I finally got developed - in no particular order.

Camera: My fixed, happy and clean lovely Olympus OM-10
Location: Some from Norfolk, some from Yorkshire, some from elsewhere

Starting all over again, again...and again

You may remember that back in 2016 I started using my beloved refurbished LC-A from Lomography for my 366 photo project and I started to notice it was having problems. In the end, I took it to a camera repair person, who unfortunately couldn’t save my lovely little camera.

Flash forward to now and I’ve been finding my bigger cameras harder to carry when I’m CFS/ME flaring and even longer lengths of time are difficult when I’m feeling not as bad - so I knew that if I was going to keep taking film photos I needed something like my little LC-A that I could easily carry and snap a pic with.

After a bit of thinking I realised that if I needed something like my LC-A, I should just buy another LC-A (duh Rhianne) I decided against a Lomography LC-A+ pretty fast - they’re nice enough cameras but they are so pricey. Instead I looked on Ebay and found another old
LC-A for £60 - bargain!!

And here it is, pictured below my first beloved LC-A. I took it away with us recently and the first roll of photos are back, woohoo! Heres a taste…

Definitely another learning curve for sure, the vignette is much stronger on this camera and I think it might have a slight light leak in the top left hand corner - I’ll have to run another film through it and see how it goes. Overall though, I like it.

These are slightly edited as my dumb self used a 200 film at the end of summer and I really should have used a 400 - but all things considering I’m so relieved that its worked, the photos were recoverable and that I’m happy with the results. I can’t wait to go out and about with an LC-A again!

Camera: LC-A the Third*
Film: Fuji Superia 200
Location: Bempton Cliffs

(* Technically this is my 3rd LC-A - the first one Lomography sent me way back when was a dud, so I swapped that for my seen above beloved LC-A featured here with the first ever photos I took with it in 2012 and a blog post called Starting all over again… again. Hence the crazy blog title… but you know by now that I love a running theme. )