What I've Been Learning Along the Way
Photographed on the lobby of the apartments that form part of the El Corte Ingles complex on Av. António Augusto de Aguiar in Lisbon. A modernist design with huge plate glass windows looking out to a decorative small lake. When I took this picture, I always intended it to be in black and white, making the most of the clean symmetrical lines.
My theme from a City & Guilds project in 2007, although the other 25 gas stations have yet to be photographed…
Reason for the project, as the world starts shifting to electric, then these are going to fade and disappear from collective memories.
View the book by Edward Ruscha ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ 1963 – the inspiration behind this project: https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/transforming-artist-books/summaries/edward-ruscha-twentysix-gasoline-stations-1963
Now, all I need to do is complete the project and continue photographing gas stations around Wales. I’ll do this, and post the images here as they get done.
Link to artist’s page: Eilis O’Connell
Taken in the early 1990s when the steam function still worked, now it’s long gone. Situated on one of the busiest roads into Cardiff Bay, the site was ideal for boosting the image of the new Cardiff Bay development that began in the late 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s. It was commissioned by Cardiff Bay Arts Trust in 1992.
I took the picture as part of a Black and White Landscape course at Ffotogallery, the national development agency for photography in Wales. In the space of a couple of years, I’d done several City & Guild courses that also included darkroom printing. Using a darkroom was something I’d never done before, and the thrill of watching your print appear in the chemical trays captured me from the off. Doing these courses helped me gain access to the Ffotogallery darkroom, and I did another class at a college in Copenhagen a couple of years later while living there. An opportunity presented itself when I moved back to the UK in 2006, and I built a darkroom in my house. My home darkroom lasted a couple of years before I switched to digital. If money and space were no object, I’d go back to a darkroom today in a heartbeat. But, you can’t deny the attractions of digital and being able to make images so quickly and cheaply.
This image of Secret Station was taken on a Hasselblad 501c and an 80mm lens. The film, a favourite, was Ilford Delta 100asa, which was great for long exposures as I could usually get a couple of seconds for an exposure even during the day. I used to expose at 80asa and extend the development in ID11…those where the days!
A black and white picture of my wife and eldest walking through one of the main parks in Lisbon, Portugal. My eldest was having issues walking and didn’t want to walk any further, not that the walk we’d been for was incredibly long. She was probably about 4 or 5 at the time and was making her feelings known!
Taken at first light, from memory around 2007 on film, Ilford Delta 100asa, and probably at 6 am. I remember well because I must have set up my tripod and camera at 5.30 am or something like that and by the time I’d finished taking pictures the lights on the pier suddenly went out. I think that it was 6 am, and it felt as though it was great timing. The starlight from the lampost would have been missing if I’d arrived later than I did. I wouldn’t have known either..! and for me, it helps make the picture. The mist from the waves rolling in was also something I hoped to photograph. It is why I used an exposure of about 2 minutes at f22. I’ve not been back to Penarth to re-shoot this on digital, but looking at it again tonight as I write this, I’d like to get out and re-shoot it. I need to make sure I look up the tide times and arrive early knowing that the tide is out and that it needs to be at low tide around an hour before sunrise. So there are quite a few ducks you need to get into a row before you can be sure that you can bag a great picture. This visit though was pure luck. I got lucky, but sometimes that’s how it goes. :o)
Taken with a Hasselblad 501c with a 50mm wide angle lens.
Edit: I’ve dropped in a picture of the pier that I took a few years before, this time though it was on Fuji Velvia 50ASA, and again was captured at sunrise in the summer, from memory this was about 4:30 to 5am. Also, this was taken with the standard 80mm lens, which is why you can only see the end of the pier.
Marketer. Born, bred in Cardiff. Worked abroad long enough to develop serious taste for Danish pastries/proper bread. Married w/2 kids & dog. Loves F1, photo, outdoors.
