I have an upcoming trip to Berlin for my birthday in March. Really looking forward to it. Photos will follow. I’m going to take; Olympus Trip for endless shooting, Zenit TTL for some nice vintage shots and the Canon A-1 because film SLRs are best.
Things I like - Quoddy Moccasins.
I’ve finally bought myself a pair of Quoddy Moccasins from Oi Polloi Manchester, a shop which is like my second home the amount of time I spend in there.
The shoes are still hand-sewn in Maine, USA and the quality seems to be unbeatable. These skills have been passed down generation to generation and the feeling of the history you get from wearing these shoes is incredible. The video is filmed in the Quoddy workshop.
From Quoddy themselves; “Moccasins represent a specific approach to shoemaking; a footwear philosophy and a construction technique. Quite simply, Quoddy’s method of moccasin construction creates a shoe that functions as a glove for your foot. It surrounds your foot in supple leather, and allows your foot muscles, bones, and tendons to support you naturally as they were intended to do, while offering protection, cushioning, and style.
A Quoddy shoe adapts to you and your foot rather than forcing you to accommodate it. It has a natural feel; you are connected to your walking surface, connected to the earth. Even the soles are designed to promote this; they are stitched to the shoe bottom rather than glued so that they maintain flexibility and can be infinitely replaced.”
This is how I would like to live my life. I will use my time.
(Source: theohpioneer)
Places i like - Prague.
This is a selection of photos from Prague taken with my Olympus Trip 35. Some stunning colours even if I did have the wrong aperture setting for them all (it has an auto function, how I managed to not find it I’ll never know.) Prague is a stunning city, as long as you avoid the stag/hen parties in the city centre at night it’s very relaxed and very friendly. We spent hours and hours across 8 days exploring the city and walked around pretty much every district and it is all beautiful. Even the communist era blocks of flats and industrial areas now have an eerie charm. This is definitely one of my favourite European cities so far, though I’ll update this as I travel more I’m sure. The beer is good, the locals are friendly and the architecture is difficult to beat. Prague is definitely a place I like.
Analogue photography is certainly riding a wave of of popularity again and I am completely onboard. I find you get much more satisfaction from using a film camera, that anticipation of whether the photos will work out and be worth the money you’ve just spent getting them developed (if like me you are completely winging it and have no idea how to actually use a film camera) and for me just the look and feel of an analogue camera is so much better. I love the idea that the camera I’m using may have catalogued family memories for years and may have given somebody else years of satisfying photos before me.
This is one of the cameras I’m using at the moment, an Olympus Trip 35. I bought this camera from ebay for just £6 to accompany me on a trip to Prague and I don’t think I’ll ever look back. There will definitely be other cameras that I’ll use but after developing my first roll of film I’m totally in love with it.
As a testament to the quality of this camera this is an advertisement from the 70s featuring the legendary David Bailey (and a cheeky appearance of Phil Daniels as well.)
Some of my photos will follow in my post of my trip to Prague.
