Category Archives: Travel Photography

A Bit More Texas

December 4, 2014 11:07 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

In August, my mother and I took a little trip to Texas to visit my aunt. I brought along only my Fuji Instax Mini 50s (the results of which I shared on the blog already) and my Kiev 4AM. Truthfully, I was having such a good time with my Instax Mini that I barely touched the Kiev. I, in fact, only used the Kiev during our visit to the quirky Salmon Lake RV and Recreational Park in Grapeland, Texas. My mom, aunt, and I just ran around the Salmon Lake park taking pictures and had a grand ole time! I finally got my Kiev film developed and wanted to share the results with you, as a completion to the series of photos taken on my little visit to the Lone Star State.

Gear with which the below photos were taken

Kiev 4AM • Helios-103 53mm/1.8 + Y2 filter • Kodak BW400CN
Grapeland, Texas

Posted in: film photography, personal, travel photography ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

{Instant England} On Holiday

November 25, 2012 11:01 am ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅

‘Ello guvna!

I went to England again, ya’ll. As was the case in 2006, I took along an exorbitant amount of film cameras. Are seven cameras too many cameras? Probably! I lugged those cameras around and shot about 22 rolls of film! I foresee it being a few weeks before it’s all developed and ready to be shared with you all! In the meantime, here are the (random) shots taken with my Polaroid SLR 680 and Impossible Project PX 680 Color Protection film (or Colour Protection – these were taken in England after all!)  This film is so awesome! It performs better than any other Impossible Project film I’ve tried thus far.

(Of course, being slightly careless, I put some of these pictures in my pocket to help warm them during development, causing the photos to crumple and acquire some “character flaws.” Just thought I should mention that, since these flaws were not the fault of the film but of the one using the film!)

 

I loved all the awesome doorknockers in London

Cuteness from Kayla’s kitchen 

 Yellow roses, on top of the recycling bins outside the Swiss Cottage Tube station

( Silhouetted) The Rising Sun pub in the Tottenham Court area

 Another awesome doorknocker 

 Memorial statue dedicated to WWII Polish General/Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski 

Festive shop window 

 Iron railing + window flower box

Pretty seafoam/turquoise-y railing   

(Greasy) eggs and a side of chips at a Russell Square cafe

Gold flower on iron gate in Bloomsbury

 

Sadly, I dropped my beautiful, near-mint Polaroid SLR 680 one grey afternoon in England. That cut short my ability to use the last pack of Impossible Project film I had brought  with me. However, the bright side to not being able to use that film in England is that I’ve been able to sort of get my 680 working again and have been using that pack of film here in the States! You’ll see some of those results on the blog as well!

Posted in: Polaroid, The Impossible Project, travel photography ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

“Hey…Remember that time I went to England?”

November 22, 2011 8:50 pm ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

I have to admit. Every year around this time, I get a fit of nostalgia (or, a dull pain in my heart, to be more accurate.)  That’s because I went to London in November of 2006. I’m sure most most people who hear me reminisce about it think I must have been there for a year or some other extended amount of time in the Motherland. It really was just a eleven days. But those were among the most important eleven days of my whole life.

Why am I talking about all this now? It was five years ago, and I wanted to commemorate the anniversary for myself by revisiting the photos from the trip and the blog I wrote once I’d returned. The written portion of Shoot with Personality didn’t exist until 2009, so I registered a WordPress url and officially had my first blog. It was my first official blogging experience.

