The Ensign Ful-Vue

Last weekend I had the most wonderful time in the West Country visiting my very best friend the Magpie. We spent an afternoon in the beautiful town of Bath, sampling the fine public houses and their ales and perving on the magnificent Regency architecture, and upon browsing in a little street market I came across this delight... the Ensign Ful-Vue.

Some time ago I watched a fascinating documentary about Vivian Maier, the American/French nanny/photographer who went about in the 1950's and 60's snapping New York and Chicago's streets and it's people with her Rolliflex. Ever since then, I've been keeping an eye out for a box camera with a viewfinder on the top and this baby was just the ticket. 

It's a very simple camera with a 1/30 shutter speed (note to self: keep a steady hand) and takes a medium format 120 film - an added bonus as I've just found a local photo shop in Hastings that sells and processes 120 film in-house! Woo! I'm going to load it on up and I can't wait to see what it produces!

Diani Mini

I developed the film in the Diana Mini! I particulary like the double exposures and the way the camera distorts the colour, you never know what you're going to get!

Diana Mini

I've just treated myself to one of these!


I chose this camera because of the vibrantly coloured and deeply saturated prints it produces and thought it would be great to use to take photos of Hastings on sunny days.

I will soon be posting what the first film reveals! Exciting!!

Check out the galleries HERE ...

Saturday Morning Walk

William Hope's, spirit photographs

From today's Guardian -

Halloween hauntings: William Hope's spirit photographs

In the spirit of Halloween, brave a look at the spooky photographs of paranormal investigator William Hope (1863–1933), who used multiple exposure techniques to render the appearance of ghostly apparitions. Although his deception was publicly exposed in 1922, he continued to dabble in the dark arts

Pepper's Ghost Magic Lantern Show

This weekend we visited the town of Lewes in East Sussex for the Lewes Folk Festival. The festival took part all over town with many pubs putting on bands and open music sessions, the local halls and schools opened up to hold dance and music workshops and the streets were filled with Morris Dancers. Whilst we were there we were lucky enough to catch the absolutely brilliant, Pepper's Ghost Magic Lantern Show.

The Magic Lantern itself is an original Victorian wooden projector through which a wide range of slides of old photos from the local area are projected, including some that are hand coloured. To accompany and explain the images, prose is read and old local Sussex folk songs are played and sung.