Johannes Keijzer, Pauper

You may have seen a version of this before - it's of the Pauper's Prison in Drenthe, Netherlands.  The authorities started out with good intentions, rounding up vagrants and beggars all over the country and offering them a new life in a purpose-built facility where they could grow their own produce and live out their lives in perhaps a more purposeful way.  In the end, though, it became a prison for many - impossible to leave and though they may have gained in some ways they lost their freedom.

The courtyard had these plinths with haunting images of some of the inmates, complete with detailed notes of their height, age, eye colour etc.

I was never really happy with the original print I did, which you can see here.  There was too much empty space in the first print which detracted from the objects of interest - the faces staring out at you with the deadest of expressions. But I always thought that there was a better print in there somewhere, so I revisited this negative the other day and played around with composition while under the enlarger to see what could be done.  I wound the enlarger up high and messed about with the easel to see if a tighter crop might work. This was the result:

The Pauper's Prison, Drenthe - on Ilford Warmtone RC paper

 I think it's a better composition.  There's more emphasis on the leading guy (let's give him his name, eh? - Johannes Keijzer) and the repetition of the images is, I think, more effective with the wider crop.

It was challenging enough to get it looking like this.  I had to dodge the face of Johannes and then burn in the white cards underneath so that the writing would at least be visible, if not entirely legible.  Then a bit of burn-in with the sky - I wanted a darker, moodier sky, given the subject matter.  Finally a burn-in of the gravel, trying to get it to lead the eye into the shot as well as balance out the trees.  That's a lot more work than I usually do for a print.

The sun was hiding...

The sun was out one second and behind a cloud the next.  Not that easy to meter for so I kind of guestimated and crossed the fingers.  Not the best shot in the world but I was wondering how such a wide subject brightness range would turn out on paper.  Not too bad, in the end up - this was more or less a straight print:

Portstewart Bay - HP5+ on Adox MCC paper

There's probably a bit more I could have done to tidy the sky up a little but I don't think this particular shot warranted any more work, to be honest.

I was trying to print the whole negative - you can just about see the two notches along the left side, which tells you it's a Hasselblad.  That and the way the corners aren't squared off, I think...

Two for the price of one

OK we haven't had a person, or people for a while so here's two for the price of one:

The Brother and Kim, by Lake Michigan, 2018

'Tis the Brother and his better half.  I know it's dark but it's pretty true to the conditions- the shot was taken as the light was fading rapidly, late one evening by Lake Michigan last August.  He's Skyping on his phone at the time to one of their offspring, as you do these days.

I just love Kim's expression as she looks on.  And her hands are just itchin' to get that phone back.

I'll let you into a secret - we were breaking the law that afternoon! Of course if anyone from Chicago Lakeshore Police is reading this I'll deny everything and say I was just writing it to appear hip and cool and dangerous like.  The act involved a degree of planning prior to leaving the house - namely decanting a certain clearish liquid from a bottle into an innocuous-looking soft drink container and consuming said liquid in the vicinity of the Lake.  You're not allowed to do that and if you're caught, they make you pour it out!  How horrible would that be!  Luckily we weren't caught - although it was pretty close at one point.  But most of the evidence had been consumed by that stage anyway so it wouldn't have been a complete disaster.  Oh yes, we like living close to the edge, we do...  Truth be told that's about as close to the edge as I've ever lived in my whole 55 years on this planet.  Sad, isn't it?

HP5+ via the 'Blad, ID-11 (1+1 for 13 mins) printed on Adox MCC or Ilford Classic.

Clouds

I snapped up some clouds the other day - tried to re-create their 3D quality on some distinctly 2D Adox MCC paper:

Clouds over Portstewart, HP5+/ID-11/Adox MCC paper

Not as abstract as those other, slightly more famous clouds - you know the ones, right? - these ones.  But hey ho you have to start somewhere.

I've been laid up for a few days on account of my legs and Ey By Gum it's driving me nuts.  I may have mentioned before that I rarely sit, on account of my ankylosing spondylitis and the associated pain and stiffness, so when I'm forced to lie about doing nothing it's akin to torture. I find it challenging.  In the extreme.

But as chance would have it I had recently taken ownership of a book I'd been after for a while - Edge of Darkness by Yer Man Barry Thornton.  Mr Thornton was a very well-known photographer, lecturer and author who passed away about 15 years ago.  He had pretty fixed views on a lot of things from what I can gather, but one thing that shone out was his love of photography, his never-ending questioning of why things are done in a particular way and his never-ending quest for improvement.  You might say he was borderline obsessive as he left no stone unturned. Anyway, the book was a god-send to me in my current situation and chapters of it got read and re-read more than once.

