Over on the face-book-face I joined a group called Lo-Fi Photography Newcastle. I’m not entirely in agreement with the name as the main interest there is film photography, albeit film photography with smashed-up plastic lenses and light leaks. But it’s all good.

For a while I was a lurker, liking* stuff with great enthusiasm but no creative contributions to speak of. Recently, Chris Trew, the group founder, resurrected the group meeting and with mention of a “photowalk” rekindled my desire to capture and render visual moments in unusual ways. On 11/11/12 I joined three very nice people on a cold but interesting walk, taking photographs with old and pretendy-old cameras around Whitley Bay. Now, I had decided to use my dad’s old (recently restored) Comet S 127 camera, made by bencini in Milan in 1950.

Restoring the Comet S 127 film camera

Again, this is not a piece of low-fidelity equipment, however I had the hope that the expired (1993) Kodacolor 127 film would add a bit of pseudo-randomness to the image capture. I was also very curious to see what kind of images the manual focus (3ft to ∞) lens would produce. Procuring the film was an adventure in itself; a lesson in how not to go about buying expired film in archaic formats, perhaps a subject for another post.

Following an incident-free loading of the film into the camera, I began winding on until the various symbols I’d read about on the Web began to appear in the viewing windows on the back. There are two view ports on the back of a Comet S; what could it mean? My main question was, should the frame number be read in the left or right window? I chose the right and wound on.

Walking around the seaside I found that everyone else was enthusiastic about taking snaps of this and that… and that over there, while I was looking but feeling no urge to photograph. I was aware that this wasn’t my phone’s camera with capacity for 10,000 images and rather enjoyed remembering this slightly modified feeling from the old days, but that wasn’t the real reason for my reserve. When I first began taking (real) lo-fi images with my siPix pocket camera back in 2002 I would always feel a connection between my self and something worth capturing; nine times out of ten this would prove reliable. At the moment I got “the feeling”, I would take the picture, without using any kind of viewfinder. It was just a feeling I knew. That feeling wasn’t happening on the photo walk. Eventually I thought my companions were beginning to notice I wasn’t clicking away, so I started clicking away. Self-betrayal! Don’t do it! Here, have a couple of double-exposures for a laugh.

The numbers on Kodakcolor Gold 127 film run like this: 1 1 | 2 2 | 3 3 | 4 4 | 5 5 | 6 6 | 7 7 | 8 8 | HA HA YOU ONLY TOOK EIGHT PHOTOS – - – - – - In fact one does not choose a window (as you knew all along) and run through the numbers incrementally. No. With a Comet S, one takes one’s first image when the number 1 is in the left window, then proceeds to wind the film on until that 1 is in the right window with another 1 in the left window, at which point one records image number two. To take image number three, one winds the film until the left 1 is in the right window and the number 2 can be seen in the left window. Image four is indicated by 2 in the right window and 2 in the left and so on and so forth and it’s quite clever and I’ve only just realised that while writing this text and lo, it was ever thus. This way, it is possible to record sixteen images — some of which should be of quite high quality, if one remains steadfast and true — as opposed to eight of low quality. Not low fidelity. Low quality. Eight low quality, fake photographs by a fading shadow of a man. Of course, after the film had laughed at me I began to see things worthy of capture. Good to know the feeling still exists. I switched to the trusty backup of using my phone to shoot digital pictures through the right eyepiece of a pair of Chinon 8 x 30 binoculars.

host Rider – welded sculpture outside a B&B

With an alarming sense of inevitability, I granted facebook access to a third-party application called How Hipster Are You? Obvs I did, I’ve been taking shit pictures since before you were born. With satisfying hilarity I scored 76% Hipster! “TOTALLY a Hipster!” One person commented that they knew this already, another that this was impressive; something in my mind clicked as I felt a shift in perspective. I wrote the following comment:

As the book says, Dads are the Original Hipsters. I learned something rather important while out on the photowalk in Whitley Bay ten days ago (and in the time subsequently); gained some perspective, one might say. Two of the group were, I think, people who probably get referred to as “Hipsters” – perhaps by folks my age who remember cassette tapes and film “the first time round” and feel a bit embittered that they didn’t have access to the kind of mass-publishing network the young’ns have now – but when you look at their approach to creativity, it’s fondness for older technologies, it’s reluctance to be part of the mainstream yet somehow being part of an externally imposed movement, making new work from current ideas mixed with more fluid media of the past… we really have a lot in common. Being quite like the bedroom artists of the late 80s and early 90s, but with visibility, they have a very valid and potent aesthetic and I think that the cry of “hipster, please!” comes mainly from past-it has-beens wishing they’d had the Web and an iPhone when they were 20 years old, or young, passive consumers of mainstream media who’ve had all the creative will sucked† out of them by never really having to do anything for their daily dose of media. I may have seen the techniques before but I’m only just starting to see what this new generation can produce with them and it’s very exciting. Plus, as an “Original Hipster” it is jarring to realise that I’m old enough to be the father of either of those two, but if I had kids like that I’d be very proud indeed.

