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BBC BLOGS - Viewfinder

Your pictures of the week: Sparkle

Phil Coomes | 08:33 UK time, Thursday, 12 November 2009

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Sparkle by Adam Lewis

It was fireworks night this week so we set the theme to sparkle. It seems to have been a popular as we received more than 500 entries.

Not all are of fireworks though and you can see the ones we have selected here.

Your pictures of sparkleThe shot above is by Adam Lewis who worked long and hard to get the result he wanted.

I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and if you have any comments to make you can do so below.

If your picture didn't make this week's selection, why not send us something for next week?

The new theme is "Grey". Interpret this in any way you see fit and send your pictures to us at yourpics@bbc.co.uk or upload them directly from your computer.

Please include the word "Grey" in the subject line of your message.

The deadline is midnight GMT Tuesday 17 November, and remember to add your name and a caption: who, what, where and when should be enough, though the more details you give, the better your chance of being selected.

We will publish a selection of your photos this time next week.

You can now see a list of the next four themes on this page which will be updated each week.

Files should be sent as JPEGs. They shouldn't be larger than 10Mb and ideally much smaller: around 1Mb is fine, or you can resize your pictures to 1,000 pixels across.

Please see our terms and conditions, but remember that the copyright remains with you. The pictures will only be used by the BBC for the purposes of this project. Finally, when taking photos, please do not endanger yourself or others, take unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

Day 31 of my Kodachrome project

Phil Coomes | 10:40 UK time, Wednesday, 11 November 2009

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Flower in the rainMy daily photo project shot on Kodachrome continues to roll on, though as the weeks pass it's becoming more of a challenge, primarily due to the fading light.

Most of the pictures I have shot so far have been on a rangefinder, but I've dug out my old Olympus XA3 compact and have just put a roll through that. Bit of a risk as I haven't used it for years, but it seems to be OK.

The only problem I had was when my daughter dropped it and the back sprung open. At that point there was only one shot on the roll that I hadn't duplicated on a different camera. With luck the frame won't be a total write-off and I guess it all adds to the feel of the project.

It's an interesting little camera, zone focus, auto exposure with a 35mm lens, and that's it, certainly a step back from many of the compact cameras on offer today, simplicity seems to be the key. I'm guessing the pictures won't be pin sharp but with luck they will have their own characteristics.

The other thing I've been doing this week is setting up an RSS feed from Flickr that reports any images tagged with Kodachrome. It's fascinating what it throws up, images of old film boxes and some delightful frames from times long past. Here are a few that caught my attention.

Patrick Joust is well known to us here as we featured some of his wonderful pictures from Baltimore in a gallery earlier this year.

Patrick has just published a few old Kodachrome slides taken by his father in 1969 that show the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, good timing, given it's the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.

Another image I liked was this one taken in Michigan in the 1950s and published by Don Hudson. The colours are just delightful and as one of the comments notes, the picture has the feeling of a Stephen Shore.

Back in the UK I found this picture taken outside the gates of Buckingham Palace in London.

I wonder how many little yellow boxes of film there are hidden away in cupboards around the country, each one holding precious memories and glimpses into our past.

So I encourage you to dig them out and take a look, and maybe share some of the photos.

Mixing personal and professional

Phil Coomes | 11:04 UK time, Tuesday, 10 November 2009

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Blackpool Beach, 1982

Books on the English seem to be popular at present. Last month I looked at the landscape photography of Simon Roberts who captured the English at leisure and now there is a new volume to add to the shelf on the subject, England, My England by Chris Steele-Perkins.

It's a totally different approach. England, My England is a collection of pictures taken over the past 40 years by Chris and includes photographs drawn from a wide range of news stories and features, personal moments and long-term social projects including his much admired look at the Teddy Boys in the late 1970s.

The TedsI've been a long-time admirer of Chris' work. His book The Pleasure Principle, in which he explored public rituals in Thatcher's Britain, is often retrieved from the shelf, and even now, many years later, brings delight and a wry smile.

Through the years Chris has approached photography in many ways, from the black and white social commentary of the 1970s through to the more self -expressive images of Mount Fuji that were one of the finalists in this year's Prix Pictet awards.

For me though it's Chris' almost personal pictures that work so well. From the two pensioners dancing in 1973 through to the couples picnicking at Glyndebourne in 1988 he manages to capture some of the absurdities of life, yet without looking down or patronising his subjects.

On one level the pictures are remarkably simple. There are no clever techniques, weird angles, just good honest photography.

Picnic at Glyndebourne Opera, 1988In the introduction to England, My England David Elliott states:

"Funny stuff photography, it can trigger things you don't expect... This book is not a lament for the past, but merely a record and a celebration of some of the things he (Chris) has lived through, has been fascinated by, and survived."

A photographer never has a day off. A shot of Chris' friends and family on a walk in Kent shows a group of six people all clad in dark coats on a wet day, with one mysterious figure in the distance in red set against a verdant green hillside. Again it is a simple picture, but it snuggles alongside the other frames, and is part of the photographers' life so just as valid as something shot on assignment.

Perhaps the best example of this is the double-page spread that on one side shows a group of homeless men in Holborn, and on the other page a shot of his wife playing "pick sticks" with their son in a warm candle lit home. At first it seems to jar, but then you realise it's a very honest approach, one that many photographers find themselves in as they enter situations that are removed from their own lives to get a picture.

This clash of cultures is there on the page, without comment or judgement. As the title suggests, England, My England is more a story, a journey though a life in photography where every page takes the viewer in a new direction.

You can see a selection of pictures from the book in a gallery here.

All photographs © Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum Photos. England, My England is published by Northumbria Press.

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