Nicholas Yantchevsky

Paris at night in the 40s /50s 

closer

modes for modernes

saturday night beneath the plastic palm trees

interesting some of the imagery you can unearth whilst researching a book... this image above is the clifton cinema, just north of perry barr, was photographed by me early one sunday morning, back in 2008. got some good images from it, it's a damn fine building to photograph(even if only from the outside). i always wondered what the interior would be like, so here's some old photographs, stemming from the 70's(colour) and all the way back to 1938...

love the colour scheme of the interior...

rip it up

so there goes my year out of photography, as i crawl slowly back into it.
just twittered with some nice people, and have arranged a photo-shoot for next weekend... i shouted-out for anyone who wanted a photo-session.
will i pick-up the guitar/keyboards?
yes!
but, i know where my strengths lie, and i have ideas for photographs to work on first.
i think last year, i was getting to hung-up on studio work... i enjoyed the stuff i did, but the whole point of studio work is consistency, which can stifle the creative flow a little.
so, more outdoors stuff this time round.

and learn more, i need a learning curve to work with, so that i'm not just turning out photographs with no progression on my behalf.
thanks of course, to all the people who have kept my photo-mojo going in the interim period.

i did a lot of travelling of course around various places, meant i had to take a camera with me, and finding my trusty olympus sp510 helped... i'd stashed it somewhere safe whilst moving house, and promptly forgot exactly where that was(or that i'd put it in a poly bag on a shelf under my nose...) so once i had that back, i had a camera i could take anywhere!

more to come, then...
suppose i'd better finish that book idea i had then.

night and day

i was supposed to be taking a break from photography this year, and i have spent time playing guitar and some cool blues piano riffs... but things never go to plan like you'd want them to, i just couldn't keep away from a camera...(edit - and the day after i write this post, i get the news that someone has seen my work in an exhibition, and wants to pay me to go round taking photos!).
so here's some of the best duotone stuff i've done so far this year.
i think i may get back into taking photos again, now that i've gotten absolutely nowhere with making music... i have enjoyed playing and such, but i know where my strengths are, and music is a big, big influence on me, but i'll never be the next brian setzer or joe pass, so why bother?
ans i don't mean that in a negative way, maybe i am the joe pass of photography, and just never realised it?

park lane special

excellent session recently with olivia - a good friend who is also a photographer + model, so understands why i ask her to stand in strange positions, holding her chin...).
very tamara de lempicka - art deco colouring and film noire lighting, maybe with a little bit of edward hopper drama - and my favourite deco colour scheme of green+black....

and finally, Helen Highwater in a Bridget Bardot pose - again good colours... sometimes the image works in colour, and sometimes the image is better in black+white(as above)... i blame going to see the serge gainsbourg bio film, for inspiring this pose!

forgive me faron young

i caught some info on twitter that there was going to be another four:am project this weekend: this one ties in with the birmingham city of culture bid... so i put my name down and went to bed early the night before.
funnily enough, the taxi driver i called at 3:15 am didn't know exactly where we heading, and i'd luckily printed a map... but i don't think he liked the idea of dropping off some surly looking bloke, wearing a bike jacket and black beanie, carrying a maglite - in the middle of a deserted industrial estate.
the place was open - and staff were around to let me in though, so i decamped to a briefing room, where we were given the health+safety talk: don't put your hand into the machinery... sensible advice, there was a lot of old industrial equipment in there, i even recognised a few old printing presses like the ones i used to use.
we were led to the warehouse itself... at four in the morning, pitch dark outside, with strip lights everywhere... it is a fairly awe inspiring sight to walk into.

just the other week, i caught the first episode of warehouse 13, and of course everyone remembers all the stuff about area 51 (especially if you're an x-files fan)(which i am, but i'm not fussed about twin peaks, so i retain some form of dignity in that respect...), so to suddenly walk into this enviroment, full of old artifacts(in the middle of the night) is quite a thrill... i'm not going to mention raiders of the lost ark, though... i forgot to ask if they had it on one of the shelves.

my own personal favourite, amongst all the artifacts, was this art-deco chip-fryer from a fish+chip shop... how many people does this strike a chord with - who remembers standing in line, staring hungrily at one of these green+cream pantheons to carbs and high fat content?

a blue chopper, very rare... i have seen orange(the original harley davidson colour scheme), yellow(with fluorescent logo), silver(a special space version), purple or red(quite common), and my own black chopper(with the holographic logo - a special star wars edition, how geeky is that!)... but a blue one, i have never seen.
i did recognise a lot of stuff from the old science museum(newhall street site), as i used to hang out there a lot back in the mid-90's... it was a great building, and was fascinating to just wander about in.

