Famous Clare

You might remember Clare, of the 'shoes' fame (here and even earlier here).   Anyway, she came over yesterday for a wee visit and I pointed the rangefinder at her, fitted with a 35mm lens.  I didn't mess about too much - just snapped her as she was then and there.  And now she's here:

Clare, on FP4+, Adox paper

Bad hair day?

Me, or at least a 1977 version of me. Shot & printed in 1977 and stored in a box of Kodak Veribrom WSG.2M paper for the last 40 years.  Flip me that sounds like a long time when I write it like that...

Perhaps not so much as a bad hair day - more a bad hair decade I think.  That's what happens when your mother cuts your hair.  I can't remember ever going to a barber's shop - but I guess I must have in my later teens.  I remember my great-uncle cutting my grandfather's hair with the clippers - I guess there just wasn't the money around for anything else in those days.

I can place this shot precisely - it was at the University of Stirling, in Scotland and was the summer of 1977, which would make me 14.  We stayed at the student halls of residence, took Granny and Grandpa with us so I guess it was an affordable holiday that the extended family could all go on together.  Self-catering.  Looking back, I guess it was a bit of a busman's holiday for my mum and Gran, with two men and two growing lads to feed every day as well as themselves.  The Brother, Grandpa and I spent a lot of time playing snooker on their full-size tables.  Strangely I can't remember what my father was up to - perhaps he was happy to leave us to Grandpa's charge.  And the best bit? - There was no-one else around...I mean no-one - we had the place to ourselves.

Putting my feet up

Another one from The Archives.  Initially I thought this was me, but on closer inspection I think it's The Brother - we were pretty similar-looking at a certain point in our lives.  In which case the title should be 'Putting his feet up' but we'll not split hairs.

Most likely printed on Kodak Veribrom paper - grade 2, since that seems to be the most popular among the boxes in which the prints have been resting for the last 35+ years.  Strangely I can't place the shot, even with the flowery curtains, which look to be 1960s vintage.  A good forensic detective would be able to identify the trainers from the pattern on the sole, but unsurprisingly I haven't a clue.  I remember Dunlop Green Flash being very popular around that time, but I think they had a honeycomb pattern on the soles, so if I'm right that rules them out.

The recumbent pose is funny, as I'm pretty sure we would have been told fairly sharpish to get those feet of the sofa had an adult been around, so it's safe to assume The Brother and I were on our own when this shot was taken.  Camera would have been either a Zenit B or more likely the OM-1 which came on the scene around 1974.  Film was probably FP4, which was our go-to film in those days - nowadays I seem to been favouring HP5+, although the Ilford stuff is getting expensive compared to other film on the market.  I might have a try at Fomapan, since that seems to get a good press, particularly when developed in Rodinal, or the modern equivalent.

Playing with fire

Yes folks, in the good old days it was possible for kids to play with fire - literally.  I was browsing through some boxes of our (The Brother&I) old prints from the 1970s and this one caught my eye:

Note the 'chopper' bike on the right and of course the flares on the lad on the left - yup, definitely the 70s.  I've no idea who these kids are, by the way - but they look to having a great time setting fire to some stuff.  The wee ones on the right are just about to learn that smoke gets in your eyes, I reckon.  Totally irresponsible, of course - but super fun when you're 9 or 10.  And at least they're outdoors, eh?

Young man with keyboard and cigarette

Snappy title, eh?

Anyway, another of Missy's 'Porto Buskers' series for you today.  This young man was really pretty good on his keyboard and didn't seem to have an ounce of self-consciousness - he just set up in the middle of the general chaos on Festival Evening in June and did his thing.  At one point he had a traditional Portuguese Music group next door for company but he didn't seem too perturbed.

OM-1, 35-70 Zuiko zoom, HP5, Adox paper

I'd forgotten, until this print came out of the darkroom, about the cigarette.  He had clearly spent many hours perfecting the art of playing with both hands on the keyboard whilst smoking a cigarette  Not sure about the cigarette myself but his keyboard skills were good enough to warrant Missy getting fairly close to him and snapping him up on her OM-1 for posterity.  And so here he is, captured on film, printed out and scanned for this place so now he'll hang around 'The Cloud' or at least encoded as a load of 0s and 1s on some Web Server for a time (as well as in a box upstairs, unless he makes it onto the wall for a while, which he might, actually).  How long he sticks around in the Internet-world place no-one knows.  Could be forever - but then again that might not be very long given the state the world is in...

