Spain 2019: Madrid

The Formula 1 Exhibition at the eXcel Area in London as seen in December 2024.

The weather finally broke and I grabbed my bike and onto the ferry for a four day round-trip ride to Mont Saint-Michel, a true bucket list location that I've tried to get to for the last 6 years and been tripped on in one way or another from Covid to an operation on my arm. Unfortunately the day I got their it was enveloped in thick fog to the point where I could barely see it even thought I was there. The Abby was also closed due to an emergency so I didn't get to see as much as I'd hope. Which just means I have to go back. The weather played another trick by whipping up a storm the day I was supposed to go home. So a cancelled ferry meant an unexpected day in Saint-Malo. I'm glad it arrived that day as I'd have really struggled with the bike to get back there if was a riding day. But despite the hiccups, the riding was fun and I enjoyed myself. The intention is to spend more time with my bike in France and exploring what is on my doorstep.

A Soviet era Nuclear Missile base with four silos buried deep in the woods in a quiet part of Lithuania. Now converted into a museum. Frankly this place left me with a haunted feeling, knowing within half an hour of a call destruction could be sent to one of many targets. Seeing these marked upon maps still on display somehow made it even more real.

I was invited to visit Bristol during the annual Hot Air Balloon festival by a colleague who had recently moved there. The wind conditions meant that the balloons only took flight on the evening of the last day, but it didn't spoil discovering a vibrant city filled with industrial history and a bustling art scene. I was still suffering from a back injury which restricted my mobility at the time, and as I look back on these image now I have an urge to go back and walk around and photograph it in the way I wasn't able to at the time.

I had big plans for film photography in Morocco. I took 5 weird and wonderful films with me. I got to shoot 1 and a half. It turns out that cameras are not happy if you drop them in streams. Lomo Purple is a odd film at the best of times. It is even odder when soaked in river water and coated in silt and debris!

I wonder how much Beijing has changed since I was there. There had been rapid development which made parts unrecognisable from the scenes in '80 Days Around the World' what would have been filmed around 20 years before I visited. Coming up on 15 years since then, how different is it now?

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

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.