Le Touquet

Favourite resort of the rich and famous English during the first half of the twentieth century, we visited this seaside town in July. Shot with a Holga and a Diana.

See more here.

The Temple of Kom Ombo

The Egyptian temple dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god. You can see more photos of Egypt by clicking on the link

American Cars at Knebworth House

Just to make a change from pyramids and mummies, here are a couple of shots of some classic American cars taken during a rally held at Knebworth in July.

Shot with a Vivitar UWS

Karnak

The Hypostyle Hall in Karnak.

The Pyramids of Giza

One of the Pyramids of Giza. See more at travel photography.

The Sphinx

The Sphinx at Giza. You can see more photographs of Giza by following the link.

Eperlecques

On August 27 1943 bombers of the US 8th air force attacked a large construction site at Eperlecques. The bombers dropped almost 380 one ton bombs causing extensive damage to the site and tragically killing large numbers of the slave labourers used by the Germans to build the site.

The site was the blockhaus at Eperleques near Calais and the purpose of this huge bunker was to build and launch V2 rockets at London. Unfortunately the Nazis were soon rebuilding the bunker using even more sophisticated construction methods to build a bomb proof bunker.

In June of 1944 it was the turn of the RAF to try to destroy the Blockhaus and the British launched two raids dropping about 30 5 ton "Tall Boy" bombs. One of these enormous bombs scored a direct hit and yet incredibly did virtually no damage to the reinforced structure. However, the shockwave from the bomb created a mini earthquake causing the machinery foundations inside the bunker to shift and in July the Nazis abandoned the site realising that sustained bombing would make it unusable.

The Blockhaus is now a fascinating museum and a moving memorial to the slave labourers who died there. The site has a series of excellent multilingual audio commentaries at various locations throughout the site and I took great pleasure in visiting the site at the same time as a group of Germans - I made damned sure I always got to the language selection button before them so they had to listen to all the commentaries in English.

I visited the site during a wet and windy morning in June and these photographs were taken with a Holga loaded with Delta 3200 and XP2 400. It is difficult to get an idea of the sheer size of the blockhaus from these photos - the Holga's fixed lens made it difficult to fit all the building in.

The bunker is like a head quarters of the baddies in a James Bond film and I hope these photographs the size and the air of menace of the blockhaus.

You can see the full set of travel photographs by following the link.

Edfu, The Temple of Horus

The Temple at Edfu, dedicated to the God Horus, the falcon.

See the other photos of Edfu by following the link

Dianaramas of Cairo

A Dianarama is a panoramic photograph taken using a Diana camera. The technique involves partly winding on the film after each exposure so that each frame overlaps and then moving the camera to create a pano like effect from a number of different exposures.

The same effect can be achieved with a Holga and the possibilities are endless - limited only by the length of film in the camera.

The trouble with the Diana is that the frame mask can't be removed so the line between the overlapping frames is too obvious and can be jarring. In the Holga the frame mask can be removed leaving a much softer edge between frames.

These two examples were shot in Cairo. Click on Dianaramas for more examples.

Widelux F8 in the land of the Pharoahs

I have long toyed with the idea of owning a panoramic camera - ever since I came across Wim Wender's work with a ART Panorama. The possibilities of the format fascinated me but I found the prices of most panoramic cameras rather less appealing. In fact it was while trawling Ebay for cheap panoramics that I came across the Holga - rather than spend £1,000 plus on a Hasselblad Xpan I spent fifteen odd quid on a Holga and so began my love affair with plastic cameras.

I had the good fortune to receive a small windfall this year and decided that part of that would be spent on a panoramic camera. I started looking at the various makes and models and came across Jeff Bridge's excellent work with a Widelux camera. As it happened a Widelux F8 came up on Ebay which looked in good condition and I was lucky enough to win the auction.

At the same time I was about to leave for a well earned holiday with my wife and various In Laws (or should that be Out Laws) to Egypt. The camera arrived a week before I was due to leave and what better place to try it out than Egypt. I managed to ruin a couple of films by not loading the camera properly but other than that it's a joy to use.

This shot was taken at the temple of Hathor in Dendera. Shot vertically the panoramic format let's you take in all of the column and the detail in the roof. You can see other shots taken with the Widelux F8 by following the link

The Colossi of Memnon

Two gigantic statues of Ahmenotep III.

See more travel photographs of Egypt by clicking on the link.

Dashur

The first smooth sided pyramid in Egypt (as opposed to the earlier stepped pyramids) is the Bent Pyramid at Dashur. The pyramid was built by the pharoah Snofru whose son, Khufu, went on to build the great pyramid at Giza.

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Cairo Part Three

Shot in the cemetary in Cairo's Coptic quarter. Click on the link to see more travel photographs of Cairo

Cairo Part Two

Cairo the city of a thousand Minarets. The city shot from the citadel with the Al Hassan Mosque in the foreground. Shot with a Diana loaded with Shanghai GP3.

Cairo

The Mohammed Ali Mosque in the citadel at Cairo. See the rest of my photos from Cairo by clicking on travel photography

Broxbourne Woods in Autumn

Vivitar UWS loaded with Portra 800NC. You can see the full gallery by clicking landscape photos

Abu Simbel

The temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel. Shot with a Holga loaded with Shanghai GP3.

Click on travel photography for more photos of Egypt.

Cornmill Meadows

An English landscape.

Cornmill Meadows is a nature reserve near Waltham Cross in Essex. This image was shot in July and is part of my Lee Valley series.

Click on landscape photography to see the full set of images.

The Canche Estuary Part 2

The Canche Estuary

The Canche Estuary at sunset.