The annual post Christmas dip in the North Sea, Tynemouth beach. I was so busy looking through my viewfinder that my left foot accidentally took part.
Another Rainy Road Trip
A few weeks ago we had a little road trip to the Lake District. It's safe to say it was pretty terrible. We have this thing where all our trips go absolutely perfectly and we love life OR it's awful and all hell breaks lose. This was one was at the level of bad that resulted me in naming the folder of photos on my hard drive 'Shit Lakes Day'. Haha. It's a good thing I can laugh.
I ran out of Portra 400 last minute and could only get ahold of Portra 160, which is usually fine but the weather was so bad, it was gloomy and dark so I was mega stressed about not being able to shoot anything. It also rained constantly, to the point where they were issuing amber flood warnings.
We'd booked a little 'pod' for the night and were expecting it to be basic, but good lord, this thing was wooden walls with black mould and a industrial rubber floor. So depressing. It was late by the time we got there and there was nothing else about so we though hey, we'll get the air bed up and cook some dinner on the gas stove, put a film on on the laptop, it'll be fine. After an hour of trying to enjoy it, I realise my ass is now on the rubber floor instead of the airbed. We have a leak. Duct tape slowed it down, but throughout the whole night Steven had to get up in approximately 2 hour intervals and pump us back up.
The next morning we woke up and thought we'd treat ourselves to breakfast at Homeground coffee in Windermere. The food and coffee is so good it's honestly the main reason I ever go to the Lakes. We put it in the sat nav (which is renowned for getting us in some sticky situations) and were delighted to see there was a pretty quick route from the Eskdale Valley to Windermere through the mountains.
As we approached (it's still very very heavily raining at this point) I was getting a little nervous as there were a lot of warning signs, 'steep incline', 'not suitable for any vehicles during winter' etc etc. I wanted to take the long route but Steven's like nooooo it'll be fine. Turns out our 'shortcut' was Hard Knott Pass. Britain's steepest road with hairpin bends and sheer drops down the mountain on your side. I can't even explain to you how terrified I was. The views were amazing but I was so consumed in terror I didn't get out and shoot anything.
So that was our latest road trip. I'm undecided whether it was better or worse than the 'Rainy Scotland' trip but at least we've got some stories to tell.
Bad Surprises
A few shots from a dodgy batch of Portra I shot last week. I got through 3 rolls of 5 when I realised pretty much nothing was usable, and didn't want to use the rest of the box incase any good stuff was lost. I've been in touch with Kodak and they're sending me a replacement pack so we're all good. It hasn't put me off, the good surprises outweigh the bad surprises when it comes to shooting film.
The main problem with these was the huge blue vignette on the top and bottom of every shot. Realistically I probably could have saved a few shots by cropping it out but all the colours were washed out too and just wouldn't have felt right alongside my other stuff. I'm all about consistency and colour.