i have to admit, i did comically emit a quiet, little fuck yeah, when i took this one, on a long exposure.... which got me a strange look off someone(hell, i was enjoying myself!).
at one point, the doors started sliding down, and i hurried back inside, fearfull of being locked-out... and i shot some video(which is to be worked on in time).
a good event though - i enjoyed stretching myself, searching out photographic opportunities, although i did see one image which just blew me away, an image taken inside the animal skeleton... why didn't i think of that!

these meetups are the uber-flickr meet though... you get to wander about in all sorts of places, that you shouldn't be in... i was never going to be any good at urbex, as i'm too aware of trespass laws, having appeared in court over it, many, many years ago, so this is a legal way of getting out and taking shots that are off the beaten track.

thanks to karen strunks again, for organising this... and thanks to darren for the lift home(most appreciated!).
disclaimer: this was of course written on about 3 hours sleep from the night before...

the young idealists

after a period of inactivity, caused by all that other stuff that must be done outside of staring down a lens, there will be a flurried period of activity, as is my want...
first up i am attending the four am project event, to take some photos of birmingham museum artifacts in the dark... should be interesting.
i had a recent troll attack on a post, from someone professing to know something about photography, so this would be a good opportunity for whoever it was to get out from behind his monitor, and show me how to really take photos, why not pop along?
m'kay?

after recovering from that, i'm off to the seaside for the day sometime next week, to take photographs of a decaying seaside town.
and we've been busy discussing foreign places worth visiting, paris and madrid were mentioned... plus another trip home to scotland for a few days of fresh air and wide open space...
here's an image i captured from the last 4am project i went on(actually it was the first event to be held in birmingham, although i have missed a few since then)


and tonight i've got to finish off an article for dirty bristow, on post-punk and it's antecedents(more news of this when it happens).
tonight of course, i had the pleasure of reading about what a dirty bristow actually is...

why the lloyd cole video... well, i've been on a lloyd cole trip for the last week or so, and he is one of the world's most under-rated songwriters.

mystery train

BIRMINGHAMRETRO by PHOTOGRAPHY by Gordon Eightball | BOOK INFO

fishnet stockings

hopefully one of the last images from the sunday afternoon session at coventry airport, in what seems like a very long time ago...
we were just about to move house, and go abroad for a couple of weeks, i had a month off work... it was all out of the usual routine.
i originally went along to take photos of the great old aircraft, and of course, this nice couple turned-up in their hotrod... leading me to ask politely if they minded me shooting the bejeezus out of it(camera-wise).

all a bit end of one era, start of a new one for me, as things will be moving apace in the next few weeks... the much-planned website will be up and running over the xmas period, as that's a usefull downtime - and will be a good showcase for my work(although i am just a photographer not a psychic or a business-manager, so who knows what the next step will be!), the book should be out and for sale on the website.
i was supposed to be doing a noir portrait session this afternoon, but with people having bad flu viruses and lots of other stuff going on(ok, i needed a haircut!), it's been postponed until the model and my organisation can get together.

the podcast is stalled at the moment, due to the planned studio space and equipment still not up-and-running following the house move(we take our time here...), but it will be a monthly thing once i get it going, so keep 'em peeled.
i'm planning for it to be a mix of rockabilly and obscure 80's stuff.
i want to do a video for my friend's song, which came out in the summer... it got sidetracked by me going away and then having no internet for a month. i'm not going to let a little thing like not having a video-camera stop me from doing that!
...and if you are interested, i'm reading route 19 revisited by marcus gray, a damn fine book about london calling and all that influenced it...
ok - bring on 2010.

of course, the other major news, is that i will not be using this site much longer, owing to it's habit of cropping my photos to suit itself(see images above)...
from this post on, i will be blogging the usual gubbins from here on tumblr.
that site has a much less cluttered aspect to it's layout, and is photography friendly...

