Leeds Through Their Eyes: Paul

It's been a while since I featured someone else's photos of Leeds here but I was fortuitous to see Paul from Reece Photography photos on Twitter recently. And luckily for all of us he said yes to being featured here too! Thank you so much Paul.

One of my favourite things about photography is that it really shows how people see things so differently - the things I choose to photograph in Leeds are different to someone else's and the way they capture it too, is different again. I love these differences and that photography allows us to express them. 

What do you think so far? If Dianne showed Leeds as dirty - Paul 100% shows Leeds as brutal - yet there is a softness there too, of the people who move through the brutality and even thrive in it. I love both sides of Leeds and how Paul has managed to capture that so wonderfully too.

If you love these, please do check out Paul's website Reece Photography. Paul is also on Twitter and Instagram too, so have a look! 

For more 'Leeds Through Their Eyes' photos click here.

These photos are used with Paul's permission so please do not reuse them.

Guest post: Clare

Hi everyone, I’m Clare and I blog at A Wee Bit of Cake where you guessed it, it’s all about my love of cake!

I’ve known Rhianne for almost 10 years now. We met on our first day at uni (we did the same course) and have been friends ever since. No matter what the past 10 years has thrown at us our friendship has continued to flourish and now she’s going to be one of my bridesmaids at my wedding next year.

I was going to do a post all about cakey stuff but now I’ve started writing about our friendship, maybe that’s the route this post needs to follow.

I was there at the start when Rhianne started to delve into film photography and bought her first Holga camera. I remember sitting across from her in Yo Sushi when she first told me she had set up the blog and never did I imagine it would take her on such a journey, both emotionally and physically. She loves cameras (you should see her house) and gets the same thrill from developing photos as I do from making a cake – you have the skills and ingredients, you just have to hope when it comes out of the oven /photo lab that the results are a success.

I’ve been there as she fought with her Diana Mini to get the photos to work, she’s been there to see my cake skills develop and if anything, it’s reading For The Easily Distracted that got me interested in blogging and made me decide to set up my own wee corner of the baking world.

Anyway, enough of my rambles! Rhianne will probably kill me for this but here are a few photos from over the years. She’s probably also going to have a little cry now, she’s the emotional one of the two of us and calms down my fiery Irishness!

{  Masquerade Ball (2006), Graduation – ready to take on the world! (2008), Random trip to Belfast (2008), One of the first cakes I ever made Rhianne, I cringe now when I look at it! (2010), Bridesmaids at GeeGee’s wedding  (2014)  }

Enjoy Portugal Rhianne, wish I could have a week in the sun!

Guest Post: Katie

Hello everyone! My name is Katie and I run the film photography blog Curating Cuteness. While Rhianne is busy taking photographs of beautiful Portugal as we speak, I have taken it upon myself to share with you a little bit about one particular aspect of film photography that Rhianne and I both love: redscale!

 In simple terms, redscale is the technique of shooting photographic film where the film is exposed from the wrong side, causing a strong color shift to red due to the red-sensitive layer of the film being exposed first. You can choose to make your own redscale film by winding unexposed film upside-down into an empty film canister or you can, like Rhianne and I, purchase pre-loaded redscale film, particularly the Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 35mm, which has a wide tonal range so you can get anything from red to yellow to green to blue (yes, blue!), depending on the speed and aperture your camera is set with.

If you’re using the film in a toy camera with which you don’t really have manual control, the results are often fiery red because of the high shutter speed. In this case, I would recommend you choose subjects with strong outlines or shadows to maximize the redscale effect.

But if you pop the film into an SLR (or the Lomo LC-A+) with which you can control both speed and aperture, you’ll start to see more yellows and greens like these when you let in more light:

And sometimes, when there is magic in the air, your redscale can become blue! Truth be told, I haven’t been able to replicate these results but one thing is for sure, you need to shoot wide open with a slow speed, the rest is up to film magic, I think!

Photographers: Katie and Rhianne
 

Leeds through their eyes: Dianne

I love seeing how others take photos of Leeds with film cameras, so I was incredibly excited to see Dianne's photos of Leeds on her blog and when I asked if she minded me sharing her photos here, she said yes. Huzzah!

Dianne named these photos Dirty Leeds and that in particular made me laugh - I often forget just how industrial and downtrodden areas of Leeds can be, but I think Dianne's caught it perfectly.

You can see more 'Leeds through their eyes' photos here.

Photographer: Dianne Tanner
Camera: Mamiya 135EF

These photos are used with Diannes's permission so please do not reuse them.