Portraits

The boys were making a home made video based (very) loosely around the film Kung Fu Panda. They got to star as their favourite characters and go on exciting missions. There is something about boys and make up. As they grow up they are getting more difficult to catch on film, but the face paints seem to give them a new aura as they become another character. So that's how actors do it!

Not bad results from a manual TLR with no electronics. There is something quite touching about their belief in our ability with a paint brush.

Palma Cathedral

This was taken on a Holga from the roof top of the Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum, which is definitely worth a visit if you are visiting Mallorca. It has many works by Miro and Picasso and the architecture of the old and new is amazing.

Punta la Nau, Mallorca

No, I didn't lean out over the cliff face with my camera to take this. Not with my partner making spontaneous and shrill panic calls and holding the kids's arms so tight that their hands were starved of blood. With the retreating calls of a certain and spectacular death echoing in my my ear (she went back to the car) I held the Rolleiflex over the edge at 180 degrees and pointed it down, composing through the viewfinder in front of me. This is one of the many advantages that TLR cameras have. The idea originated from German army photographic observers in the first world war who wanted to be able to take photos without having their heads shot off, so a man named Reindold Heidecke designed a camera based on the principles of the periscope. (Info courtesy of Ian Parker's Complete Rollei TLR User's Manual)

Crop Dog

As I said, I have been trawling through lots of photos taken over the past few years. Here is one that I took coming into land at Edinburgh Airport. I remember seeing the dog like shape in the foreground and rushed to get the camera set up and waited until I was level with it. I got lucky as it was taken through such a tiny window and you know what aeroplane windows can be like - scratched, iced up, etc.

Cala Sant Vicenc, Mallorca

Of course he is

I've been trawling through my photos for a forthcoming exhibition. Having been digitaless for a few weeks means I am taking more film pics which is nice but has meant applying a different attitude and level of expectancy. With film I always liked the 'delayed' process - from taking the picture to seeing the negative to finally seeing a print. I think that is what is now commonly termed a 'workflow'. Then digital gave me that immediacy which is also great, more spontaneous and playful, but I thought that the 'have it now' process diminished something inside my head to do with memory. But going back through many hundreds of kept pictures has rekindled that feeling of delay (memory) and I've come across images that I hadn't noticed before, perhaps things that didn't mean that much at the time but do now. I'll stop now as I can feel myself getting all T S Ellioty, "Time present and time past" and all that. I'll post some more pics soon,once I get my head around the exhibition.

In praise of the TLR

Kiel Johnson's Cardboard Twin Lens Reflex Camera Time Lapse from Theo Jemison on Vimeo.

">http://

Kiel Johnson's Cardboard Twin Lens Reflex Camera Time Lapse from Theo Jemison on Vimeo.