Pentaxmx on The Singemonkey

October 15, 2024

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 21:26:57 +0000

Faded memories of things passed away. The unique @hello_sailor_bistro wisely closed just months into the pandemic. Another from a roll of film that I just left on a shelf for years.

October 15, 2024

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 21:19:02 +0000

Processed some brutally neglected rolls of film that were sitting exposed on a shelf since well before the pandemic…

May 25, 2020

Mon, 25 May 2020 14:53:44 +0000

Eid Mubarak. While I’m not a big fan of religions in general, I do have a huge fondness for Islamic architecture. So I thought this might be a good day for this. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful mosques in the world - from the ‘Blue’ mosque in Istanbul, to the jaw-dropping Jama Masjid in Old Delhi designed by Shah Jahaan of Taj Mahal fame. I adore our strange early Cape Town mosques. But I think my favourite of all time might be this humble mosque in the centre of Chefchaouen, Morocco. Sitting lunching in that sunny square in that beautiful town in the Rif mountains, this typical Moroccan mosque with its geometric minarette watched over @furiousgreencloud and I as I recovered my sanity there for ten wonderful days in 1999. African, Maghrebbi skies provide the perfect backdrop. Hoping my Muslim friends feast to bursting point after a fast in the most difficult conditions.

April 03, 2020

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 14:52:11 +0000

Huge throwback to when Africans had the most sophisticated society on the entire planet. If I remember, these columns are at the temple in Luxor built about 3400 years ago while Europeans lived in holes and thought fire-hardened sticks were pretty rad technology. Not just Egypt, this sophisticated society was also shared by the Sudanese empire of Kush. There are dozens of little-known pyramids in Sudan. But unfortunately of the two dictatorships, Sudan is the harder one to visit - and also the one that’s taken stronger steps towards democracy (probably because, unlike in Egypt, the dictatorship wasn’t massively supported by millions of US dollars and tons of US military equipment). I wasn’t strongly aware when I was in Egypt in 2000 the role of the world’s democracies in propping up Hosni Mubarak as they now do el-Sisi after paying lip-service to the democratic movement he crushed.

April 03, 2020

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 14:38:12 +0000

Marcus hanging out in the past being young and handsome. At the Milestone, Simonstown in 2002 or so? @kanesnaps, you remember?

March 12, 2020

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:16:57 +0000

@kanesnaps and me in 1997. I knew how to use the self-timer. Unfortunately I didn’t know how aperture and depth-of-field corresponded in those days. This was influenced - without the technical ability to pull it off - by the famous Mick Rock photoshoot of Syd Barrett (I was obsessed with Syd Barrett) with his purple and orange striped floorboards. I should be very clear that the weed smoking Bob Marley poster belonged to my flatmate thank-you-very-much. I, of course, had a Bill Brandt print up in my room #pretentious .

December 18, 2019

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 08:18:47 +0000

Eerie boys, 1997. Only @kanesnaps is on insta in this pic. That’s Gen-Xers for you. I seem to have taken a couple of these low-light timed pictures back then - by candlelight too.

December 17, 2019

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 09:38:44 +0000

June 1996 was a funny time for me and @sad_ivan . Yessiree.

December 16, 2019

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 18:41:10 +0000

It was a normal day in the 1990s. At least for @sad_ivan, Gareth, and me it was a normal day.

December 05, 2019

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 19:37:43 +0000

Throwback to when Greeks ruled Asia Minor. Throwback to when Turkey was a democracy. Throwback to the dawn of the century.

September 29, 2019

Sun, 29 Sep 2019 10:54:43 +0000

90s bois. Set the camera up in the grass. Push the little lever. Wait for the mechanical whirl to end in a click. And a day in 1996 is captured in grainy, squinty glory. What were we up to on plum-pudding hill that noon? Digging. Just another madcap Gareth scheme.

July 17, 2019

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 17:06:12 +0000

I’ve always wanted one of these pancake 40mm lenses to turn my trusty little camera of 25 years into a proper compact when the mood strikes me. And this one looks and feels almost unused.

July 11, 2019

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:02:29 +0000

Misty morning in Observatory - looking down from our balcony onto the neighbourhood cult compound. Took the opportunity to take my #pentaxmx out in the mist, down to the international hockey tournament happening just a hundred meters away.

November 15, 2018

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 14:37:18 +0000

#tbt It couldn’t have been more obvious that ‘bar mooda’ was a front for organised crime. Expensive décor. No one in it. The police did nothing for reasons that are easy to guess. It took the staff being tied up and the place being firebombed to finally drive this particular blight from Observatory. This was taken on the morning of the firebombing.

November 08, 2018

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 15:54:20 +0000

She’s out and about after many years.

November 06, 2018

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 14:02:19 +0000

Hers ’n his. All ready to roll. Two of the most elegant cameras to emerge from the genius of 20th C Japanese engineering. On the right is my Pentax MX, available from 1976 - my birth year - which I’ve used since 1993 and has been all over the world with me. On the left the Olympus OM4 which came out in 1983. It’s an electronic marvel compared to the all mechanical MX. I got it for @withoutaleaf to document #setlife .

November 04, 2018

Sun, 04 Nov 2018 11:09:42 +0000

I found this pretty awesome pic of my pretty awesome sister-in-law, @awesomemeerkat (it’s right there in the name) who just had her birthday. This was at an ancient oak in Glastonbury back in 2000.

November 01, 2018

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 12:54:41 +0000

#tbt When the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) cathedral was built it was the largest church in the Christian world and had the largest dome of any building. After Constantinople was conquered by the Turks (the final end of the Roman Empire) it was converted into a mosque (as Christians did to mosques in Southern Spain too) and the minarets were added. But the original 1st church of the Roman Empire still stands today. And this is what it looked like on a nice day in Istanbul in 2000.

October 25, 2018

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 14:27:49 +0000

#tbt From fake Tri-X to the real thing. The beautiful young Gareth by candlelight in 1997.

August 16, 2018

Thu, 16 Aug 2018 11:20:04 +0000

While I’m going through some ancient pics, this is one I’ve always been fond of. Scanned a bit small. I used a clunky old Takumar 400mm lens and my old Pentax MX with Tri-X film. I’m still interested in making wildlife pics with B&W, though it’s not as original an idea as it was back in 2002 or whenever.

September 15, 2017

Fri, 15 Sep 2017 15:32:08 +0000

Here’s a throwback to the flowers many years ago. 2006 actually. Taken on my little Pentax MX with Fuji Velvia slide film. A great day out with @rhodentette and @midnight_knox.