pete mcgovern

I recently acquired a  vintage Olympus C-5050 for a modest £14, slightly lower than the going rate, and just 2% of the original RRP, after inflation. Considering its age and specs it's well beyond any reasonable BBE date, and some functionality has been lost along the way. Disarmingly, it looks like it was designed by a drunk. Small but weighty, built around a magnesium alloy frame, with, for the time, a bright f1.8 lens that drinks in the light. Which is useful, as even at base ISO 64 there is some noise rippling around, and the range only goes to 400, which is a rather sketchy. It feels good in the hand and I like the way it sits around waiting to go out and look for pictures for the simple pleasure of it. So, this decades old machine, like some rescued old mutt, gets to go for walks again of a summer evening, (at least until some weary component fail brings about final darkness), if only for a lingering look upon the little world of the local neighbourhood.

After picking up an obsolete but wonderful Nikon D810 last year (mint but carrying with dignified silence the wear of 2.3 million exposures, having previously been nestled in an automated QC rig in a high-end car plant). I got an analogue-era lens for the hole at the front and now that I've used it a bit am in awe of its resolving power (particularly at or above f8). It's chunky and a bit clunky but looking into that wide eye, and its wondrous depths, I feel I am poised above a still pool of water cupped by a mountain with the impulse to dive in, with my clothes on, apart from my shoes and socks, of course. It looks so clear in there but I'm sure it's going to be freezing. 

For what it's worth. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sort of, maybe. A rough and ready head to head between a vintage Kodak CCD sensor (Olympus C-5050) and two CMOS (Sony P&S and Nikon D810), with their varying physical sizes, pixel density, colour science processing, lenses, and my slightly varied individual settings to muddle things up a bit more, etc. Fairly bright overcast light, mid day in May. Everything auto and OOC jpegs. Quite a busy street, juggling cameras, and a concerned looking shopkeeper wondering what I was up to hence framing a bit awry. DYOR, and it is what is is , as Beth at work used to say in her philosophical moments, or  All Apologies as per Kurt Cobain. RIP you sad, silly, lonely young man. No refunds. SPOILER ALERT (for other camera nerds who pass by this way) For reference, photo details below, but I'd suggest looking only after making your own assessment of the colour differences as otherwise it will be impossible to review impartialy:  ...

Just in case you didn't notice: Lincoln City FC just got promoted to the Championship, winning the League One title, scoring most goals, conceding least, gathering 103 points (the second highest ever achieved), and had the longest run of unbeaten games in a League One season. I'd have gone to join the parade anyway honouring their achievement but as the day got nearer thought I would bring a camera along. And, in the manner of George Geourgiou ( Americans Parade ), photographed the people, rather than the players and staff filling the three open top buses. From the start point south of the city I managed to keep ahead of the procession for maybe 40 minutes, before it was impossible to progress through the throng on the pavements nearer the centre. I also couldn't reach the thousands more waiting uphill around the cathedral. Photographing random people is not my thing, and I don't know how street photographers do it, what with the risk of antipathy. A celebratory parade ...

Banksy, (2026) & Robert Frank, (1955)

'These days, an ageing Daido Moriyama does not walk around as fast as he used to, but he still keeps himself as busy as ever. One day, his daughter Yuko drove him to Yokohama, where he walked around the Motomachi shopping district, but before that he had already spent a rainy day wandering around Komachi Street in Kamakura. After visiting Yokohama, the very next day he was on a bus to Fujisawa, where he lived briefly when he was young. Then he planned to make his weekly trip to Tokyo the day after, with taking snapshots in the Shimbashi-Yurakucho area as his goal. For Moriyama, even a slow and relaxed stroll with his camera still generates a wealth of images.' From the afterword by Daido Moriyama:  “Despite the fact that I usually have all kinds of things and ideas on my mind, the lifestyle that I’m leading is quite simple. I find myself swinging back and forth between worrying if I’m alright, and reassuring myself that I’m doing just fine. Today I wonder whether there’ll be th...

Abstract art  photographs of torn signage are limited in that they simply nab a language that painters had to figure out and create from nothing. But anyway. I glimpsed this decrepit billboard while on a bus ride over at the coast. It was for a fraction of a second and my instantaneous reading was wow!  largely based on shapes and scale. There was something animalistic, savage going on. I won't be more specific as I'm not sure my reading holds up very well in hindsight, but it's still there somewhat, I think. At the end of the line, having prevaricated too long whether to get off en route, I ran back (in my non-runner fashion) through unfamiliar streets, navigating by shops I could recall, until I turned a corner and was slightly amazed to find I had found it. I haven't managed to get a good picture of it, the light was behind and to one side for one thing. Whatever. And now captured it doesn't have the eye-pop surprise of seeing something for an instant and have it...