Location: Lisdisfarne, England
Camera: Zenit B
Film: Fuji Superia 200
The last colour photos from Lindisfarne
Searching for something...
Over the last few months I haven't taken as many photos. My balance was rocked and my drive vanished. I've mourned its loss, worried about it coming back, shook my head in frustration when part of me has wanted to pick up a camera, but another stronger part of me has said no. But I've never pushed my creativity*. It usually makes things worse. My creativity is stubborn, its determined, its wilful and amazingly, its probably the only part of me that really knows what it wants to do in any moment even if what it wants isn't necessarily what I think I want.
After getting back from our Berwick holiday I dropped off my films and through various faults at my lab (long story) three rolls of film weren't scanned properly. Luckily after asking around on Twitter, my friend Adam (who I'm sure I've featured here before) took my films for me and scanned the negatives. I can not thank him enough for that.
However, as I mentioned in one of my last posts, I really over exposed most of my Zenit photos - to the point of where the negatives were more purple than anything. The concious, forgiving part of me was ready to let them go - I'm learning, its OK to make mistakes right? But despite all my efforts, my subconscious, my creativity wouldn't. It kept coming back to them, dragging me back to them.
And suddenly I felt it. That drive that once was always there. It was back, straining against me. That stubbornness aiming for a result rather than sitting back and waiting. Something was in those photos. Something my creativity wanted to see, something it knew was there... and suddenly, after months of waiting, worrying, and fretting, I was crying again, but not through frustration, but through relief.
Relief because I was searching again... searching for something.
The photos scattered through this post are the final (heavily) edited versions from Lindisfarne that I finally decided felt 'right'. They're not perfect but then neither am I, neither is my zenit b, and my photography has many more mistakes than I would care to admit... but a part of me didn't give up on these photos, a part of me didn't give up on myself... and that is probably what I really needed to find rather than a pretty photo.
*For lack of a better word for that drive feeling that makes people do what they love - muse is also good I guess.
Holy Island: Inside Lindisfarne Castle
I'm not very brave with taking photos inside with film cameras as usually with my plastic and Lomo cameras they never work out very well. But in comparison my Zenit B is a very forgiving camera, in fact, most of my favourite photos with it have been taken inside. So I decided to be a bit braver with it and take some photos inside Lindisfarne Castle, though by a bit braver, I mean 5 photos instead of maybe 2 haha. And as you can see, just to be safe, they are all of very bright places with big windows.
I guess technically that last photo is outside, but it was within the castle grounds, so I'm putting it here anyway. Also, I usually like an even number of photos in posts... (You probably didn't notice. You'll notice now.)
I wouldn't say I'm 100% thrilled with these photos, I'm still having fun balancing the manual exposure with my Zenit B and even though this is a 200 iso film, I still managed to overexpose a lot of the photos outside which is frustrating.
On the plus side, the inside of Lindisfarne Castle was amazing and for £7 (ish, I don't fully remember) entry, I thought it was a bargain as the castle tour just seemed to keep going with room after stunning room to look around. In fact I even would say it was better than I was expecting and I had high expecations.
Location: Lindisfarne Castle, England
Camera: Zenit B
Film: Fuji Superia 200
More St Abb's Head
More photos from the beautiful St Abb's Head but this time taken with my Zenit B - I'm still a little nervous using this camera as I always seem to slightly over expose the photos, but luckily these don't seem too bad overall.
The camera my Dad's holding is actually my brother in laws, but he looked pretty cool holding it I thought so I snapped a photo :) Also, look how high Harry's tail is, it was like that all week, he loved our adventures!
Location: St Abb's Head, Scotland
Film: Agfa Vista 200
Camera: Zenit B