Images shot on Agfa Vista Plus 200 in the Yashica Electro 35 GSN
I remember, back in my youth, having David Gray’s White Ladder album. It was never the coolest CD in my collection (or anyone else’s, I imagine) but it was one of the most played right before the turn of the millennium.
The last song on it was a cover of Soft Cell’s Say Hello, Wave Goodbye. I didn’t know it was a cover until a guy at work told me. He even lent me the 7-inch single so I could check the original for myself.
Hard to believe looking back that was the easiest way for me to hear it, but this was a different time. Not just just pre-streaming. This was pre-iPod-full-of-mp3s.
So what does all this have to do with some street photography shot on discontinued Agfa Vista Plus 200? Aside from waving goodbye to that film, of course? Don’t worry. It does cover a few otherwise-unrelated points quite nicely too.
I’m thinking, as I’ve not really planned this aside from the subheadings, they’ll be about this website. One will be personal and another a bit more practical. So say hello to this stream of consciousness and wave goodbye to the next five minutes of your life.
Contents
Say hello to the new year
I’m writing this in late December 2018, which means it’s almost time to say hello to 2019.
That’s got me thinking about how this blog has done this year. I’m not doing a full retrospective but the short answer is this: not as well as I’d dreamed, but better than 2017.
All the important metrics are going up rather than down and I managed to finish the #leesixtyfive project in the summer too, which was a big thing for me.
While I’m not going to lay out all my hopes and ideas for 2019 here, the general plan is to keep doing what I’ve been doing and to try to actually do something with that #leesixtyfive project on the side.
Finishing it was an achievement but it was only really stage one of the original grand plan. I’ve just never got around to stage two, and there are more after that also. In my head, anyway.
Whether they do anything other than stay there remains to be seen, but 2019 will reveal all.
2021 update: yeah, a lot of them are still in my head 🙁
Wave goodbye to Agfa Vista Plus 200
As mentioned earlier, the images here were shot on a roll of Agfa Vista Plus 200. You can read the review of that film here, in which I mentioned how I probably wouldn’t shoot this stock again.
There are a few reasons for this.
First is that, once it got discontinued, it became harder to find at its normal price. It used to be both cheap and readily available. Literally a pound shop film, in the UK at least. Now it’s neither, as places like Analogue Wonderland are often sold out and sellers on eBay are just jacking up the prices.
Neither of those things trouble me too much though, which leads me to the second reason why I’ll likely not shoot Agfa Vista Plus 200 again.
That reason is that I’ve already shot it. I’m more of a photography blogger than I am a photographer, really. It’s rare that I’ll shoot anything if it’s not going to end up on here.
So now I’ve shot one roll of Agfa Vista Plus 200 and written about it, there’s no reason for me to shoot another. Not when there are countless others to shoot as well.
It’s a simple equation. The more film stocks I get through, the more varied articles I can publish on here.
2021 update: I still haven’t shot any more Agfa Vista 200 😐
Say hello and wave goodbye to Gutenberg (for now)
I think a lot of bloggers don’t spend too much time making photographs. If you write about personal development or business or frugal living, for examples, you don’t need to. Not when places like Unsplash are around.
I also think a lot of photographers don’t blog. They far more enjoy making the images and just publishing them on some platform or another. They may guest post on other people’s blogs, but keeping a regular blog of their own just isn’t something they spend time on.
There’s nothing wrong with any of the above. You do you. Personally, I probably enjoy the blogging and the shooting equally. I like SEO and I like messing about with WordPress. If it’s something you’d want to have a go at too, take a look at this guide here.
And this, the WordPress bit, is where Gutenberg comes in. Released to the masses in December 2018, Gutenberg is a new style of post editor and is the biggest change WordPress has seen since I started using it in 2013.
I can crudely sum it up by saying creating posts has changed from being like Microsoft Word to something more like Medium, if you’ve ever used that. Honestly, you’re better off checking for yourself if you really want to know more than that.
At the time of writing, a lot of people dislike it. I decided to give it a chance though and began to write this post using it. Before finishing the post, I’ve reverted back to the classic editor.
I didn’t mind writing in Gutenberg. I didn’t find the blocks distracting like a lot of people report them being. But I did find it posting my photographs with larger-than-usual gaps above and below them when I checked how it looked on the front end.
I’m sure there’s an easy fix to this issue. I just don’t have the time or energy to find it right now. One day I will, and I’m sure I’ll like using Gutenberg once the teething problems have been ironed out.
2021 update: I’m now using Gutenberg and it’s really good 🙂
Say hello to Jimmy again and wave goodbye to this post
Just like with the roll of Fujicolor Industrial 100 I shot, I had a couple of exposures left on my Agfa Vista Plus 200 and nothing to use them on.
So I got my mate Jimmy to pose for me again. Say hello.
As for this post, it’s nearly time to wave goodbye. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2019 brings for My Favourite Lens. More film stocks shot. Not Agfa Vista Plus 200, though. I’ve got a bag of others to get through and a shop ready to refill that bag once I’ve done so.
More vintage lenses shot too, hopefully. I’ve been that much into film photography since the #leesixtyfive ended it’s been a while since I tried a new one of those. And as mentioned, doing something with that project too.
Despite the negative press it’s gotten so far, I hope Gutenberg becomes everything the creators hope it will. My one hour of playing around with the back end was good. It was just how things looked on the front end that stopped me using it yet.
Regardless, this post is almost over. It’s good to get something written to go with the photographs shot with the film I’m waving goodbye to.
It’s also good to go full circle sometimes, which leads us back to the song this blog post was named after. Give this link a click to give it a listen on YouTube. Cheers.
… p.s. if you enjoyed this post on saying hello and waving goodbye, why not share or pin it?
