Chinatown Alley
Here is another view from an unnamed (private?) alley in Chinatown.
The building above is at the Herald Street end, and below is a building which extends to Chatham Street.
The newer building has shown up on these pages a few times, such as here and here, both from the same visit and same roll.
Years ago this alley did not go through.
Part way along was the entrance to a very good film processing lab in the basement of the older building above. (more…)
Wharf Street Stroll
I took a recently purchased Olympus Infinity Jr point and shoot camera for a stroll along Wharf Street and adjacent waterfront walkways to give it a test. I blogged about the camera at 52 Rolls yesterday; here are more photographs from the same roll of film. The gallery at the bottom includes the entire roll of film including several not shown within the body of this post or in yesterday’s post (minus a couple of duds due to operator error).
The light was terrific when I went out to shoot on New Year’s day, a low angle winter sun not so bright as to be difficult but bright enough for great contrast. Such light and the clear skies invariably are accompanied by cold outflow winds from the interior of BC so by the time I was finished with the roll, my fingers were nearly done as well. When it is warmer, we have wet winds coming in from Hawaii, with clouds and rain. I love these clear winter days, which are not uncommon in Victoria, but usually don’t last more than a day or two. As I write the next day it has been grey, grey and more grey so I am glad I tested the camera the day before. (more…)
Roll 1: Testing an Olympus Infinity Jr/AF-10 Super
This is a rare two-for-one day. This post is about the camera I used for my first roll of film on 52 Rolls, with a selection of photographs. Tomorrow, here at Burnt Embers, I will post more from the same roll of film.
The first image will look a bit familiar to some of you regular visitors – I took another photo at this location with the Olympus XA2, and with a different angle of light. It can be found in Tread Carefully.
I bought the Olympus Infinity Jr camera in a thrift store a few days ago. These cameras were introduced in the late 80s and are branded as Olympus AF-10 Super outside of North America, and also bears the pretentious nickname “Picasso Mini Super”. Actually I am not sure when they came out, the Olympus website has 1990, but I found newspaper and magazine reviews dated 1987. The lens is a fixed length Olympus 35mm f3.5 with 3 elements in 3 groups. The camera is totally automatic, including very simple film loading, and motorised film advance, DX film speed selection and so on. It takes two of the widely available AAA batteries – either lithium or alkaline – which is a real advantage when buying an older camera. A manual is available on-line at Orphan Cameras, a terrific resource for many manuals.
There is a built-in flash with a range…
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Hello 52Rollers: Introducing Ehpem
Reblogging the first of my posts at 52Rolls – an intro to my photo interests and so on.
It feels strange to have this as a substitute for posting directly to burntembers. May have to find another solution as I can’t schedule a reblog in advance and usually am in bed at this time. We’ll see how it works out.
Time to introduce myself as well. On the interweb I am known as Ehpem, and am trying to keep it that way for a variety of reasons. Some are even good ones. I live in Victoria on Vancouver Island. I recently left a long-term government job and am working fewer hours as a consultant and researcher, which in theory gives me more time for photography. In my professional life I am an archaeologist, specializing in the coastal regions of western Canada and USA, but I did spend a few years working in the UK. My photography experience was concentrated on technical archaeological shots – pictures of dirt, pictures of artifacts sitting in dirt, pictures of artifacts in the lab, and sometimes pictures of archaeologists at work. There was not a lot of room for creativity, and the film was not mine so most of it resides in museum collections, beyond…
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Looking to the Future
Above is my favourite photograph of my granddaughter from 2014. I like the way she is contemplating the distance, whether it be the ocean (or “puddle” as she is currently naming it), or some time in the future. This was one of those instances where the light was very low as sunset was over. I set the camera up on a rock and took this photo with the self timer. I asked her to hold still, and she did, no small feat for someone not quite two.
As to 2015 and Burnt Embers, there will be some minor changes around here. I will endeavour to keep the daily posts going – I am worried that if I break the momentum it might be nearly impossible to overcome inertia after that. However, I have decided to join another on-line project at 52rolls.net where the participants agree to shoot one roll of film a week for 52 weeks in a row, and to post about each roll. It is not too late to join this challenge if you are so inclined. Last year I shot about 26 rolls, so this will definitely up the ante for me. I am looking forward to participating in the project and meeting all kinds of people on-line doing the same thing. I think it will be a lot of fun.
Graffiti Plus
This graffiti is on one side of the Grocery Plus store at the corner of Quadra and View Street and changes often.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it changes again tonight, unless the New Year’s Eve police presence is too intense downtown.
View Towers is right across the street from the store – you can see part of the sign for it across the street in the shot below.
It seems appropriate to end the year with a vivid splash of colourful graffiti including a glimpse of View Towers, caught on film with an older camera that needed work when bought; one of two cameras that can always be found in my coat pocket.
It encapsulates quite a few of the 2014 Burnt Embers themes all at once.
Mamiya U AutoFocus
A couple of weeks ago I picked up, in a junk store, a Mamiya U AutoFocus. It is a point and shoot camera that I had not heard of before, also sold in Europe via Foto-Quelle as the Revue 500AF Super. The lens is a Sekor 35mm f2.8 comprised of 5 elements in 4 groups. Given the quality of Mamiya Sekor lenses on the medium format cameras of this vintage, I thought the optics might be superior. Research on the internet is not all that informative, but this model seems to have been in production for only a year or two right around the time that Mamiya went through a financial reorganisation after the bankruptcy of a major distributor in 1984. This restructuring included getting out of 35mm camera manufacturing.
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