Busking a la Porto

This was one of Missy's snaps from Porto, which I printed the other day.  She was transfixed by this group and we spent a very long time standing listening to them, Missy edging closer and closer.  Perhaps it was the presence of the (electric) cello, as Missy plays the cello herself and you don't often see a young, tanned, good-looking (?) guy playing one in the street.  I can't say whether they were good or not, since my tinnitus was playing up and everything seemed out of tune to my ears, but if the crowd were anything to go by they weren't bad at all.  Not only did Missy contribute one of my hard-earned Euros into their collecting tin but she went back and exchanged some more Euros for one of their CDs...

The light was fading and the band were playing 'under the arches' down by the river so there wasn't much natural light around.  I think Missy got the exposure on her OM-1 spot on as the scene looks pretty much as I remember it, nice and low-contrast.  A little sepia tone on the Adox paper seemed to add something to it.

Oh and we survived Ophelia - to be honest, it didn't amount to much around The Liberties.  Other parts of Ireland got it pretty bad, though.  We were lucky.

Waiting for Ophelia

Well the whole of Ireland is braced for the storm of the decade, or so it seems.  What's left of Hurricane Ophelia is heading this way and there's an air of uneasy calm at the minute.  Hardly any wind and an eerie light - very dark.  And it's spookily quiet - all the birds have gone into hiding, it would seem.  But it's warm, very warm for the time of year, with temperatures around 14 degrees.  All schools across Northern Ireland are closed for the day in light of the weather warning - might seem like a bit of overkill but many pupils come in from the country and with the risk of falling trees in the afternoon I guess the authorities are playing it safe.  Missy was of course delighted to hear that piece of news late last night and no doubt took advantage of the situation by staying up late with a good book.

So while we watch and wait, let's look at a bunch of Dutch folk (and visitors such as yours truly) looking at horses at Orvelte Museum Village in Drenthe:

Via the M6/35mm/HP5/Adox paper, sepia tone

It was Horse Day, apparently - and there were a load of them around.  Mostly huge things, all beautifully presented and with the lads and lassies on them well turned out too.  I'm not a big fan of horses, especially great big ones like these were.  Probably on account of me not being able to move very quickly should one decide to start throwing its weight around.  But I can appreciate their beauty - from a distance.

Fair play to him

This gentleman was snapped up on Belfast Train Station platform.  He seemed totally engaged with his book, completely oblivious to the chaos of the platform as people like me waited for their train.

Adox paper, light sepia tone.  On the M6 I think, although it could have been the Nikon.  Either way, HP5+ and a fairly close crop.

'Fair play to him', I say.  That's a great phrase in these parts - in fact, all over this Emerald Isle - and can be used to great effect in many situations.  Or, 'Fair play to you' if the person is present.  It sort of means, 'I take my hat off to him', 'Respect', or similar - most often used when someone is making the best of their situation.  In fact, it's hard to think of a situation when the phrase can't be used. Interestingly, it usually also signifies the end of the discussion, since there really is nothing more that needs to be said.

I think one of the best examples of the use of this phrase was in a story I was told a few years back by a colleague.  He was travelling 'down South' - County Kerry or somewhere where the tourists go - and found himself in a car park at the top of a hill renowned for it's all-encompassing views of the surrounding coastline.  Anyway, my colleague says he was just sitting watching the goings-on around him when he noticed a guy dressed as an old Irish tinker sitting on the grass next to a donkey and cart.  The cart was laden with turf.  'What's he up to?', my colleague wondered to himself.  Next thing a coach-load of tourists arrives and discharges its load.  Yer man with the donkey leaps up and makes himself visible to the tourists, who all line up to take his photograph, either with or without their wife/husband/partner. Money was parted with.

When the coach departed, my colleague wanders up to the fellow, tips him a smile, a nod of the head and a knowing wink and says: 'Fair play to you', before taking his leave.

