analogue custom made camera bag

Analogue photography is a lot of fun but you either need a lot of pockets, a team of sherpas or a good (waterproof) bag for all the gear. In these throwaway days it is easy to find a cheapo waterproof bag but why take the easy path?

Now where would you find a suitable bag with a tripod carrier in an attractive world map waterproof fabric?

 A bellows style postage stamp pocket for filter?

An internal world map pocket for self timer or lens tissues?

2 roomy compartments for camera, light meter and film?

 
An elasticated loop to hold a custom designed roll of tape useful for when the sticky fails on the film roll (it does happen...)?
 

OK well you might possibly find a bag with some of those approximate features but I absolutely guarantee no bag anywhere in the world has one of the following. For people like me with too many hobbies it has been known for the film to stay in the camera for a few months so by the time I pick it up again I can't remember whether it is colour or black and white and the film speed is anyone's guess (I am still learning about that sort of thing).

So here we have a cunningly simple design solution: A rectangle of fabric with a coloured camera fabric design on one side and a black and white design on the other and 2 button holes with an embroidered arrow in the middle. Simply choose the right fabric and  point the arrow to the appropriate speed. I can't take credit for the idea but the sewing is all my own work.

Now all I have to do is learn how to use the camera. It is tricky with apertures and film speeds and light meters and distances but every so often it works...

Tour of Britain: analogue shot

Tour of Britain: digital shot

blue sun prints

What a happy day.

This was supposed to be a post about a new camera case I stitched up yesterday but in the (warm) light of day I am so underwhelmed by my sloppy stitching that I have renamed it the prototype.

Today I have discovered the thrill of cyanotypes and it is my new best hobby.

Last summer my best birthday present was a day learning the basics of darkroom photography. Well I don't remember any of the theory but the bit where the picture appeared was magic. I have no idea why developing photographs is so exciting but it is.

The second best presents were the sun printing kits (cyanotype and salt printing).

Being a pessimist and English I promptly put them away in a suitcase for a year as I suspected we would have no sunny days for a good while. I don't really want to jinx things by passing comment on our summer so far this year but safe to say my freckles have joined up.  

Today conditions were perfect for sun printing and we had a go at cyanotypes. It was so much fun and I am amazed by the results. The kit only came with 5 OHP sheets for the negatives and 5 pieces of cotton paper for the prints but I am already researching replacement kit.

The pictures I used were all taken with a digital camera...

 ...but I would like to at some point and with the help of a friend do the whole thing in an almost completely analogue fashion - using a film camera to take film photographs and develop the negatives in the house. I will need a lot of help. 

And I am very excited about the idea of cyanotype onto fabric. Oh the possibilities.

cyanotype sun printing 

after washing and fixing and washing again

the prototype camera bag: C minus

blue wood and birthday knits

Green wood cup: Chlorociboria aeruginascens Cumbria 2013

I intended only to post about birthday knits today but this Green Wood cup justifies a double-themed posting.

A couple of years ago, Crazy Jake stumbled across some blue wood (in a secret place, deep in the forest) and brought me back a spelk. We learned that the blue/green wood stain is produced by a mushroom called the 'green elfcup' or 'green wood cup'. The mushroom is not often seen, but the green/blue xylindein-stained wood is more prevalent. The pigment in the wood is enduring and has been used in decorative woodworking for hundreds of years: see this post. We have been walking around for years with our 'eyes peeled' for this wood, but we never saw it again...until this week, when Crazy Jake re-stumbled upon it. Having found not only the wood, but a smattering of little elfcups, I was most eager to be taken on a blue wood safari.

Thimble in the wild

The green wood cup has long been on my list of 'things in nature I would really like to see one day' so it was fitting that it shouldn't be too easy and this blue wood safari was not without risk. Look carefully and you will see me in red, in a sea of bracken, tendrils twisting round my ankles, threatening to engulf me.. then there were the slippy rocks and the faery shoelace-untiers; the hidden bogs with fetid bog-stink; the slithery slope and the giant gravity-defying boulders above our heads. When, sweat-slicked and weary, we finally tracked down our prize, there were the FLIES. But it was worth it....

Green wood with green woodcups (and fly)

These mushrooms are really small. The flies (and the fact I kept sliding down the slope and the big rock above me was making me nervous) meant we couldn't linger. Lucky for me for the fly conveniently landed in shot - a perfect scale marker to show the tininess of the fungus. Unfortunately we brought back from safari some even tinier nature gifts - 2 days later and Crazy Jake is still finding the world's smallest ticks on him - we stopped counting at 12.

Can't think of a segue from blue wood to birthday knits, but I just had to mention these beautiful gifts knitted for me by mum - a slouch beret and shawlette. The shawlette I especially love - it is knitted in 4 ply 45% silk, 55% superwash merino and I have been wearing it all week, which speaks volumes about the Cumbrian summer.