Framed prints for sale

I am very excited to announce that a small selection of my Holga photographs are for sale as framed prints from redbubble. Make sure to check back regularly as I will be uploading photographs on a regular basis.

18 Tips for Being a Photography Original

This article by Paul Melcher first appeared in Stock Photography on 24 August 2009: 18 Tips for Being a Photography Original.

Southwark sunflower

Southwark sunflower
Originally uploaded by fotoshoota.com

I am not sure yet whether I like shooting colour with Holga, but I love how this photograph has come out. It was a grim cloudy day, but just as I walked past a row of sunflowers on the edge of a housing estate, the sun came out. I just had time to grab the camera from my bag and capture this composition.

Music at The Drawingroom.

Check out my photographs of last night's party at the Drawingroom in Chesham.

The following artists performed during the evening:

Treana;

Simon Stephenson;

Lisbee Stainton;

Jack Garratt; and

Mark Hole.

Holga focussing distances

Everyone into Holga photography should know of the fantastic resource called Squarefrog. Recently I revisited this site to demystify the focussing distances of my Holga FN and found some fantastic information here and also a link through to Squarefrog's focussing distances experiment on flickr.

Armed with this new knowledge, I created a reference label roughly the size of the top of my Holga's flash compartment. The resulting label I stuck to the top of the camera and I now have a quick reference when out in the field.

I've also placed below two versions of the label for you to download: one with distances in feet and the other with distances in meters. This won't work if you've got one of those fancy Holgas with the coloured flash filters (which has got a dial on the top), but you can also fix the label to the back of your camera.

Charlie takes a break

Charlie takes a break
Originally uploaded by fotoshoota.com

Last week the sun was out for a change - which is always an opportunity to check out what's up on the Southbank. I shot this one from the hip without stopping or looking at the two gentlemen. The photograph was taken on a Holga FN using Fuji NCN 400 black & white film.

Going upstairs

Going upstairs
Originally uploaded by fotoshoota.com

I found this one in the archives. It was taken with a Holga FN toy camera on Ilford HP5 Plus 120 film. The photograph was one of my first experiments with a Holga and was taken a few years back in our flat just of Blackheath in London. The texture was created by photographing the negative on a lightbox with some textured photographic paper as a background. Basic processing and adjustments were needed in Photoshop.