Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Ilford

This was one of the last shots that I took on this Dresden trip, and I like to think it's one of the best. It was especially hard to get since I was shooting into the sun with black and white film (Ilford FP4 125 ISO), and had to get the exposure exactly right. I've done better, but I like this one.

Here's an alternate shot to Picture 2, zoomed in and at an angle.

The previous shot was actually of the rear of the church. This is actually the front of it, at least as seen from the street. The church is behind a large park at the far outer border of Neustadt (from the looks of it).

Finally, in a last-ditch effort at the end of the day, I made one last attempt at finding the tower in Neustadt. Instead, I found this church, and I ended up being late, as I said earlier. This church does not appear to be very old, but it was interesting for its war memorial plaques, if nothing else, that primarily were for the imperial conflicts, most of them typically stupid, of the 1860's and 1870's, including the Franco-Prussian War.

This crop may be technically better than the first, but I'm still not convinced it's ideal. Notice the bikes on the left are cropped too much at the bottom, maybe, while there appears to be too much space in the lower right.

Examining the initial bike photo, I found that it was less well composed in its original form than it would be if cropped. This was my first attempt, which has the car in the background, which could be a distraction, or part of the message (think of how many more bike riders can be accomodated in the same space, for example).

Outside Dresden Neustadt is this bike parking area, which appears well used. As I've said elsewhere, I've noticed that German bike riders often have no problem with placing their bike in a convenient location for commuting and such, even if it's remote from their house, and bikes generally are very popular for transport as much as fun. This is quite a contrast even to the Czech Republic, or much of Eastern Europe, which seems less advanced in terms of environmental protection and city planning (although it should be noted that Communism can't be an excuse, as Dresden is in the former Communist East as well).

Here's the exterior. The distinctive lightning rods and the portals mark this as a German station (unless it's earlier, which is possible), but there are still features that resemble American stations, those arched windows, for example. Dresden Neustadt, in spite of not being the main Dresden station, is still quite busy, and I had a small brunch while I was here, since the passenger facilities are better than what you'd expect, too.

I don't the exact age of Dresden Neustadt, but it seems the station dates to the steam era. After all, relatively few stations this ornate were built once electrification started. There are some features that resemble stations on the New York Central, like New York Grand Central, Utica Union, and so on. The arched window and the skylight are the two things that I notice, although I assume it wasn't the same architect.

Here's my second shot of the Pullman Hotel, showing it's typical 1960's high-rise look. The decorations (taken in the loosest interpretation) on this side remind me a little bit of what you see on some buildings in the Middle East, and come to think of it you can also find this style throughout the neighborhood around Pragerstrasse (more on this later).

This was an interesting, almost certainly Communist-era building that I found on Pragerstrasse. It's interesting to note that only a few years ago something like this would have been repulsive, either for being Communist or being ugly 1960's (probably) era, as is stripped and tasteless even in the few decorations that it has. However, this mosaic is interesting, and suddenly buildings like this have become interesting in that they're very much of a particular historic time period. Indeed, in the West architecture wasn't radically different. This building is now the Pullman Hotel, and they've deliberately given it letting up near the top (in a later photo) which deliberately tries to look like it's from the 1960's. It's done in a sort of 1960's fake handwritten type of font. (Again, watch this space.)

This is an odd place to start the film shots, I know, but it was the first good photo....sort of....that I found in my latest batch of shots from Dresden.....meaning late-2011!!! :-D This was actually a Christmas shopping trip, so it's roughly a year old already.

As I was walking back from the Mala Strana, I thought the light had improved, so I took another shot of Tynsky Chram. I haven't decided which is better, as this one actually looks darker.

In Malostranske Namesti, I took two shots of Miklasky Chram. This was the better one. The lines through the picture in the sky are the cantenary for the trams, another fixture of the square for over 100 years.

Swinging the Ikoflex (still on the tripod) over to my right, I got this shot right after the Tynsky Chram shot.

Immediately after getting back from Greece, I loaded up the Ikoflex, for the first time in a few years, with a roll of expired Pan F that I had. The results were fine, some of my better shots, actually, but I had trouble finding a lab that were willing to scan the negatives. In the end, I had prints made and scanned them, but I'm still looking for a proper scanner to have these done.

Just before Christmas break, I went through my film and discovered that the roll of Ilford Pan F in this picture was already very, very expired (in 2008), so as soon as I got back to Prague I loaded into my Ikoflex and shot a series of shots around Prague in the snow, finishing it in my first weekend back. I'm still looking for a place that will scan it (at normal resolution), though, as I don't have a 120 film scanner, and at this rate I may just have the roll printed and scan the prints. The Fomapan is currently in the Ikoflex, as if I can solve the scanning issue I hope to use it a lot this year, as opposed to the last two when it wasn't used at all. Does anybody know of a decent film scanning service in Prague that will do normal (1200-2400dpi) film scans? All of the popular photo labs are so incompetent that they don't even know what I'm talking about.

Here's another shot of the horses coming in.