2024 Archive - Page 4 of 4

Madeira 2024 #3 | On film: A curtain and learning exposure

maipenquynh on 15. August 2024

(Click on the image to see it as a whole)

This picture tells two stories:

One story is reminiscent of the sickbed we had set up. We had managed to get something gastrointestinal-related and were therefore confined to bed for a few days. We had no strength for more. Drinking and broth soup was everything that was feasible.

The other story, and this is my personal beautiful story, is having a lot of time. Between periods of tiredness and slumber, I felt like getting involved in the subject of exposure. At that point, I had already decided for some time - several weeks, maybe months - to dive into the topic exposure, or rather how I measure it and set it "the right way". While my first experience was the Sunny 16 rule , I decided to move away from the rule of thumb and towards the light meter. At the very beginning I was lost; honestly speaking, I have never really bothered with metering methods. And that day, lying in bed, I thought I'd use the time to try out the zone system. I had read about it several times but never understood it. YouTube was the medium of choice and after two or three videos I roughly understood the concept.

And the curtain? In my memory, this is the first picture where I had understood the zone system. My personal achievement...

… stop stop!

I have to correct myself. After comparing various time stamps (video history, dates of the images), this image of the curtain was not the first picture where I had understood and applied the zone system. That was a few days earlier and a few pictures before that.

The truth: I learnt to understand the zone system back in my healthy days, just before the gastrointestinal fuss came over me. During the sick days, I really only napped and rested. Even if my memory was playing tricks on me, one thing was good and really happened: The curtain picture was the first picture after being ill that I took using the zone system.

One other thing I am very sure about beside all these half-true memories: I learnt and understood the zone system in this very room, with these curtains. This is true.

Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: Kodak Gold 200
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Madeira 2024 #2 | On film: São Lourenço

maipenquynh on 13. August 2024

(Click on the image to see it as a whole)

São Lourenço was the first adventure we embarked on. São Lourenço is one of THE hikes in Madeira that has been recommended over and over again. In contrast to Japan, I personally did very rudimentary preparations only for my holiday in Madeira. I went along without any argument, after all I had no counter-suggestion.

I remember that there was a fee at the "entrance" which benefited the nature conservation. As we are in the 21st century, obviously you could ONLY pay this fee online. The best thing about it: my internet was on E all the time, no 3G or LTE at all. That's how internet works. At some point we managed it - the solution was a classic one: walk a few metres further on and the internet connection was better again.

The hike was a path over rough and rough and not as straight forward as you might think when you see the pictures of the terrain. You walk along winding paths that you can't guess from the pictures. The landscape was quite barren, yet very green. A strange contradiction, isn't it? We searched in vain for shade here. Sometimes we walked away from the path and up to one of the peaks. The cliffs were amazing! I lay down on my stomach to look down. I didn't take any photos even though the view was amazing. The fear of accidentally dropping the camera was too great.

The pictures were taken on the way back (same as the way there). I captured the view back to the end of the island and the summit that we had reached and climbed shortly before as I rested on a large stone. The hike had made me very tired. What I found particularly amusing about this view was this "hole" through which you can see through to the other side of the sea.

Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: Kodak Gold 200
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Madeira 2024 #1 | Intro: On the road in Madeira and Lisbon

maipenquynh on 12. August 2024

Even though this is supposed to be about Madeira and Lisbon, I'll start somewhere completely different: Japan.

I've started browsing through my photos from my trip to Japan in autumn 2023 to prepare them for posting on the blog. I don't know where and how I want to start. In which order I want to show which picture and what I want to say about it. I haven't expected that getting my travel experiences ready would make me facing these questions and challenges. But one thing was clear to me: my blog and my analogue photos belong together ❤️ - so I started looking for a solution.

The solution was to browse through my photos from my vacation to Madeira and Lisbon in spring 2024 to try the same thing for this travel. And that was easier to do, not least because I took far fewer photos: just one film and hardly any digital photos. Nevertheless, I was initially faced with the question of how I wanted to structure it. As I didn't feel like writing a (chronological) travelogue.

In the end, I created several blocks based on my photos that I want to show on the blog. There will be ten posts focusing on my analogue photos and a final post with my impressions of Madeira and Lisbon. The posts will be published at intervals of one to a few days.

Route and orientation in time

Our route on Madeira for ariund 10 days was:
Airport Madeira > accomodation in Camacha with day trips to Sao Lourenco and Funchal > accomadation in Calheta > accomodation in Porto Moniz with day trip to Fanal (Laurissilva Forest) > Airport Madeira. From there, we traveled to Lisbon for a few more days.

Therefore, the focus of the trip was Madeira. There's a map at the end of this post because I always find it very helpful to actually see places geographically.

The photos are not posted chronologically and I will jump back and forth. For chronological orientation: my gastro-intestinal issue started at some point in Calheta and only really went away in Porto Moniz. I say that because it will keep coming up in the texts but in fact it was one block of illness pretty much in the middle of our trip.

Bringing the intro to an end now! I hope you will enjoy the photos and the memories as much as I did.