You can see the gaiety of the time in this slideshow of Paul Trevor's shots of children in Liverpool of the 1970s. All black and white, the almost forgotten photos the British photographer made during an assignment to document a bleak inner-city, were shuffled away in his drawer. Perhaps these ones didn't meet the concept of the assignment. Now rediscovered, a new show concentrating on the lives of giggling, playing, kissing and fighting children (and their families) in that time is now on in England all summer.

See the slideshow in the Guardian.

Today's 'tip' is about wasting film in order to save on film.*

Most people who grew up on film are familiar with buying film from drug stores where they (used to) come in singles or packs of three and, extravagantly, even seven. Buying in larger quantities saves money, we are told, but even buying multiple rolls isn't that much of a savings. You are still paying for packaging and, more importantly in the film world, for each cannister that contains pre-rolled unexposed film.

One of the ironies of the Canucks' long playoff run this year is that it is impinging on the arrival (finally) of decent spring weather. The temperature is only now approaching T-shirt warmth and people are sweating in masses of thousands on the streets of downtown Vancouver wearing heavy hockey jerseys. I'm wearing my jersey from 1994, the last time they made the finals, and it is a not-very-reflective black.

For more than a year now I've been acquiring other people's cast off or cheap developing gear and been taking a dive into home developing. So far I'd only developed 35mm B&W but last night had a mild success with sheet film.

Some weeks back I visited Las Vegas for the first time in almost 30 years. In the intervening time since I rushed through it as a teenager tagging along with parents I missed the transformation of the old school gambling mecca into the adult playground it has become. As a teenager I have vague impressions of sun-baked hotels, dark dungeonous casinos (and being chased out of them for being underage) and the neon tapestry of the night. I barely remember the old Vegas, actually, and now only know the new one.

I still haven't had a chance to get my hands on one but know two photographers personally who have and they agree mostly with the DPReviews.com in-depth review of the Fuji X100, the unique hybrid fixed-focal length, rangefinder-esque camera that caught the fancy of so many this season. In sum, the DPReviews assessment is: lovely images, nice handling, the hybrid viewfinder / EVF sounds killer, but with severe bugs and idiosyncracies in the software side.

In conversation with my friend Michael, it sounds like it is something that shooters could train themselves around -- the menuing issues could be worked around -- after all when you learn a machine eventually you end up using only the functions that you care about and rarely have to go hunting through all the other functions. Also bugs and menuing could be cleared up in firmware releases.