Unwieldy, repeating myself and labouring the point a bit, but that’s essentially how I feel.

It’s now ten years since I made my siPix cam scrapbook Web site and in honour of this and by way of contributing something new old-stock to the Lo-Fi Photography Group, I’ve decided to upload it to hd41117.com for your delectation. Dear reader. Look, I have your nose! There, I’ve put it back. The logo on the bottom left of the site was once a link back to trakta.com, my main Web presence back when I was still performing audio and visual Electronica. Back in the day. Before you.

siPix cam scrapbook: http://hd41117.com/sipix/

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If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed one of my favourite places to chill out is the Newcastle Clayton Street East branch of Caffè Nero. The coffee is nice there — though I like a latté, so perhaps I should say the coffee-flavoured warm milk is nice, though not always, as it can taste like a recently resurfaced road (this is barista specific so it is possible to avoid by walking straight back out the door on spying an offender) — but the main reason I return so often is the café’s situation in one of the few Georgian buildings in the town centre where the internal structure remains largely intact. There is abundant light, being as it is a corner building with multiple sash windows (original) reaching from a foot above the floor to ceiling height along two external walls, while comfy chairs litter the upper level. Music is compulsory and usually consists of Bossa Nova, bad jazz or Classical. The latter’s apparent three-plus generations of mp3 encoding makes for some particularly uncomfortable listening.

Like just about every other so-called “gourmet” coffee house, Caffè Nero has a loyalty card scheme. Such commercial sleight of hand would normally deter me from dealing with a company, being as it is IMHO deceptive and dishonest. Sticking with an establishment should be a matter of customer choice, inspired by good service and a high quality product at a competitive price, not by the promise of something for nothing after having first spent money on nine similar items. On the assumption companies do not give away anything for free, we could say that while the pretence here is one of being rewarded for continued custom, we can be reasonably certain the cost of the tenth coffee has been accounted for as a distributed loss across the prior nine coffees purchased. If that were the case, the customer would gain nothing in return for their loyalty. Let’s see how much a coffee would cost if the loyalty scheme was not in place.

Taking as an example the ordinary coffee-flavoured warm milk (these days I drink decaffeinated coffee, which is 10p extra):

1 latté = £2.55

The cost of the 10th latté distributed across the previous 9 is

£2.55 / 9 = £0.28 per latté

So the retail price without the loyalty scheme would be

£2.55 – £0.28 = £2.27

This is a very simplistic way of looking at it as in practice such dents in potential profit can be offset in a variety of ways, however it serves to illustrate the subterfuge. They get a regular customer, regular customer gets coffee that’s still too expensive.

So what to do? Well, my thoughts are I could either accept that I am essentially paying £2.27 for every latté I drink at Caffè Nero, which would be a lot easier if certain members of their staff didn’t sneer and look put out when they see you’re getting “a free one”, or I can buy coffee at an independent coffee shop where a latté costs less than £2.27, as I frequently do at the excellent Settle Down where the price is £1.90. Yes, look at me! I still have free will!

A third option, which I began thinking about after wondering why many Nero employees appear a bit down, grumpy or unable to engage in polite conversation of the type more easily found in independent cafés, is to accept that I was always willing to pay an extortionate amount for a drink and should therefore deposit the full price of the 10th latté into the tips cup, thus helping Caffè Nero redistribute some of their wealth to their overworked and underpaid baristas. If you’re a regular customer there, I strongly suggest you consider doing the same.

And if you double-stamp my card…

Being a lover of the Death Metal — that’s, a-lover of the Death Metal — it took a flamed board in red and black to make me buy one, but buy one I did. I present unto thee the Diavolino, from Evil Mad Scientist Labs. With this diminutive yet diabolical development board I shall attempt to ascertain if there is an advantage to using an Arduino-based platform for prototyping, or if it is just more advantageous (even sensible) to always design and build from scratch. Don’t start, okay? I want the practical experience. And – well it’s got flames on.

Who knows, I might become a complete convert. Already my little head is all a-swim with plans for development boards of my own design… V shaped control of your Hair Metal music making project, Flyingvino! Put your Gaggia on Twitter with the Cappuccino (ehhhh it’s nearly over). And for all(?) your minimalist music needs I present… the Brianino. That one’s got an aeroplane on it.

*sniff*