Things to know about me and England:

  • I have felt an affinity with England since my fourth grade class studied the country. This also began my career as a baker, because I made “tea cakes” for my class’s British-themed party.
  • I bought myself a ticket to England as a birthday present to myself in 2006. Some people thought it was a sudden decision. It wasn’t. I had started saving for such a journey, I thought I should check plane ticket prices so I’d  know what number I was saving towards, and I found some insane deal: a round-trip ticket for a little over $500. I had $500. I picked travel dates in a way that only just qualified as being “non-arbitrary.”  I bought the tickets.
  • I quit my job a week and a half before I left for England. This made people think I was making a rash decision. I wasn’t. I had been wanting to leave this job for awhile so I could move to Memphis. Once I got my plane ticket, I decided I had better work up until nearly time to leave, so I could have money to navigate “Old Blighty.” It was my exit strategy.
  • If it wasn’t clear up until this point: I went to England alone. One of my friends thought it would be so boring to travel on one’s own. I explained that I actually enjoy my own company. I knew I wouldn’t mind hanging out with myself exclusively for most of my stay in Great Britain. It didn’t occur to me until after I left for England and returned that it was sort of crazy that I went so far away on my own. I came back in once piece though, so I guess it my decision wasn’t that bad!
  • My main activity in England was photographing my journey. That’s probably a given, considering that it’s me, Amanda, who’s writing this. What did I pack in my camera bag for this transatlantic photo journey: some film and a few 35mm cameras. I had a good digital SLR, I just didn’t want to do digital photography in my “favourite country I’ve never been before.” Even though, as tends to happen when over 4,000 miles from home, I ran into some problems with one of my cameras, but I still wouldn’t have changed a thing. Film all the way!
  • On the subject of photography: One upside to traveling alone was that I was able to spend as much time as I needed at any given point of photographic interest in order to get the photos I wanted. If I travel with others, I do my best to be considerate of those other people with whom I’m traveling. It was good to know that I wasn’t being selfish by spending so much time photographing whatever I wanted.

Five years ago today, the 22nd of November, was a pretty good one in London. It was rainy, but I got to do some great things.

I lunched with a very nice African lady I’d met at a church I visited that week.

I visited the National Gallery for a second time. It’s free, so why not??

I walked to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey and produced some of my favorite images of London.

I ended my day by going ice skating with an American ex-pat, on an outdoor rink at the historic Somerset House. I felt like it was a once in a lifetime experience for a girl from the Mid-South in the U. S. of A.. Even if I am horrible at ice skating (or anything that involves skills of coordination!)

 

I’m hoping sharing this fit of nostalgia (slash dull pain in my heart) with all of you will help me get over it more quickly. It’s still my next goal in life to return to England in the next year. I continue to pour coins into my bluebird of happiness bank, so I can exchange those US coins for some British pounds sterling one day. I even held on to a five pound note from last time. I thought I could buy a cup of soup and baguette with it upon my return to the Motherland.

And, hey, maybe next time, I’ll bring someone along with me.

If happen to be interested in such things, I don’t mind if you take a look at my little “Amanda Goes to England” blog from 2006.

Posted in: personal, travel photography ⋅ Tagged: ,

A lesson in travel photography (or “how I learned my lesson”)

November 22, 2009 7:27 pm ⋅ 2 Comments ⋅

Who doesn’t love to travel? I know I sure do! I, like a lot of travel lovers, do not get to do it as much as I would like to. Everyone likes to take photos when they travel. When a photographer goes on vacation, photography can become the most important thing. More important than experiences

Three years ago, I up and took a voyage to England. Alone. You can read a little about it here. Besides the fact that I was already in love with the Motherland before I set foot on British soil, I knew the main purpose of my trip was photography, photography, photography. I owned a dSLR, but I was so high and mighty that I didn’t take it. I documented my entire trip on film. There were times when camera malfunctions made me second-guess this decision, but I don’t regret leaving the digital camera back in Mississippi while I went to England. In the end, I was glad I’d gone to England on my own because when you are a photographer on vacay, it can be difficult to juggle your desire to photograph with being fair to your traveling companions. I could stop and go as much as I want, come and go as I pleased, all to suit my photographic needs.