The sections on film developers was particularly relevant to me since I'd recently been trying RO9 as a replacement for my go-to developer, ID-11.  If you remember this shot a couple of days ago, I got a film which was very low in contrast and grainier than I would normally like, after developing HP5+ in RO9.  My first thought was that the RO9 had 'gone off' but a quick question posted on the film-and-darkroom-user forum (FADU) suggested that this was most unlikely.  The overwhelming response from other FADU people suggested that RO9 and HP5+ was not a good combination, so I went back to my trusted ID-11 for the next film and all was good again.  The shot you see here was from that one.

However, Mr Thornton's book has piqued my curiosity with regard to other developers and I've a notion to give Perceptol a try.  It might not suit every subject matter, but it looks like it could work well with HP5+ in certain lighting situations.  We shall see.  I shall of course report my findings in the usual way...

Portstewart Bay

There's a handy car park just above the harbour in Portstewart that has doubles up as a decent viewing point.  It means I can work from the boot of the car, which I like doing and is particularly handy if the weather is poor.  It can get very windy up there and the car can act as a useful shield.  If I'm feeling brave (not often) I'll take a few steps along the path you see here towards the cliff edge, but I find myself less inclined to do that these days.

This shot was taken last week on a decent day weather-wise.  It needed a little bit of work in the darkroom - burning in the sky at around grade 4 and dodging the foreground a little.  Here's the end result, on Adox MCC fibre paper:

Portstewart Bay, looking towards Castlerock/Magilligan Point.  Hasselblad, 80mm, orange filter

Benchmark

OK so it's just a bench - probably with a few marks on it, though. One I snapped a while back on a wander around the grounds of Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast.  It's the bone hospital in Northern Ireland - caters for anyone with joint problems of any description.  MPH has an interesting history - it has always been a bone hospital but was also an Army hospital during The Troubles.  As a result it became a place with a world-class reputation for joint reconstruction.  It would be pushing the boundaries to say At least some good came out of those 30-odd years of strife, but perhaps the surgeons and nurses of MPH might come close to the top of that very short list.

It's where I had my last hip replacement performed about 8 years ago and every so often I go back for an X-Ray and check-up.  I nearly always end up having some time on my hands between consultations so like to wander around the grounds with a camera of some sort.  On this occasion it was the Nikon, most likely with the Vivitar 35-85mm zoom attached.  I liked the shapes and shadows on this bench but I was squeezed up against a wall trying to get the shot I wanted.  Probably a 28mm would have been the ticket, but there's never one around when you need it...

Bench at Musgrave Park Hospital, Belfast.  HP5+ on Adox MCC paper.

Weather closing in...

Down on Portstewart Strand the other day and the weather was closing in from Donegal.  I turned earlier than usual and made it back to the car just in time - others weren't so lucky and got caught in a massive hailshower.  All fairly normal for the time of year - full wet weather gear is required pretty much every day when going to the beach.  And on the days when you look out the window and think "Ach I'll chance it today" you're guaranteed to be changing out of wet jeans as soon as you get home...

Portstewart Strand, early February

The couple in the shot were like this for just long enough for me to get one frame off - then they turned and legged it. I’m pretty sure they didn’t succeed in reaching shelter before the hail started.

Via the Nikon and an old Vivitar Series 1 zoom lens @ 85mm or thereabouts. HP5 in RO9 but I think it had gone off as the negs were very grainy and very low in contrast. I was lucky - the low contrast suited this scene OK, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to trust RO9 as much as I would have liked. It might be back to ID-11 for a while.

In the pits

One from The Archives.  This one you might have seen before, but not in printed form.  Taken in 1977 during a walkabout in 'The Pits' at the North West 200 Motorcycle Road Race, which happens around these parts every May.

The bike belonged to Kevin Stowe - the clue is his name sign-written on the fairing :)  He had a low number so was one of the elite racers of the day.  Nowadays I don't think you can get near the bikes in the pits.

I like the boy stood in awe at the machine - dressed as he is in his Sunday best.  But I also like the guy on the right - the one with the pipe.  He looks the part, all sophisticated and man-of-the-world like - until you notice his umbrella tied with a piece of string.  But that’s what life was like here in the 70s - no-one had anything, really.  Plus he would have needed the umbrella, naturally, since we're talking May in The Liberties - anything can fall from the skies (and usually does).

In the pits at the NW200.  Snapped in 1977, printed in 2019.  Adox MCC paper 9.5"x12"

Kevin Stowe, by the way, was seriously injured a couple of years later in an accident at the North West - the one I captured here.  He never rode again.  Many others didn't to get make that decision - it doesn't take many prisoners, Irish Road Racing.