A Weekend Camping with Kodak Portra 400
My cousin Hugh standing on Cleeve Hill with a panoramic view of Cheltenham in the background. 1/2000s 70mm F4.0 with polariser.
Being small, lightweight, and sentimental I tend to use my grandad’s Kodak Retina iiiS for fun days and trips out. However, upon loading a roll of Kodak Portra 400 up for a weekend camping with my cousin, I was sad to discover that the shutter has malfunctioned and no longer works. All that money spent on it last year, only for it to break again in a different way; frustrating. Instead, I managed to rewind that roll into its canister and load it into my Nikon F100. I took with it my go-to travel lens trio of the 35mm F1.4, 58mm F1.4 and 70-200 F4.
Cleeve Hill is the highest point in the Cotswolds, which made it an unusual place for a golf course. 1/1250s 85mm F4.0 with polariser.
A few fluffier walkers were present on the hill. 1/2000s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.
Looking out across to Cheltenham Racecourse. 1/1250s 75mm F4.0 with polariser.
This camping trip came off the back of a week away on the road for work and it gave me a chance to spend a bit more time in the Cotswolds, an area I have often driven past and through but not much explored. I met my cousin Hugh at Cleeve Hill for a walk around its highest point. It’s certainly no mountain, only clocking in at 330m tall but the surrounding views are still very impressive, with a great vantage point out over the city of Cheltenham. Bizarrely there’s also a golf course up here, and I was left wondering how a normal game is possible when it is so windy.
Setting up camp at Tobacconist Farm in Minchinhampton. 1/320s 58mm F5.6 with polariser.
Hugh’s sleeping arrangements inside the Discovery. We nicknamed it the Dorchester for it’s plusher accommodation in comparison to my tent. 1/320s 35mm F2.8 with polariser.
No camping trip is complete without at least one BBQ. 1/1250s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.
Our campsite was at the Tobacconist Farm at Minchinhampton and it’s definitely one I can recommend, as it’s in a great location with good facilities. My Peugeot 205 is much too small for sleeping in, but Hugh’s Land Rover Discovery is pretty much perfect for it, and we jokingly nicknamed it ‘The Dorchester’ in comparison to my sleeping arrangements in the tent. Minchinhampton itself it a pretty little town that has all the beautiful stone buildings you would expect in the Cotswolds. Though the streets were so narrow we really had to tip our hats to the local bus drivers for navigating them. The church is also very striking with its unusual coronet tower, which I’d never seen the likes of before. I perhaps took too many photos of that.
The pretty, stony streets of Minchinhampton. 1/1600s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.
The sunlight just caught this attractive garage door in just the right way. 1/1000s 58mm F2.8 with polariser.
All Saints Church has a very rare and distinctive coronet spire. 1/2500s 58mm F1.6 with polariser.
Getting carried away I perhaps took too many photos of it… 1/4000s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.
The day after it was actually back to work with a trip to the Abingdon CARnival, I was shooting a feature on a modified Ford Focus for Fast Ford magazine. Luckily Hugh is also a big car enthusiast, so he was more than happy to come along and watch the proceedings and there were lots of interesting sprint cars to mull over. The day was bakingly hot however and being an old airfield there wasn’t an inch of shade to shelter in. It’s a good job we travelled there and back in the air-conditioned Discovery; we would have cooked alive in the 205.
Abingdon CARnival had an eclectic mix of modified cars for sprint racing. 1/6400s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.
Cars line up for their next turn on track. 1/6400s 58mm F1.4 with polariser.
Hugh set off back home early next morning, but my trip wasn’t quite yet finished as I made a detour to Stonehenge. At the time they had an exhibit on Japanese stone circles, and I really wanted to see that as well as revisit the stones themselves. Unlike last time however there were no Great Bustards nor blue skies, but the weather did hold out well enough for me to not get wet. The exhibition was small but interesting, especially as I learned that William Gowland, the man in charge of the major restoration work at Stonehenge in 1901, had spent many years in Japan and applied what he learned from his Japanese colleagues when excavating around the stones.
The exhibition at Stonehenge on Japanese stone circles was small but interesting. On display were artifacts that date to a similar time to the building of Stonehenge. 1/40s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.
These Jomon flame pots have incredible amounts of detail for something that is five thousand years old. It’s also remarkable that we have so many well preserved ones to this day. 1/40s 35mm F1.4 with polariser.
Despite it being disappointing not to have been able to take my beloved Kodak Retina iiiS, I was really happy with the photos produced over the weekend and it helped that I could take advantage of three lenses instead of just one. I was also glad to see the roll of film hadn’t been damaged when it had been transferred from one camera to another. Unfortunately, the Retina is still languishing broken, but I do intend to get it fixed soon. I would really like to use it again.
My walk to the stones themselves was blocked by a sizeable herd of cattle. They seemed rather non-plussed by all the visitors. 1/640s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.
My second visit to Stonehenge. 1/640s 105mm F4.0 with polariser.
The A303 is the road that runs alongside the site and has become an increasing source of controversy as the road has gotten busier and busier over the years. 1/320s 200mm F4.0 with polariser.
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