A Roof With A View - A Unique Vantage Point!
Another week and another rooftop with spectacular views over Birmingham! I was incredibly lucky to be invited to grab some shots from the roof of House of Fraser, one of Birmingham’s most recognisable buildings. As if this wasn’t good enough, it also meant that I would be taking in some pretty special views of ‘Christmas in Cathedral Square’ - Birmingham’s Independent Christmas Market at St Philip’s Cathedral.
The event which is being staged by Colmore BID and partners, provides a fantastic market for some of the city’s best Independents and more importantly for me, looks fantastic too! My day had started at 3.30am and after multiple jobs, a very fortunate meeting and spending 12 hours outdoors in close to freezing temperatures - it was time to get on the roof and take in the beautiful scene!
Arriving at House of Fraser, the staff greeted me and were incredibly friendly and accommodating. Even though they had offered hot drinks and a chance to warm up, I was keen to get straight to the roof and try to capture sunset - which wouldn’t disappoint! It was kind of strange seeing ‘behind the scenes’ at House of Fraser, including a very cool workshop in the upper floors of the building that felt like I’d been transported back 50+ years!
As we made our way out through the final security doors and onto the roof, I almost ran to the barrier to take in the view and pretty much blanked my hosts as I started scrabbling to get my camera out! As with my previous excursion to the Rotunda (read all about that Here) I would be shooting a mix of digital and film - so there was no time to waste!
I quickly started grabbing images as I knew the best of the light would be gone in the first twenty minutes or so and as I’d planned to get some film shots as well, time was not on my side! I ran around trying to find which compositions worked best for me.
Digital Images
Shot on Canon Eos-R with 24-105mm lens
Purely for speed and convenience, I took my digital camera with me as well and I’m glad I did as I was happy that I’d got some shots ‘in the bag’. This meant I could spend a little more time planning the film shots. I pretty much always shoot landscape shots with a graduated filter and it work well in this situation as the sun set - it really helped balance the exposures well.
Overall, I’m really pleased with some of the digital images and it’s very nice to have my ‘safety blanket’ camera with me. About the only thing I wish I could change would be to have some snow or frost on the ground to give it a slightly more ‘Christmassy’ feel - but that might have to wait for another time!
I took full advantage of my time and even shot some of the the other buildings around me such as Bank House and the Rotunda! I switched to the longer lens to grab some close up shots of the market. It was great to have such a unique perspective. Later, after I’d left House of Fraser, I also grabbed a few shots from ground level - just to show how cool the markets look!
FiLM PHOTOGRAPHY - KODAK PORTRA 400
Shot on Mamiya 645 with Kodak Portra 400 and 55-110mm lens // Developed and Scanned at home
This was the highlight for me! For any of you following me on social medium, you’ll know that shooting film has been a bit of an obsession for me for the last couple of years. Every opportunity I get, I try to shoot film. On this occasion, I thought Portra 400 would work well, as it has a bit of warmer feel to it! I was certainly not disappointed with the results!
I knew from previous experience that I would get the best from the film before the light had completely faded, so I rushed to get as many shots as I could, just tweaking my compositions while the sun was setting. Some of the shots were a little difficult to expose as I wanted to make sure there was enough shadow detail - but on the whole, I think they worked out pretty well!
FiLM PHOTOGRAPHY - Cinestill 800T
Shot on Intrepid 4x5 Mk iv Black Edition with Cinestill 800T and Nikon 90mm lens // Developed and Scanned at home
So for anyone that’s shot even a little bit of film, you may have heard of ‘Cinestill 800T’ - For those unaware, it’s a type of film that us film photographers go a bit nuts over! It is a ‘cinema’ film that (when used correctly) just makes everything look amazingly cinematic! I won’t bore you with the details of how and why - but it can make some truly spectacular images!
However, one of my little journeys out wouldn’t be complete without me screwing something up - and this trip was no different! To cut a long story short, when I switched from 400 speed film to 800 speed - I forgot to change my metering to account for this! I’m an idiot, I know… So I think the images were a touch over-exposed.
That said, I also don’t think this scene was ever going to get the best from Cinestill so it wasn’t a great choice by me anyway. Some of the shots came OK, but overall, I am far happier with the Portra 400 shots.
Final Thoughts…
I’m the first to admit that I am very fortunate to get access to some of these places and subsequently, some of the best views in Birmingham. However, I always do what I can to make the most of these opportunities and create the best images I can so everyone can enjoy them! Overall, I’m pretty happy with these images and in particular, how the film images came out! Hopefully, there will be even more roof top excursions in the future!
