Talking with John in his workshop

After finishing answering work queries via email this morning, I headed off to meet my old friend John W. at his home near Whiteshill, on the far side of Stroud. We'd arranged for him to demonstrate his stereoscopic images of the Brunel Goods Shed, which he'd photographed eighteen months ago, as a visual record of the Shed before the building improvements were implemented.

The Stroud Preservation Trust, of which I am a trustee, is going to celebrate it's thirtieth anniversary in the autumn and we are considering having an exhibition of photographs of the various buildings we've helped rescue in Stroud, which is now quite a long list. The Goods Shed is the last one on our books and is nearly ready to be finally handed over to our new tenants.

At the same time, I had also arranged for several other local photographers to make their own record of the Shed, so we now have quite a lot of photographs to show. We'll also have other material from our historical archive, such as copies of original Brunel designs for the Shed, maps, plans and photos of various buildings in Stroud High Street, as well as the work done to preserve the last buildings at Arundell Mill on the River Frome.

I was really impressed with the 3D photographs which John could now show on a new high end laptop, when the viewer wears a pair of wirelessly connected 3D spectacles. Amazing stuff. We then started to also talk about his ongoing project linked to photography and microscopes, which was fascinating. I learn more and more every time we discuss what he is doing.

The light in John's photography workshop was very dark, as it was set up to view the screen images, with curtains drawn. While we chatted, John checked some necessary products online and I set up my tripod to try and film one of his many microscopes. I did get some reasonable results without any further lighting, but the limitations of my lens, the limited light, the tight space and my imagination didn't produce the images I had hoped for. I will try again another day, as we have lots more to talk about soon.

After we had eaten a snack we returned to talk and hone down the way forward. I managed to get this shot of John which I liked best, despite managing to catch him in mid-sentence, if not word. I am trying to learn to use minimal extra lighting and this low lighting situation was good test. I can see where I could improve this shot, as it shows me that mistakes are often more educational than perfect results. One thing I am annoyed with is that I hadn't after all managed to eliminate the screen refresh line on his desktop computer. I should have had a much slower shutter speed.