Myke & Stuarts Wedding

If there is one advantage of being in lockdown it is being given the chance to finish reading the books you always meant to read & finishing the projects that have been sitting waiting for this time. At the end of May last year I had the pleasure of being invited to see the meeting of Scottish & Navajo cultures in the wedding of my brother Stuart & his long term partner Myke. Yes its embarrassing to say it took all that time to finish the project but its ok i wasn’t the official photographer. If you’ve not already looked at that gallery please go there now, i hope you like it.

Myke & Stuart (centre) with uncles John & Fraser

Telemark Trip

Its been a while, all too long, since i’ve posted here, but i’m back & won’t leave it as long again.

Ive just uploaded some pictures from my time in the French alps, in a small ski resort called Pralognan la Vanoise. Its a small but perfectly formed little ski resort & has some great skiing. It is ideal for the 10 days of racing & training which make up the British Telemark Championships, which this year were followed by two days of Telemark World Cup action.

One of the top British racers is Jasmine Taylor, aka JazTelemark, who amazingly got her first World Cup win of the season while I was there. Not only was it great to see, it was great to be close enough to the team to get some shots of them which they can use to publicise the sport & keep sponsors happy.

Well done Jaz, so proud to know you!

Influenced or Copied?

When is the line crossed between being influenced by a photographer or artist you are a fan of and when are you copying his style and work?

I have been a big fan of the late photographer Jeanloup Sieff for many years, I like the way he composes an image and also how he uses shape, form and textures. He even travelled to Scotland and published many photographs from this part of the world. 

Recently I was photographing at the amazing Balintore Castle in Angus, I had an image in my head, to use the track leading up to the Castle as leading lines, with the girl in dress, heels with a nice bag walking along the track, with the castle just visible on the horizon. This is how I remember the Castle from the first time I saw it, I was going mountain biking with a friend on a local hill. I will never forget my first sight, I really couldn't believe it, there had been no mention that we were going near a castle. The Gothic towers shot into the sky, it was as if I had stumbled on Draculas lair by accident. 

After the images were made, and the post processing done I started to think about influences and pulled out Jeanloups coffee table book.  When I looked at his work I could see such strong influences, beyond anything I had realised. I love this image, its my image, I like my influences, but its not a copy! 

Film or Digital?

Something that was often debated when digital was in its earlier days, which is best? Of course digital has always had the convenience factor & early on film had the quality, but as time & technology advanced there is less & less reason to stay with film. Or is there? I must admit I was quite late to the digital game, I think around 2006, after one of my favourite film cameras, the great Ricoh GR1v, drowned in Latvia I decided to replace it with a Canon G7 compact, a couple of years later a little Olympus DSLR before jumping in & replacing my film SLR with the Canon 5Dii DSLR in 2009, & ever since then I have spent a lot of time & money trying to replicate the look I got with film. But there is something special about film, although digital is getting very close & has surpassed film in many other ways, theres the special feel of the image, like the sound from a vinyl record, its a special something you can't quite put your finger on. The best explanation Ive heard in technical terms is that film deals with changes between highlights & shadows more smoothly, they roll into each other, where as digital, by the very nature of the beast, after all digital is like a switch, its either off or on, it just stops, theres no subtlety between them. Here is a photograph I recently uploaded, made on Ilford XP2 film. 

Kotor Montenegro

Ive always told people that Dubrovnik has one of the best old towns you will see, but it now has a competitor on my personal old town list. Not far from Dubrovnik is the amazing town of Kotor. What makes Kotor old town so special is not just the town itself, but the Fortress above & the views across the Bay of Kotor. Its easy to forget that the bay is connected to the Adriatic, but the large cruise ships will be sure to remind you. 

Canon EOS-1v film camera

It was announced last week that Canons most advanced film camera has reached the end of its road. It seems manufacturing stopped in 2010 and they have finally run out of stock. This camera was released in 2000, I got mine in 2001. We will never see a camera from a main stream manufacturer last 18 years without replacement ever again, I had no idea I would have mine so long or where the photography world would go. My one has been in retirement for quite a few years, but strangely I dug it out, fitted the grip & installed some batteries only 2 days before the announcement came of its demise. What a great camera & if needed you can also hammer nails in with it too.

Cat Picture

What is it about cat pictures? It seems they are a popular choice to gain likes on social media! I never thought i would be that person that would be sharing cat pictures but then I was looking through some images from Montenegro & i came across one i really like. The first i saw of this cute little fellow was when he tried to get into my camera bag on the chair next to me in a restaurant in Stari Bar, I managed to persuade him it wasn't the best thing to do, so he spent his time sitting under the tables & chairs hoping for the odd scrap of food. I couldn't resist, so the photograph was made, & of course today i became another of the many people that have shared a cat picture on Instagram!!

Colour

So i don't do colour? Some subjects don't just require colour, they deserve colour. At this time of year in Perthshire you find yourself surrounded by trees in all states of change. The apples have already fallen a few weeks ago & the trees are well on their way to their autumn golds and browns.

A few weeks ago we headed up to The Hermitage near Dunkeld, it was an amazing late afternoon with amazing golden light coming through the trees, just magical. Winter is well on its way, with the first of this seasons snow already on the hills.

Road trip - the Balkan Circle

After spending too much time screaming round interesting countries trying to see as much as we can within one week we thought it time to relax and take more time, two weeks in this case, to cover seven countries!

I had been to Croatia 9 years before, but that was just the beginning this year, can we make it? What will we see? Stay posted to see more.

Ghost Church

In a borrowed two seater Smart car, we followed the route our Sat Nav had decided would be best. The track looked like it hadn't seen a single car in years, with branches growing across our path. Eventually we dropped down a steep slope into the top of a village and the church came into view.

Built in 1352, St Georges Church Lukova, in north western Bohemia, had been used by Sudeten Germans who had lived in the village before the second world war.

In 1968 during a funeral service, the roof collapsed. Local artist Jakub Hadrava had the idea to turn the church into this installation with the ghosts representing the Germans that used to pray here.

The result is this amazing spooky scene. 

The church only opens in the afternoon so we were far too early to get in. I was able to reach through the bars of the windows to the rear of the church, no glass, just bars, & make my photographs using the amazing little Ricoh GRii. 

Happy Halloween, don't have nightmares.

Maggie Wall burnt as a witch!

Maggie who? Nobody knows. The church records in the nearby Dunning have no mention of a Maggie Wall burnt as a witch in 1657. Even more spooky, the story is that the writing on the monument is regularly refreshed, but its a mystery who does this.

Dare you visit this place on a dark halloween night?

Bat on the wing

Halloween is coming. To celebrate this time of year I decided I should post some spooky pictures on my Instagram account.

I made this image while exploring some ruined buildings near Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye. I only had the Ricoh GRii pocket camera with its built in flash, but I have to say, after a few adjustments, I was very impressed. Trying to catch the bat in shot, in focus, in the fading light, let alone with a good body position was another story. I hope you like the image. 

Getting started

Get an internet presence they said. An internet presence? I said. Ok so here I am! After many years of photography, making images on film & digital, making prints, exhibiting & selling in a local gallery I have not had an internet presence. Part of the reason was not wanting my images to be "borrowed" & used elsewhere without my knowledge or permission. A few weeks ago I got myself an Instagram account & I have to admit it is addictive (please follow me on Instagram @phunstreet).

A website was always going to be the next step, so here it is. It's a work in progress, I will be uploading images as I go, so please keep coming back to see more.