Voigtlander Bessa 1, results

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Voigtländer Bessa I. Photograph gallery.

Flemming park, Eastleigh, Hants, UK. c1984Fleming Park, Eastleigh. May 1984

Left, Fleming Park, Eastleigh. May 1984. Taken with the Bessa I in 4.5 x 6cm format. In this format the standard lens of 105 mm takes on the effect of a telephoto. It's also a bit troublesome to compose images as a result, although it would be ideal for portraits, assuming you can get the focus absolutely spot on.

Below, American Civil War re-enactment Society, firing cannon at Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley, Hampshire, in the summer of 1984. Again taken in half frame format, and heavily cropped here. I think I may have been having harbouring grandiose ideas of producing an image akin to the American Civil War photographers.

Steam Engine Graveyard

Two images taken in New South Wales, Australia in 1983. A delightfully non linear wooden bridge crossing a creek, pretty much in the middle of nowhere as I recall. And a graveyard for stationary and traction steam engines. There were many engines here, and the surrounding area was littered with steam engine ephemera, from piston cylinders to flywheel assemblies. I wonder how many are left there now. Both frames were 4x6cm format.

Completed in 1973, after a somewhat protracted build, Sydney Opera House was celebrating its 10th anniversary when photographed from the Sydney Harbour Bridge by the Bessa I.


The Argentine/British conflict over the Falkland Islands in 1982, resulted in a number of these IA-58 Pucara being captured. Most were scrapped in the Falklands but one was returned to flight for evaluation in the UK and three others served as donors for spare parts. For a few years two of the donor aircraft were displayed outside at Middle Wallop airfield, where the Bessa I photographed them in 1985. Both images were taken in 4x6cm format.


Finally some images taken with the Bessa I in 6x9cm format. Taken in the late 1980s, as the aptly named steam dredger Perseverance nears the end of its twenty year quest to clear the abandoned and silted up Basingstoke canal. Originally built in 1934, by the time she was dredging here, she was owned and operated at weekends by volunteers. It made a fabulous cacophony of clanking and hissing.

In 1988 I visited the Pound Scrap yard in Portsmouth and exposed a number of colour frames on the remains on the Avro Anson T21 Prototype, VS562. Clearly not in the best of shape by this time. Shot in 6 x 9cm format, the negatives had remained ignored until July 2018!