Indonesia 2012: Song and Dance

A true spur of the moment trip. I grabbed my bike and my camera. The next day I wandered the streets as darkness fell and the light and decoration of the intra muros came to prominence.

Another of those places where it felt surreal to walk the pathways of a place I'd seen in everything from Asterix graphic novels as a kid, to movies via many history books. Every footstep, a connection to the past. I visited on a bright but changeable February morning and the queues were still deep. I cannot imagine how busy it must be at the height of summer.

Sometimes you make a mistake, and sometimes that mistake is utterly avoidable. The day before this trip I got the then new iPhone 7 took a couple of shots in nice light and thought, 'this is good'. I'd taken some online comments to heart. Something along the lines of 'only 'cause you've got an expensive camera'. Rather than dismissing it, I thought I'd challenge myself and set off to Amsterdam with only the iPhone. As it turned out, I fell in love with Amsterdam that weekend and wished I'd had my X-T1 with me. The iPhone looked alright in good daylight and on a phone screen, but quality simply fell apart as soon as the light dimmed and seen on a laptop or larger. In December in a city filled with beautiful illuminations the good light fell away quickly and what was left on the sensor did not do the city justice. The next time I went, I did not make the same mistake twice.

December 2012

After shooting in the region of 250K photographs. This set is a first. The first roll of film put through my 1968 Olympus EE-2. The first using time an experimental film from Revlog - SNOVLOX, for that snowy, wintery feel. But mainly because this is the first roll of film that I personally developed (equal first, there were two rolls in the tank. This just happened to come out first). See below for the accompanying travelogue post.

First trip away in a long, long time. A couple of days in London and a photowalk in some inclement weather along the Thames.

When travelling, there are places you visit not for beauty or culture, but to educate and remind yourself of our capacity for intolerable cruelty to one another - and to reaffirm why it must never be allowed to happen again. Robben Island, home to many political prisoners under the Apartheid government, is one such place.

Another of those places that has to be seen with your own eyes. Every nook and cranny is filled with detail that even a gallery of a thousand photographs could not hope to capture. So many moments where you turn a corner and say 'hang on that's a...'