This year’s Holmfirth Film Festival is running a string of events based upon it being 50 years since 1962. One of the events being run is a 1962 themed open mic night, and I’ve just produced a couple of posters for it….
On Friday night I was invited along to the Blacklight Gallery, in the Byram Arcade, Huddersfield, for their relaunch event. The gallery is run by a friend of mine and I wanted to go along and see what it was all about and show a bit of support.
The night was coupled with a launch event for Dr. Sketchy’s Huddersfield, who provided a fantastic evening of entertainment and made it a genuinely memorable night.
I ended up doing a photoshoot with several performing artists from Dr. Sketchy’s, using several old cameras I’d brought along. Thanks are due to Penny Sweets, Tahlullah Manhattan and Trixie Passion for having the patience to put up with old manual cameras that take ages to do anything with! Also to Morning Star and Daisy Cutter of Dr. Sketchy’s, and Ben Kafanke of the Blacklight Gallery for putting on the event.
The resulting photos are below. I managed to forget my light meter, so they were exposed by guesswork!
All shots taken using Impossible film; PX600 Silver Shade +UV Black Frame (Poor Pod) and PX680 Colour Shade (First Flush) – using an internal ND filter attached to the top of the film pack to ensure correct exposure on the SX-70.
I shot one roll of Fuji Superia Xtra 400 colour film and two rolls of Kodak T-Max 400, all shot at f-3.5 using speeds between 1/15 and 1/30, dependant on guesstimated light levels, and how still I thought I could hold the camera! They were processed in Ilfosol 3 – 7 mins at 1:9 for the Fuji, and 6 mins at 1:9 for the T-Max.
This is the first roll I’ve had through this lovely old 1937 camera – a single roll of Kodak T-Max 400, shot at f-4.5 / 1/25th and processed in Ilfosol 3 at 1:9 for 6 minutes.
The Nook pub is something of an institution in Holmfirth. It’s a real-ale-swilling, slightly rough-around-the-edges proper locals’ local, where you can get a couple of pints of good ale and more food than you can eat and barely break out of a tenner. The pub is officially called The Rose And Crown, but only the front window seems to remember the fact. Every time you darken its doors you meet someone you know, and even if you don’t know anyone to talk to then you soon will.
The pub has been in the Roberts family for over 40 years now, and a couple of years ago the current generation, siblings Ian Roberts and Sheila Sutton, decided to diversify and build a brewery out the back. The new Nook Brewhouse has gone from strength to strength and now delivers good Yorkshire ale all over the country.
Collectively, the Nook Brewhouse umbrella now encompassed the Brewery, the Nook pub, and Carniceria – a bar and restaurant next door which holds its own as the slightly-more-presentable sister to the Nook.
When Ian and Sheila approached me for a website, they wanted essentially to combine their current sites into one, and improve all of them at the same time. I delivered a WordPress based CMS, with three bespoke themes sitting on the front end, which display according to which “section” of the site you are in. Combined with three domains, the result is essentially like having three websites controlled from one place with no duplication of content or resources, and easy linking between the three.
The site also has an online shop for selling the wares of the Brewhouse. I took the liberty of suggesting that boring, ordinary packshots of the products weren’t really in keeping with the brand and suggested I conduct a photoshoot with the Nook Ales enjoying the spectacular countryside surrounding Digley Reservoir. Ian and sheila agreed enthusiastically so I spent a merry afternoon getting odd looks from walkers as I photographed bottles of beer balanced on fences.
Overall, the site is getting a warm reception, and It’s certainly something I’m proud to have my name on.
Please visit the site here: thenookbrewhouse.co.uk
Or here: thenookholmfirth.co.uk
Or here: carniceriaholmfirth.co.uk
I’ve just finished a new website for the Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team. The existing site was bingeing to look shabby, and being static meant keeping things updated was an arduous process. The new, WordPress based site carries a much more contemporary image and allows content to be changed and updated easily.
The site also allows user accounts, giving registered members of the team access to online resources and discussion forums to facilitate better transfer of information amongst team members.
It also integrates better with the team’s social media accounts – keeping content up to date and driving traffic to the site from multiple sources.
Mountain Rescue services in the UK are free to all, are run entirely by volunteers, and are maintained on a charitable basis by donations from the public. For this reason, PR is exceptionally important and the new website should be at the forefront of the team’s fundraising activities.
