A weekend in Brighton on LomoKev's Hot Shots course

So I'm back from my photography course and I've had a chance to catch up on the housework, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about the weekend and show you some of the pictures. On Saturday we shot exclusively on film using cameras that were almost entirely automatic. Switching up my rather large DSLR for a compact film camera was both liberating and disconcerting.

The first big difference is that you can get a lot closer to the action with a compact camera without people noticing you, but of course the flip side is people don't take you seriously, which can be a little bruising for the ego! In the morning we explored the sea front with a list of things to photograph, the object being to get us to think creatively and to some degree to think a little more about the decisive moment to take a picture (it is way to easy to take six pictures on digital, when one would do!)  The results were very mixed. The Lomo camera I used in the morning didn't expose all the images and over and under exposed others (beyond my control as it was automatic!) but others created an interesting result which won't be to everyone's taste, but has a certain artistic appeal...

At lunchtime we stopped for a fried breakfast and in the afternoon we switched to the Muji ii a 1990s compact camera. I liked this camera less and with a fried breakfast slowly digesting inside me, my photography stalled and I found myself shooting random objects to try and use up my film before the deadline. It was however very noticeable that film gives a distinct look to images and is more flattering on skin tones...

On Sunday we had an hour or so to wander Brighton with our DSLRs. It was freezing and down by the pier where I went, the wind was whipping in off the sea and cutting right to the bone - not the weather I like shooting in, but I got a couple of shots I liked before it was time for lunch and a debrief...

As I often find with these kind of events, it was the intangable stuff that was the greatest value. As part of a presentation, we were shown the work of a photographer who assembles beautiful mosaics of similar images (something I now plan to do with Theo's abstract toddler paintings) and there were enlightening insights into the work of the photographer who ran the course, hearing how he achieved images and about his failures too. It's also got Brighton out of my system for a while, I have rushed through the town so many times in the last few years and I always wanted to stop, amble a bit and take pictures, well I ambled a lot over the weekend and my aching legs bore the evidence, so I'm quite happy to be back home, away from the holidaymakers and close to the countryside...

PS - Neville's Island in Chichester on Friday was brilliant! It was performed in the "temporary" theatre (the main one is being refurbished) with an incredible set which involved a river round the stage and water pouring in from the ceiling. That incredible physicalness is just never repeated on screen.