Lomo 400 And A Village In The Hills

By Paul McKay

Not every Analogue Adventure needs to be to far-flung corners of the world 😅 Beautiful settings are often a short drive from our own home, and Masha set out with the specific goal of capturing gorgeous photos of an English seaside village. Hopefully an achievable shoot for many of us! Let's see how she got on...

Why Clovelly?

There are many things I enjoy, and quaint British seaside villages are pretty high on that list. Especially those that are quieter, with thinner crowds and less foot traffic, where time seems to slow down. Clovelly is one of such villages so when a sunny day rolled around it was a no-brainer when deciding where to spend it. As I am sure you, dear reader, have learnt by now, no day-trip of mine is complete without a film camera and at least one roll of film. This time my Olympus Trip came along to explore the village with me (and my husband I guess 😉)

Whilst I do enjoy shooting a variety of locations and spaces, there is something about a village existing at its own pace that makes it well suited for film photography. The cobbled streets, the white washed cottages and the abundance of greenery and nature (including a waterfall and some very unexpected alpacas) meant that we drove home with one of my favourite rolls ready for AW development.

Olympus Trip and the film stock choice

As my Pentax 17 had half a roll of film already loaded/shot, a tough choice was made to let it have a nice and quiet day at home and instead I took my workhorse of an Olympus Trip with me. Arguably, I just knew that I most definitely would use up a whole roll of film and was conscious of not wanting to bring several options with me since unlike me, they do not enjoy roasting in the sun. Taking an unloaded camera let me do just that – start on a clean slate. It has a great lens, auto-exposure and a good variety of options for zone focusing. It also feels sturdy with its metal build that isn't typical for a 'point-and-shoot'.

Hello Trip!

Lomo 400 became the selected film tribute for this Trip. I know in the past I made a declaration that I’m on a mission to try every film stock to ever exist but I am just a girl, and sometimes I can’t help reaching for one of my all-time favourites instead.

So sue me as this blog features Lomo 400 yet again (similarly to June’s Half Marathon blog), and I have absolutely no regrets about it. I am going to have a hand on heart moment with you here, the truth is, I am most definitely not cool enough for the experimental, ultra-quirky and intense film stocks. As fun as they are, and as much as I obsess over other people’s work that features them (ie Harman Azure or Harman Red), I always find myself gravitating back to the ‘au naturel’ emulsions that suit myself and my shooting style a little better.

Lomo 400 is one of such film stocks that I just can’t seem to keep away from, meaning some of my other rolls often feel all alone and forgotten inside their dark fridge prison. This film stock is most definitely one that I am ready to sing odes to, even though it often feels overlooked and most definitely doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.

Whilst yes, I appreciate that it is often classed as either a cousin or some other close relative of Kodak UltraMax, I do think that they are vastly different, with very distinct personalities, and I definitely back myself in being able to tell them apart. Both are beautiful, sharp film stocks with fairly fine grain, but I find Lomo to be a little bolder, with a cooler, more vibrant character in its colours, particularly in the blues and greens. These tones could not have been better suited to Clovelly, with its lush green forest hillsides and the blue (albeit mostly very brown and murky due to the low tide) coast.

Steep streets, bright sun and sharp contrasts

Not only did this village have the steepest main street, Clovelly felt like a village of constant interplay between light and shadows. Bright white cottages seemed to glow in the sunshine, while the surrounding greenery, narrow passageways and dark stone archways created pockets of deep shadows, with streaks of light cutting through, making the photos so much more interesting.

Another thing that really caught my eye was the amount of care and labour of love that is poured into each individual cottage by the residents. No two were the same, with their brightly coloured front doors, porches overflowing with plant pots and small private flower gardens not only gave each home its own personality but also added to the charm and character of the village as a whole.

Even now, writing this blog, I find myself lingering over the photos and noticing the little details I hadn’t spotted when walking past (for example the chicken hiding in the flowers) 👀

Can you spot the chicken statue hiding in the flowers?

