Beginnings....

 I got my first exposure to photography back in the 1970's with the family camera, a Kodak Instamatic. It was 126 format and used flash cubes that sported 4 flash bulbs and rotated to the next bulb after you used one and advanced the film to the next frame. It was all mechanical, not an ounce of electronics and was good for holiday snaps in sunny weather.  Fast forward to the early 1980's and my brother bought a Pentax ME Super with a 50mm lens. He too had got the photography bug and still enjoys it to this day with his digital camera. This was my first encounter with 35mm film and I was fortunate enough to be allowed to borrow a friends Pentax  for a holiday in Wales with my family. I enjoyed it, but finances at that time were scarce and being able to buy my own camera was still a long way from reality.

 That was kind of how it stayed for many years. Occasionally I had cheap point and shoot film cameras that didn't exactly allow me to produce masterpieces, but still captured memories. Finally in 2007 I bought a Fuji Fine pix A700 compact digital camera, not the greatest resolution ever seen by any means, but still gave me a chance to flex the creativity I had lurking in the background. I really enjoyed using my little Fuji, I used it to to document my journeys with friends on my Motorcycle and capture memories of my Kids and Grandchildren as they grew up. Whilst not the most technically advanced nor able to capture super high resolution images, it was enough for me at that time and I still have it today.

 Life changed in 2013, I suffered my first stroke and had to park my beloved Motorcycle. It took awhile to recover, especially when I had another shortly before my required three years was due as I really wanted to ride my bike again. Not being able to ride made me very depressed. I had ridden since I was 17 and enjoyed thousands of miles on the bikes I owned over the years, but Doctors orders were I needed to find a new hobby.

 I really was at a loose end until my wife and my eldest daughter encouraged me to try to get more into photography. They knew I enjoyed it and it would give me something to help my recovery. In early 2017 after a few long chat's with close friends, I took the plunge and bought a Pentax SP1000 and a Helios 44m-4 58mm f2 lens off ebay for £20. A local discount store was selling Agfa Vista 200 at a price even my dog could afford and with encouragement from my friend Owen, we headed to the  park

 Not all stories have a happy ending, it turned out that my cheap camera and lens were cheap for a reason. The lens was old, the grease had dried and the camera needed new seals. Undaunted I chanced my arm on ebay again and this time bought a Pentax SP500 and another Helios 44m-4 for roughly the same as I paid for the SP1000 and scored a decent camera and lens. Owen also kindly sold me a Tamron 80-210mm Adaptall 2 lens and my photography journey had begun again in earnest. 

More about that later, but here are a few images from my Pentax camera's. I enjoy using them as they are as basic as you need when starting out in film photography. The SP500 has a rudimentary match needle selenium light meter that is pretty accurate to give me enough scope for getting the most of the available light. The meter on the SP1000 doesn't work, but it is still a good sunny 16's camera and I have a vintage Gossens TriSix light meter for times when I really want to sharpen my basic skills.

My First Photo - Pentax SP1000

Husky In The Fountain!

Pentax SP1000 and SP500

Barges at Wigan Pier

The Orwell at Wigan Pier