Often when I am working on photos, I send emails to friends of screenshots of what I am working on, especially when I am working on scanning negatives. When I scan a roll of film as a contact sheet, it's quite exciting as it's the first time (often months after the shots were taken) I get to see the shots properly. So I usually feel compelled to share them in some way.

I thought it might be an interesting idea to turn that stream of screenshots into a blog. So here it is: Studio Notes

Ducks in Christchurch.

The other day I was rummaging through some old photographs from the 70s, 80s and 90s. None of them taken by me, mostly school or family photos. There were lots of treasures and among them was a strip of colour negatives.

I thought "this might be interesting, I wonder what's on them."

Turns out it is a strip of negatives from a camera of a friend of mine, Wellsy. Most of the images are attributable to the photographer "unknown" as Wellsy himself is most of the images.

Neither Wellsy or I can remember how I came to be in possession of the negatives, but we're both glad they turned up.

With his permission I am publishing some of them here.

Here are the negatives:

And here are some of the images I have selected to show:

I like that her shoes are where her feet would be if they were not tucked up under her skirt on the seat.

Who wears a cape?

Sherlock on his Royal Enfield.

If you're in Brisbane, be sure to check out his Westenders exhibition which is opening next Friday the 3rd September at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.

I've gotta give a mention to might lighting guy on this shoot. Wellsy did a great job of holding a reflector, filling in shadows.

An abandoned building I saw in Christchurch. It's roofless and completely covered in graffiti. There was evidence of some squatter habitation but unfortunately there was no one home the day I photographed it.

This was another occasion on which I had no light metre.

This is evidence of one of the things I truly love about photography. These happy accidents which are part of the Genius of the Medium.

I was using my old East German, 1960s Praktica, with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. I recently picked up the lens at an op shop for $3 so I wanted to try it out. The lens is great but the camera is sometimes a bit dodgy. It doesn't always wind on properly and in this case, two exposures are overlapping.

A while back the batteries in my Leica M6 went flat. The camera only needs batteries for the inbuilt light metre, the rest is mechanical. Usually when I use a hand held light metre, like this one, I first have a guess at the exposure, then I look to see what the light metre thinks. After a while I found myself getting pretty good at guessing.

So when the batteries went flat, I didn't bother to replace them. I don't always have my light metre with me so I often shoot completely without one.

This scene would have been tricky with a light metre. I guess it's actually easier without one when you have the feeling for it, at least for the situations that can easily trick up a light metre, like strong back lighting.

Kati, Chantal & Fairlie having a good giggle. At Iceworks in Paddington.

This is a spot in Christchurch where the sun shines from two directions at once, due to the way glass-windowed buildings are facing.

UPDATE: On 30 July 2009 #347/365 of my 365 Project, there is another example of bi-directional sunlight in Christchurch.

One kind of photo I really enjoy doing is a cityscape. I love getting out there before dawn or dusk to see how the light changes and what surprises it might offer up. They are usually long exposures with shutter speeds of 30 seconds or more.

Over the last few years I have accumulated a few shots of Brisbane and although I've probably posted most of these before, I think it's cool to see them all together.

Brisbane, the city as seen by me:

Wellsy; could eat pies for his country.

These shots were taken on a little road trip Wellsy and I did last year on our way up to the Barra Bash

Cool chairs in my hotel room last week.

I was at a different hotel than I usually am. This new hotel is supposed to be a nice one, and it is, but when I wanted to go to sleep after a very long day, I discovered that my bed had dirty sheets. Not dirty sheets that I slept on, dirty sheets that the previous room occupant(s) slept on.

That was very uncool.

I got a new room and I won't be back. This week I am back at my usual, favourite hotel.