I find photographing anything remotely steep fairly frustrating, as it often looks much flatter in the photo compared to real life, which is usually then accompanied by ‘I promise it was steeper than it looks’ commentary when you show that same photo to someone else. This village was most definitely an exception, as the rows of cottages lining the street acted as a real-life frame that naturally draws your eye uphill, in turn emphasising the incline that was most definitely felt by our quads on the climb back up to the car 😮‍💨

I do have to mention that I was also very impressed with how much detail Lomo 400 managed to retain in the shadows, even in some of the darkest corners I could find.

I wanted to capture the preferred method of transporting goods up and down the cliff (the sleigh hidden in the shade of the tree – which if you really think about makes total sense since it’s so easy to glide it up and down the steep streets). With no cars allowed in the village, back in the day they actually used donkeys. In the modern day, the 4 donkeys who are still in the village live a very luxurious life of going on walks and eating all the hay they could ever want 😂

A refreshing surprise

Just a short walk off the main streets, through what I can confidently describe as ankle-breaking territory (otherwise known as a beach made entirely out of oversized pebbles and rocks) sits Clovelly’s very own waterfall. I firmly believe that every village in the UK should have one. It adds extra whimsy that every quaint seaside village deserves, and also proved to be very refreshing on what can only be described as a very warm day.

Being surrounded by the dark textures of the rock face, countless shades of lush green foliage and the constant sounds of running water made us feel as if we’d wandered much further from the village than we actually had - in reality it was barely a 5-minute walk, but it was amazing how quickly the atmosphere changed.

This also turned out to be a perfect backdrop to convince my husband to stand still for a quick portrait. I’ve read before that some people didn’t enjoy using Lomo 400 for portraits, claiming that it rendered skin tones a little oddly. Personally that has never been my experience.

Having a husband who can be persuaded (with varying degrees of enthusiasm) to stand in front of the camera means that I can come home with at least one portrait and of course this day trip was no exception. And I am happy to report that Lomo produced completely natural-looking skin tones whilst still letting the vibrancy of the background shine. Another point in Lomo’s favour as to why this is such a good, multifaceted film stock!

Tucked away greenhouses

If you have read one of my previous blogs, you’ll know that I have a bit of a soft spot for plants, flowers and greenery in general. I’m very much like a bloodhound when it comes to greenhouses and will always sniff one out if there’s one nearby. So imagine my absolute delight when I discovered that Clovelly’s gardens were home to not one, not two but six separate greenhouses you could photograph at your own pace and leisure. So it was a no brainer for us to go and investigate what they had to offer.

If I was to show you all 36 frames from this roll, this blog would end up being the length of a PhD thesis, so I’ve exercised an incredibly amount of self-restraint and narrowed it down to just one photograph that stood out to me above the rest. What drew me to this photo the most is the illusion of the endlessness of the greenhouse space, with the path leading you through the sea of greenery and inviting you to keep wandering further inside. Patches of unobscured sunlight filter through the glass and surrounding fig trees, adding another layer of depth and making the greenhouse feel far larger than it really was.

Some might argue that this composition is cheating, as the scene had already arranged itself and all I had to do was press the shutter. And even though sometimes a very-well designed greenhouse can most definitely do the majority of the compositional work for you, recognising such a moment is the real trick here. As someone who often walks through spaces without stopping for a photo, I’m quite chuffed for noting this one and capturing it on film.

One final photograph to round off the day trip

This wouldn’t be a Masha blog, or a Masha roll of film if it didn’t include at least one photo of a four-legged friend. Whilst the half-marathon blog featured a very supportive pup, this time bringing things up a notch with an entire heard of alpacas. I promise, dear reader, that stumbling across them was as much of a surprise to us as it probably is to you right now. Unfortunately despite my best efforts we did not manage to befriend them so we left them to continue with their very important grass business. But not before I captured a few too many photos of them...