Both the issue of film vs. digital and how to get in satisfying photography while traveling with others cropped up for me recently. I traveled with about 7 of my friends to St. Louis, Missouri for a quick visit. I, being me, left my nice digital SLR at home and opted instead to take my Nikon FE and Holga 120N. I didn’t stock up on film before I left for Missouri because I figured I could just do that when I got up there. When some of my friends realized I didn’t have my digital camera, they were both perplexed and slightly disappointed because they new the limitations of film might hamper the volume of photos I could take on the trip. I was somewhat offended that my artistic vision for documenting our time in St. Louis was being questioned. Then some things happened along the way that caused me to learn my lesson.

I am very stubborn about using film rather than digital in most areas of my photography. However, I’m going to have to admit now there are some drawbacks to basing yourself in film photography. For example, when my friends and I arrived in St. Louis, it was getting late in the day and the sunlight was fading fast. We went to the zoo, and there were definitely certain shots I couldn’t get because I had a slow film speed, 100 ASA, loaded in my camera. Sure, I am quite pleased with some of the photos I DID get, but the scope of my photography that first night in the STL was not what it should’ve been.

Nikon FE and Holga 120N at the St. Louis Zoo. 

Tragedy struck my plan of being too cool for school and do only film photography in St. Louis: I actually LEFT my wallet at the restaurant where we’d stopped for lunch on our way to St. Louis. Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I discovered this when I went to stock up on film and had no way of paying for it. D’oh! My lack of preparedness bit me in the rear. Yes, Amanda Raney did go out of town with only one roll of 35mm film in her possession. Oh how the mighty have fallen…

I ran out of film pretty early in the day Sunday morning. Before we’d even left our super cool hotel, in fact! And we still had hours of St. Louis awesomeness to enjoy before going home. What’s a girl to do??

Nikon FE and Holga 120N at and around the hotel Sunday morning

All was not lost, thanks to the darling Annie who decided I should use her point-and-shoot digital camera while we spent our last few hours in St. Louis before going back to Memphis. I’m sure she knew not being able to take photos like I wanted was just eating me up inside. If you think I’m uppity about not using my dSLR for everything, you should see how uppity I normally am about my ever having to use a point-and-shoot digital! Once again, I had to learn my lesson: some camera is better than no camera at all. And guess what: that little camera of Annie’s wasn’t half bad! It performed well, I’d say. We went to the St. Louis Art Museum, the galleria, and a cool pizza joint for lunch. I ended up being quite pleased with a lot of the photos. Just gotta know how to get the best out of these little cameras.

Further adventures in STL, taken with Annie’s Sony Cybershot 

For the events that unfolded with my photography in St. Louis, I am taking the “all’s well that ends well” viewpoint. I didn’t come back with a portfolio stacked with shots of that city, but I came back with a lot of fun (and some quite nice) shots that fulfilled my need to do photography while traveling.

So what is my conclusion in all of this? When you, as a photographer, are going somewhere special, you have to assess the purpose of your trip. Is this a trip that is going to be based mostly around photography? If so, how is this going to work out if I’m traveling with others who are not mainly interested in doing fine photography while we’re away? Even if I had had all the film in the world while I was in St. Louis, I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I wanted to photographically because I was with people whose purpose was to hang out with friends in a different city, not pack in as much photography as possible.

I had to learn that maybe it’s okay that I go out of town with my friends and have a main purpose of just being with my buddies. When I access the purpose of future out of town trips, I will decide if it’s to hang out with my friends, or if I’m planning on coming back with a body of work from that city. After my experience in St. Louis, if the answer is “my main purpose is to just have fun with my friends,” I’m honestly just going to throw my digital camera and maybe a small 35mm camera in my bag to take care of the type of photography I’ll do while I’m away.

It was my first time to travel to St. Louis and I just LOVED the city. I was just DYING because there were so many awesome things I saw and I wanted to capture in photos. It just wasn’t practical this time around. I resigned myself that I would be “forced” to go back to STL another time specifically for a photo excursion. Oh, the things I’ll do for my work!

Posted in: camera equipment, friends, informational, travel photography ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , ,

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