The Holme Valley MRT in particular now has more reason than ever to drive forward PR and fundraising efforts – having just been granted planning permission to build a new, dedicated headquarters building in Meltham, giving the team its first purpose-built and secure base of operations in its 47 year history.
As a member myself, it’s a cause that is close to my heart, so this one was a freebie….
A few weeks ago I was asked to come up with a design for the 2012 Holmfirth Festival of Folk programme cover. I’ve produced most of their other artwork the last couple of years (you may notice some familiar photographs sneaking in here and there), but for some reason on the morning when I sat down to produce this year’s cover I decided to completely abandon the “brand” we had and just go for something spectacular.
Yup, adherence to a brand is important, but it’s not totally necessary. Why should everything look the same? Uniformity doesn’t always reinforce your perception of an image – on the contrary it can make it sink into obscurity and mundanity.
I remember having a similar discussion when working for a previous employer, whose brand, incidentally, was all-over-the-place. I was trying to reiterate that it might not be something to shy away from. Look at Superdry. You see the name everywhere - but it always looks different. The name is the brand. It’s styled to fit in with the context of where it appears. And that philosophy seems to have been successful enough for them.
Anyway. Enough waffle. Here’s the cover. I reckon people will notice it far more than if it were the “standard brand”….
In the market for a photoshoot? Something a bit different? I have the kit to do a unique shoot for your business that will deliver high quality and utterly unique vintage results. No pseudo-retro Instagram plugins or effects, this is the real thing. Vintage cameras, film and home development. I’ve already done a shoot for Emma’s Tea Parlour, and captured the grittiness of the Nook Beer Festival. I have another booking this week. If you’re interested, check out the selection of vintage cameras I can use to do your shoot, and give me a call!
I picked up a Kodak No1 Autographic Jr in an antique shop the other day. It hails from about 1920, and for the time i suppose it was pretty advanced. It has a 4″ focal length, and focusses by moving the bellows in and out. Shutter has 1/20 and 1/50 speeds as well as a bulb mode and timed exposure mode. There are 5 aperture stops, using the old US system rather than f-stops, so I have to carry a little conversion table around to make use of a modern light meter. The lens somewhere in the region of f-8.
Anyway, after putting two rolls of 120 film through it and getting a sea of overexposure back, I had a closer look at the bellows and discovered a myriad of tiny holes. I guess fabric doesn’t fare as well over 90 years as the metal and wood (yes, wood!) from which the rest of the camera is constructed.
To seal the bellows I concocted a mixture of silicon gasket paste and black shoe polish, and painted it into all the creases and folds. The light leak situation now seemed vastly improved on inspection with a bright torch, so I tested using an expired roll of 35mm colour film… 120 film is a bit pricey to waste any more of it. I wedged the 35mm canister into the centre of the roll-film cavity using slices of wine bottle cork and made some film guides from black insulation tape to keep the film running centrally over onto the take-up spool. The result is the full width of the 35mm gets exposed, showing bits of image around the sproket-holes, which I think is quite a nice effect.
The shots are below – the camera now seems to be working much better – still a few leaks visible, and a few scratches on the surface of the negs, but not bad for a 90 year old camera….
Emma’s is my second office. If I fancy a change of surroundings I nip round the corner and drink too much coffee whilst working in the Cafe.
I did a shoot for her last week to provide some pictures for promoting the business online, the results were appreciated, but after seeing the old-style shots of the Nook Beer Festival, she asked if I could do something a little more vintage.
The following shots were taken on a Yashica Mat 124, medium format TLR. I used Fuji Superia Xtra 400 colour film, and developed the negatives at home, cross processing the film in black and white chems. The results are soft and grainy, and Emma’s pretty happy with them!
If you’d like something similar doing for your business, please give me a call. I have a selection of old cameras of various types to give your shots the true vintage feel -giving so much more character than some phoney Instagram effect…
The weekend just gone was the Nook’s Spring Beer Festival. I gave myself the unfortunately arduous task of documenting it on film. I felt the gritty nature of the occasion warranted a black and white film approach, as opposed to Digital.
I took a Pentax ME Super, using a 50mm f 1.7 Pentax lens, and shot using Kentmere 400 film in the ambient light available. The results are grainy, blurry, dark, scratched and mottled. I think they suit the venue and the atmosphere well!
The film was developed at home in Ilfosol 3, and the negatives scanned.
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