For over a year I’ve been promising to add a “recent work” section to my photo galleries, and I’ve finally done it. Of course, this is totally out of kilter with the hip new thing of showing some endless, constantly updating stream where the viewer is left to do the editing, but, as Frank put it, I did it my way.

So, without further ado, do please visit my photography page, and follow the carefully formulated, hand-crafted instructions. Or go straight there.

Here’s an appetizer:

Some poppies overlooking Manarola, Liguria. Olympus E-P3 and kit 14-42 lens.

According to Páll Stefánsson

The combination of good film and medium format is still the best way to capture the Icelandic landscape.

(Via icelandreview.com)

Bugger. I’m doing it wrong.

For quite a while I’ve wanted to try the 500px photo sharing site.  I’m pretty bored with Flickr, although I’ve got some friends over there, because I don’t think it presents photos very well, it’s become very cluttered, and it is very, very focused on the now. I don’t think the date I took a particular photo has much bearing on what I set out to do. 

So I’ve gone back a bit and assembled a specific 12 photo portfolio looking at one specific place, Kerlingarfjöll in Iceland.

All of the photos in this set were taken with “ancient” technology, the Olympus E-1, a camera limited to 5Mpx output. And they were taken before I’d really got a grip on digital, and generally the apertures are way beyond the diffraction limit. So they’re not going to be exhibition prints.

But as an exercise in revisiting the past through a completely new portal, it’s quite interesting.

Seems a little less trivial than Flickr, somehow, and more worth putting some effort into.

Although the whole end-of-year list thing makes me a bit nauseous, I’ve seen so many “Top 10”, “Best of 2011” etc lists of photos that I felt I should do my own.  Actually it wasn’t very easy. I didn’t think I’d taken 10 good photos on 2011. I’m still not sure I have, but anyway, here are 11 I like. And it’s quite a diverse set.

2011 was probably not a classic year for me so far as photography is concerned. Work, and especially commuting, really eats into my time and destroys inspiration.  Nevertheless, according to my Aperture library I took 3915 photos, and that doesn’t include film. In 2011 I completely avoided high latitudes. The highlight was 10 days in the Aeolian Islands in March. I didn’t quite get the shots of Stromboli erupting in winter light that I envisaged, but I got closer than before. I also greatly expanded my library of Ticino mountain streams / rivers, especially Verzasca and its tributaries, and Calanca. I should probably do something with those one day. The rest largely come from various short breaks and holidays.

January: Plaine Morte glacier, Valais, Switzerland. Olympus E-PL2.

February: Rome at night, near the Trevi fountain. Olympus E-PL2.

March: Stromboli eruption, from outlook on the old summit trail. Olympus E-3.

May: Tuscany, the standard shot. Olympus E-PL2.

May: Tuscany, Abbazia di Sant’Antimo. Olympus E-PL2.

August: Ticino, Val d’Osura. Olympus E-3.

August: Sea cave, Marettimo, Aegadian Islands. Olympus E-PL2.

September: Cefalu, Sicily. Olympus E-PL2.

October: Val Calanca, Graubunden. Olympus E-3.

November: Val Verzasca, Ticino. Olympus E-3.

December: Val Bedretto, Ticino. Olympus E-PL2.

Do you detect any kind of personal style in this motley collection ? I don’t!

No time to blog. No time for anything but work and Christmas / family stuff. I’ve written several posts in my head, including an overdue review of Bruce Percy’s Making of 40 Photographs, a catastrophically late of Roberto Buzzini’s fabulous Via Alta della Vallemaggia, and a sort of reply to Mike Johnston’s list of desirable cameras. But they remain in my head.

So, instead, here’s some of this month’s random walk-by Ricoh GR shots, straight from camera JPEGs, no editing whatsoever.

some deep & meaningful street photography

the obligatory morning coffee shot

commuter hell

so near, so far

I’m off for a mercifully short trip to the Untied Kingdom for the first time in ages. So here it is, Merry Christmas.