i walk the line

the first birmingham photowalk was probably a resounding success, then...
i spent saturday morning in a mood of trepidation, sure... nearly 30 people had signed-up but a few had already dropped out, citing other appointments that would drag them away... which in itself is fair enough, as that's what happens.
so i dawdled around in a record shop beforehand(although to be honest, it felt more like a funeral home... neil young has that effect on me, i suppose), before heading up to the arranged meeting point.
what brought me here to begin with... well somewhere, back in the distant past i remember reading about scott kelby's great worldwide photowalk, where photographers all over the world would just get out and walk a pre-arranged route together(like a parallel flickr meet), so i mentioned it on birmingham flickrmeet and someone suggested i set it all up and get it up and running(think globally - act locally).
so weeks later, i've got maps, and contacts and i'm stood around the iron man on new street, waiting for no one to attend or to be arrested for organising an illegal gathering...
thankfully - one by one, people emerge out of the crowd and identify themselves as being here for the walk... it's slightly intimidating to see just HOW MANY have turned-up from quite far away - i can't take any credit for this though, as the walk was seeded through various forums related to digital photography and photoshop(both of which i use all the time, but never go on forums about).
there's some older people with cameras(i talk to one old boy who spoke about shooting photographs in the city back in the 60's... which was very interesting to hear about), as well as a few people who'd brought their sons along to take photos (excellent idea!).

regulars from the flickrmeets arrive to bolster numbers, and i hand out maps, before heading off.

being a flickrmeet veteran i guess just how long it will take us to walk the relatively short distance along colmore row, knowing how distractions will appear(i swear i didn't organise the group on stilts!), then a slight pause at snowhill to take in the new buildings and after a quick regroup at masshouse(where i crack a joke about an approaching policewoman, glancing at us and the skateboarders and not knowing which social menace to arrest first...), it's down bull street(which is very busy) and through a tight little alley into a small urban park that leads onto moor street (i'd arranged this, as a contrast to dale end).
we hung around on moor street, regrouped and cross moor street to catch the interesting building on fazeley street.

i shoot a few frames off, and sneak away to the nearby park/graveyard to catch an image of the bullring, but i notice there are some lushes in the bushes, so i make a hasty exit back onto the route.
park street was a little uninspiring i have to admit, too much traffic and narrow paths to really get anything(although i did get the porno cinema with a billboard advertising a family day out), and then through the underpass onto digbeth...

i shoot a few images of the bullring building (i was only being polite here... i deleted them afterwards...that's for being so precious about your ugly building...), and then a quick stop-off near the markets(where one photographer gets shoo-ed awayby a stall holder), and we congregate by the tiny lifts to ascend to the top floor(some hardy people used the stairs, but i'd done that at the previous flickrmeet, and ended-up ascending 180 steep little bastards!!!).

major revelation once we reach the roof, it's wide open and a relief from the throng down below (possibly my favourite moment!), and people gladly get in loads of images of the 360 degree views that we get...
a couple of bored security guards pass thru but spy the camera gear and leave us alone.
nice way to end the route, and i've got about 4 shots left on my memory card.

dirty old town

the first outing for the new lens, to a specific place - the april flickrmeet, and i'm impressed with the results and the way the lens handled(nowhere near as unwieldy as i thought it would be).



spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around beneath spaghetti junction(if that is at all possible) and along the adjacent canals(i like old canals and the stuff that they visually entail), and after seeing the gasometers, had "i saw my love by the gaswork lights" stuck in my head awhile...



i really pushed the envelope as far as the images were concerned, and it was actually quite relaxing having to work stuff out - unlike the manic frenzy that can result from using the olympus.
it was a damn good day weatherwise too - although i had hoped for some dramatic clouds(i had to really tweak the images to get some semblance of drama - see above)



and i got to go overboard with post-processing techniques i'd just learned, such as duotone/lith/HDR... regretably, i didn't take a panoramic image - but i think with the wide-angle being used so extensively, it would be over-egging the pudding...



but i got a whole bunch of favourite images on the walk.
after traversing the canal and some bleak walkways under the flyovers, we came across a yard full of bridge scaffolding which was like an elephant's graveyard.



people perked-up, and i for one started all over again... excellent location and kudos to those who organised it all... i've seen some pretty damn good shots by other people from the day too.

ah - it all ended too soon though, i'd just got into chatting to new faces in the post-pubmeet and it was time to get a lift home.
i've spent most of last week in photoshop, working on the good stuff and deleting the chaff, whilst getting onto my new-wave sounds mojo: currently i'm listening to edge of the seventies - which is like listening to a late 70's kid jensen show on the evening radio... minus the dj chatter of course.



still to come - landscape images of the city taken from high up(a high rise building block and a carpark), a trip to a construction site in the city(with some half finished buildings), a run down churchyard in handsworth, some macro work, and... i've offered up my portrait services to a local paranormal group(should be usefull for getting some dramatic portrait shots!!!)