Things I love Thursday

After all our exciting days out last week this week has been quiet in contrast. The weather hasn't been great, getting warmer but we've also had some rain and I seem to have the onset of a cold. This week I have been loving

♥ My new film scanner I've only scanned a couple of films but overall I'm quite pleased, especially as it will hopefully save me money in long term

♥ New issue of Mollie Makes arriving yesterday

♥ Watching the Great British Sewing Bee and wishing I could make clothes, shame the series is only made of four shows, if there is another series they could make it twice the length 

♥ The new EDF Energy advert, Zingy on a Basset Hound, I love his dance moves

♥ Another little eBay buy :D

52 Weeks of Film ~ Week 2 ~ B&W Love

Week 2  8.4.13

 

Camera - Pentax K1000

Film - Ilford HP5

 

My film scanner finally arrived on Saturday and I sat down all excited to get working on Sunday only to discover it needed to charge for about six hours! Oh well, I did have a little play with it before we headed out for dinner with some friends at their new farmhouse. This week I'm sharing my first roll of B&W film that I shot in my Pentax K1000 and developed myself on my photography course three years ago. Funnily enough today three years was the day my Pentax arrived with me and I've never looked back since.

My first B&W roll isn't the greatest selection of shots, I was pushed for time to shoot and the light wasn't there but I needed to get it done. Looking back I quite like some of the shots I thought were rubbish before, if only because they remind me of where we lived at the time and the places we saw everyday. In the end I picked this one -

 

 

Here are a few more I like

 



Day Tripping

This week we have been on not one but two day trips. Usually we manage to get one day a week off together but we were lucky and got two so we thought we best make the most of them. David is a lover of all things railway and steam related and we are fortunate to have one of the Great Little Trains of Wales here in Aberystwyth, we can even see it chuffing up and down for a small part of its journey from our bedroom window. I always promise him we can go but one thing or another gets in the way and we don't go (not that we haven't been on it countless times already) but on Tuesday we embraced the blue skies and boarded the Vale of Rheidol. The journey takes you from Aberystwyth up through the beautiful countryside to Devil's Bridge, a little village eleven and three quarter miles inland. We have a running joke that whenever we go on the Rheidol we always end up with the green engine and Tuesday was no exception. It was quite busy as we are half way through the Easter holidays so lots of tourists and children about which isn't always a good combination on the train but it was such a nice day it would have been a shame not to do anything. Here are a few shots from up at Devil's Bridge, we didn't go far as the train only runs twice a day and would have missed the last one back if we had gone for a walk down to the waterfalls.

On Thursday I was supposed to be going on a course for work in Stoke but it got cancelled so I had the day off instead as we had plans to go to Wolverhampton to see David's parents as it was their wedding anniversary. Unfortunately they were both recovering from being poorly and the weather was very cold so we decided to go out somewhere just the two of us. We braved the cold and headed to The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley which is one of the largest open air museums in the country telling the story of life in the Midlands from the onset of the Industrial Revolution to the present day. I've been once before, back in 2009 and loved it as it reminded my of my favourite place, St Fagans which is the Welsh version if you're interested. Set in twenty six acres there is a little village with old shops including a sweet shop and a fried fish shop selling fish and chips cooked in beef dripping, seeing as the weather was so cold we had to have some to keep us going. You can also explore an old mine, something they have created, go on the canal boats, ride on an old tram and visit a 1930s fairground. One of my favourite things they have are Trolley buses, I don't know why but I absolutely love them. When we went this time they weren't running, I was a bit disappointed as I really wanted a ride. I am a bit of a sucker for all things nostalgic and a day out to The Black Country Museum is my idea of heaven, I only hope next time it's a bit warmer so I can take lots more photos! I did take a few and here are some of my favourites

We've only got five weeks until our next holiday, when we're going to stay with my family for the week and hopefully visit St Fagans to shoot some film with my various new cameras for my 52 Weeks of Film which I started this week. My new scanner has arrived and has been charging most of the day so I haven't been able to get scanning yet but I've got about twenty five films to scan already! So a busy week ahead I think. Will be back on Tuesday with the second film in my project.

Things I love Thursday

April already! At least we've seen a little bit of sunshine this past week so that has made us happy even if having one day off at Easter and back in work at 5 a.m. on the Monday wasn't the best. What I would have given for a four or even a three day weekend. Anyway, this week I am loving

♥ Day trips. This week we've been on the Vale of Rheidol, a little steam train here in Aberystwyth which my husband loves and today we visited The Black Country Living Museum on a flying visit to family in Wolverhampton

♥ New issues of Oh Comely and Vogue waiting for me when I came home

♥ Listening to Marina and The Diamonds

♥ Starting my 52 Weeks of Film project, I would recommend anyone with an interest in film to give it a go, shooting different types of film and using a variety of cameras as well as looking back at past rolls is my approach. I've also joined this group on Flickr

♥ Having two days off with my lovely husband as usually we only get one together ♥

52 Weeks of Film ~ Week 1 ~ Back to the start

Week 1 - 1.4.13

Camera - Pentax K1000

Film -  Fujifilm Superia 200

With the start of a new month I decided to go ahead and begin my 52 weeks of film project. I must admit that some of the early weeks of this project will contain photographs I have posted before and aren't "new" in that sense but I have so many rolls of film that I haven't properly shared that I thought it would be good to explore the archive as well as new material. I have also ordered a 35mm film scanner as in the past I've had the images put on disk but the quality has not been as impressive as I would have liked so I'm hoping that this will show my film shots at their best.

The first roll in this project is the first roll I shot with my Pentax K1000 back almost three years ago. I have previously blogged about my love for this camera and most of my early rolls of film have been shot on her. This is my favourite shot

The actual content of this roll isn't overly exciting as it was more of a test to see what would come out rather than getting really creative and being disappointed if nothing happened when I got it developed. Other shots I like include