25 August 2013

Today has been a day of trying out my 'new' Pentax ME Super.  Details of this camera can be seen at my Old Camera Blog.  When I was first interested in photography (in the early 1970s) I really wanted a Pentax Spotmatic but I could not afford one.  Actually, as I was a single man on a good wage, I think I could have afforded one if I had wanted to badly enough but I don't come from a family that squanders money. At that time I bought myself a Soviet Zenit E. That camera cost me £45.00 (indelibly engraved on my memory because of the vast cost!) which was about two weeks' wages.  the Spotmatic was perhaps three times that amount.  I was quite happy with the Zenit - I am told now that the Helios-44 lens that came with the camera was as good as anything Pentax made - but always kept that secret longing for a Spotmatic.

This Pentax ME Super is not a Spotmatic - it is much too new for that - but I can't help feeling a bit chuffed to finally have a Pentax.  The camera is a nice, light and compact camera to carry and to use.  the lens I am using at the moment is a 28mm pseudo-macro lens by Sirius.  I have been photographing hawkers (small dragonflies, not itinerant salesmen!) and other attractive insects I found at Kirkby Gravel Pits nature reserve near Woodhall Spa.  This is somewhere we go to fairly regularly as Bestbeloved is doing a long-term survey for the BTO.

Macros aside, there is not a lot iof interest in the reserve, photographically, and I frequently spend the time on the reserve reading.  The survey only takes Bestbeloved an hour or so and we then go on somewhere more generally interesting.  As this includes lunch and occasionally dinner, it makes for a good day out.

This evening, I am going to look into setting up a photographic web site.  I have had one before but it was one of those sites where you pick a template and end up with a site that does not quite work.  I want to have more control than that and I have no use for any bells and whistles.

What do I want from the site?  First and foremost I want to display my best pictures.  I am not looking to sell from the web site - that does not seem to work very well - but getting commissions on the strength of my displayed work is a possibility I would like  to take advantage of.

I would also like to be able to preserve the occasional exhibition I manage to have.  over the last few years I have had one solo exhibition each year and pictures in two or three joint exhibitions.  I am a member of the Lincolnshire Artists Society which exists to present exhibitions and has a summer and Christmas exhibition most years.