Porto People

Taken late one evening in Porto, June this year. A busy place, as you can see.  HP5 was in the Nikon, rated about 200 so I was in the dead zone with regard to shutter speeds.

Adox paper, sepia tone.  Nikon, 50mm lens

One man and his dog

Yup, it's that bloke again - the one I went to Uni with about a zillion years ago.  That's him all right. And his pooch, who is right poseur when he sees a camera around, as you can see:

Adox 312 paper for a change, with sepia tone as you can tell.  A bit more sepia than usual, 'cos I sloshed a bit more of Additive#3 in as at first it looked as weak as dishwater.  Then it took off and ended up a bit too much. So it goes. 

You might have seen yer man before on this place - here.  I will take more snaps of him next time our paths cross (hopefully in the not too distant future) as I think he is a very snapable person.  As is his dog, if you know what I mean.

You have to try...

It's that time of year when the weather in The Liberties can be a bit miserable.  Believe it nor not, in this part of Ireland we do get the odd overcast day when it rains, or seems to, all day.  Once we get to winter proper I find things improve, light-wise, so in the meantime we just have to put up and be patient.

Of course such days are good to spend in the darkroom but sometimes you just want to take some snaps, so the other day I dusted down the Sinar 4x5 (aka Big Boy) and took a couple of indoor shots.  Something I should do more of, I tell myself every time I use the Sinar, since it really is a lot of fun when you're in the mood for it.

I've no shortage of stuff to take photographs of, since my wife is an avid charity shop browser and buyer of junk objets d'art.  When she comes back with her latest purchase I typically greet her with a 'What are bringing now, woman - more aul' tat?' just to get a rise out of her but after all these years she's wise to my ways and no longer takes the bait quite as quickly as she once did.  Takes all the fun out of it, it does - well almost...but you still have to try, though, don't you :) And she loves her candles, bless her, so I nabbed one of her latest investments and disappeared upstairs to my lair/studio with it.  This is the result:

This almost came out as a contact print - in hindsight, I should have contact printed it since I was using 5"x7" paper, so not much larger than the negative itself.  The few times I have contact printed though I find the 4"x5" just a tad too small in the hand - even though it's very close to postcard size (6"x4" or thereabouts).

I'm quite aware of the implications of that last statement, by the way.  Dangerous territory, that -  8"x10" sheet film is not cheap but then again, decent sized contact prints and all those lovely alternative processes.  And life is short...hmm.

Anyway, back to reality this particular shot was taken as close as I could with the only lens I have for the Sinar - a 210mm Schneider Symmar-S f/5.6 - so the bellows were almost fully extended.  Wide open there ain't much in focus, as you can see in the print.  Actually I think this might have been f/8, but still a very shallow depth-of-field and maybe I should have stopped down a bit more to at least get all of the hanging chains in focus.  I used a little front movement in order to set the plane of focus to coincide with the candle-holders...12 degrees of swing was enough according to the Sinar's scales and it seemed to work out OK, although I'm no expert - obviously.

Waterlilies

I can't seem to resist a good waterlily these days - you might recall the masterpiece that came out from Porto, here.  Not content to leave it at that, I've only gone and done another masterpiece for your delectation - only these are Dutch waterlilies, not Portuguese ones:

Ilford Warmtone paper, light sepia tone

I might stop snapping waterlilies now, since clearly nothing can better these prints.  Perhaps...

Statue in Igreja de Sao Francisco, Porto

Snapped in Porto, in one of the big churches that abound there.  This was in the museum part of the Igreja de Sao Francisco if I remember correctly.  I was taken by the child, almost hidden behind the main figure, whoever he was:

Nikon, 50mm lens, HP5+, Ilford Warmtone paper, sepia tone

Perhaps he was St Francis himself, I can't remember.  He was pretty ornate, as is the style in that part of the world - there was lots of gold in the church, I recall.  You can get an idea by clicking here.

When the print came out of the wash I was thinking should I lighten the child's face a little, but decided against it.  The child was meant to be almost invisible, I reckon, positioned as it was, hidden in the folds of the cloak - so I left it as it was.