Monday 12 September 2016

The Twelfth

Some colour for a change.  Not often you see that on this place, as you well know.  See I have a few rolls of Provia slide film in the door of the fridge and loaded one into the FM3a a couple of months ago for The Lad's graduation.  Try as I might, I can't make the FM3a wrongly expose a shot, when on auto.  I have to remember to put it on manual from time to time, to keep that side of the thing working.  It's full auto and full manual, y'see - one of, if not the last of the manual Nikons before auto-everything took over.  From the feel of it, you can tell that 30+ years of Nikon know-how went into it.  It was a bit of a luxury, I'll admit, and every so often I think I'll trade it for something medium-formatty, but then I take it out for a walk and it's just so nice in the hand.

Anyway, I digress.  So at the graduation I did a few formal ones, which were just OK and then I asked Blondie aka Clare-with-the-shoes to give the boy a peck on the cheek, and she duly obliged, bless her:

The young ones, in full regalia, outside The Lanyon Building of The Queen's University of Belfast, to give it its proper title.
So after all that I had a film to finish quick in order to get back to some good old B&W.  As it was early July, that meant one thing - The Twelfth.  Now if you're reading this and wondering what I'm on about then clearly you are not from The Liberties.  The Twelfth of July is a Very Big Day in Ulster, when thousands upon thousands of menfolk, wimmenfolk and weans celebrate their Protestant History.  There's a whole story about that which we'll get to in a day or two and one or two twists and turns along the way which surprised me, I must admit.  Anyway, on the morning of the Twelfth off I went with the Provia-loaded camera to catch a bit of it.  We ended up in Limavady - you know, that place where the dog leapt over the river and all that O'Cahan history wot you learnt about earlier - assuming you were paying attention, that is.

Now this guy has the Orangeman look down pat - dark suit, white gloves, bowler hat, orange sash and cuffs and a fearsome determined look about him:


Behind him are the standard-bearers and musicians from his district - from the banner it would appear this group are from Burntollet, just outside Londonderry-Derry.   Red, white and blue are favourite colours on the twelfth (as well as orange), since they represent the Union of the United Kingdom, to which all good true Ulster Protestants subscribe.  Or so they would tell us.  It wasn't always like that though, as we shall see.

More to come tomorrow...

5 comments:

  1. Should you, my friend from The Liberties, find out some day that a heavy beast of a Mamiya RZ67 would be nice to have instead of the FM3a, please don't hesitate to give me a call about the matters... But who on earth would do a swap like that?
    Very nice, and very colorful obviously, set of snaps you got here mate! I really, really like them both.
    I kind of payed attention when you were scribling about the dog leaping over that river and everything, but had to read it again of course. Just to make sure I had some of the history fresh in mind before the rest is due to materialize onto my screen quite soon. It's a great start with the Orangeman and all, so if you'll excuse me while I'm off to get some popcorn I'll be ready to recieve a full good old history lesson within a minute or ten :))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha nice try Roy mate! I did find an RB67 in a local auction a few years back, even fired the shutter. I think it set off some small earthquakes around The Liberties :) It is a beast of a thing, for sure. But...I can see the advantages of the old 6x7 neg and I want to go there for the darkroom work. But not with an RB67 - I couldn't even lift it. So sorry, but I don't think the swap with the FM3a is going to happen soon :)

      Hope the popcorn was good!

      Delete
    2. Nah, I didn't have very high hopes of that going to happen anyway, so that's alright :)
      You seem to find a lot of interesting stuff around in local auctions and such. There's nothing like that around these parts of the world, but I sometimes walk inside local shops dealing with some old bits and pieces nobody seems to want anymore. I very rarely find anything worth to take home, though. And maybe that's just fine, if you ask somebody else...

      Delete
  2. Wow, color! I wondered for a minute if I came to the right blog!

    I was unaware of the Twelfth. Having come to Christianity as an adult, a lot of church history stuff passed me by during my formative years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha Jim yes, I surprised myself there too with the colour thing! The Twelfth used to be the biggest holiday in Ulster in days gone by - lots of businesses closed for the 'Twelfth fortnight'. Nowadays some might close for one day - life goes on pretty much as usual.

      Delete