A few weeks ago, I spent a long weekend back in the UK. I'd been invited by Timothy Everest at Grey Flannel to attend the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace on the Friday.
It was a wonderful event, with an impressive collection of cars in a truly beautiful setting. For the occasion, I took my Hasselblad 503CM, fitted with the 80mm lens, along with a few rolls of Kodak Gold 200.
On the Sunday, I headed to a rather different event, a local car show near a good friend (and fellow photographer), Matt Cooke. We visited the 4th Annual Brightlingsea Scout Group Car Show in Brightlingsea, Essex.
It was a lovely village car show, with a great mixture of classic British and American vehicles. There was also the added attraction of cups of tea and homemade cakes, including Victoria Sponge and Lemon Drizzle. What's not to like?
All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend of classic cars, cameras and good friends.
Looking through the photographs afterwards, I was really pleased with how the Kodak Gold 200 had rendered the colours. It has a lovely fine grain and a slightly muted colour palette. The weather wasn't particularly sunny over the weekend, although it was hot and humid, so perhaps the rather subdued light had something to do with the colours looking a little softer than I remembered.
I also took a few lessons from my previous film projects and decided to keep things simple: one camera, one lens and one type of film.
It made quite a difference. There was less to carry around, fewer decisions to make and no temptation to keep changing cameras or film stocks throughout the day. That said, I can't deny there were a few moments when I wished I'd brought a wider lens!
Sometimes it's good to keep things simple..