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| M-T, May 2019. On Adox paper. |
Thursday, 27 June 2019
The Recumbent Cyclist
My friend - let's call her M-T, is a keen cyclist but since she has rods up her back (car accident - long story - another time maybe) she uses a recumbent bicycle. As they say around there this thing is Some job, hi and I'm told (by her partner, who uses a 'normal' bike) that she can get serious speed up on it. Anyway, here she is at the start of the Charity Ride precursor to the North West 200 Motorbike Races:
M-T is an interesting lady. Ex rally-driver, academic and entrepreneur I think it's fair to say she doesn't let the grass grow under her feet. She's half the person she used to be, mind you, and there lies another story. For years she was - how shall we put this, on the large side and had a whole dose of health-related problems. But she healed herself - literally, by doing her own research. She went up quite a few blind alleys along the way, mind you, and I recall a time when every month she would be talking about another possible syndrome she might have. Lesser people might have given up but eventually M-T identified a food intolerance she had, which was inhibiting her body's ability to process the drugs she was taking for thyroid malfunction. I hadn't seen her for a while and one day I called to see what the craic was. I was talking to her partner when the door opened and she strode purposefully in - didn't speak and walked right up to me. I nearly dropped to the floor in shock - she was, literally, half the size she had been. It was one of those moments where you're not sure you're still talking to the same person. Incredible. I must have known her for 10 years and to see her looking so different took some getting used to. A lesson to us all to - as Journey sang all those years ago - Don't stop believin'...
Monday, 24 June 2019
Meanwhile, back on the farm...
Well not on the farm per se, but the Ballymoney Agricultural Show. A couple more for you and the associated verbals.
The girl here and her wee Jersey Cow were standing some way off from the main crowd and there was no-one else around so I headed over that way and asked her about her pet - for that is what it was, I learnt. 'Like a big dog' she said. She would have stood all day and chatted and when I asked for a photograph she was only too happy... 'Do you want the cow's head in it, too' she asked as she pulled her wee cow in close to her. Did I?!
I asked about the fact that the cow's ribs seemed to be very prominent and from her reply I gathered that the cow was in perfect condition. I did notice other animals in a similar state and some looked liked they'd been shaved along the rib lines to accentuate them even more.
I think it’s fairly safe to say this is father and son. Dad there was spraying and back-combing the animal which Junior was about to lead to the Showing Ring. The lad was very proud and when he saw me approach with the camera stood tall and posed for me superbly. It was some size of an animal he was working with there and I was glad he seemed to have a good grasp of the rope.
On another note, Missy's exams have finally finished - a month after they started. It was a long month - she did almost nothing else except eat, sleep and revise. But like all things it has come to an end and now we can all relax a little. For Missy that means Music Festivals in Belfast for the next couple of weeks. For us it means trying to stay awake to the wee hours in order to pick her up from the train. And just maybe I'll get out and about with a camera and into the darkroom again...
The girl here and her wee Jersey Cow were standing some way off from the main crowd and there was no-one else around so I headed over that way and asked her about her pet - for that is what it was, I learnt. 'Like a big dog' she said. She would have stood all day and chatted and when I asked for a photograph she was only too happy... 'Do you want the cow's head in it, too' she asked as she pulled her wee cow in close to her. Did I?!
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| Ballymoney Show, 2019. Hasselblad, HP5+@250iso, ID-11, Adox paper |
I asked about the fact that the cow's ribs seemed to be very prominent and from her reply I gathered that the cow was in perfect condition. I did notice other animals in a similar state and some looked liked they'd been shaved along the rib lines to accentuate them even more.
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| Proud handler |
I think it’s fairly safe to say this is father and son. Dad there was spraying and back-combing the animal which Junior was about to lead to the Showing Ring. The lad was very proud and when he saw me approach with the camera stood tall and posed for me superbly. It was some size of an animal he was working with there and I was glad he seemed to have a good grasp of the rope.
On another note, Missy's exams have finally finished - a month after they started. It was a long month - she did almost nothing else except eat, sleep and revise. But like all things it has come to an end and now we can all relax a little. For Missy that means Music Festivals in Belfast for the next couple of weeks. For us it means trying to stay awake to the wee hours in order to pick her up from the train. And just maybe I'll get out and about with a camera and into the darkroom again...
Thursday, 20 June 2019
FSA Toner
I had a bit of a play the other day making some home-brew toner. Commonly known as FSA and not strictly speaking a toner but a re-developer. The nice thing about being able to mix your own from raw chemicals is the ability to vary the relative quantities of the ingredients and then observe the effect. But these prints are just a first step into the world of FSA.
These probably weren't the best prints to use but they were at hand. The process can be summarised as follows. They’d already been dried so first they got a soak in water. Then bleached in a potassium iodide solution followed by a good wash - you can either bleach to completion or if you want a split-tone effect then pull the print whenever you want. Then into the toner for a few minutes before another fix and then a final wash.
FSA toner is a strange brew as once mixed, the toner takes an hour or so to activate and then only has a lifetime of between 1 to 3 hours. So a bit of planning is required to ensure you're ready to rock within the timeframe. For the record, the toning mixture I used was 5g of thiourea with 30g of sodium carbonate and then 1000ml of water. Apparently a little heating of the tray during the toning helps things along a bit. All this information taken from Tim Rudman's Toning book, by the way.
For the initial bleach stage there are a few options depending on the colours you want in the final print. I went for the 'red' potassium iodide bleach, which is 9.6g of potassium iodide and 35g of potassium ferricyanide again in 1000ml of water. It's a slow starter but once it gets going it's quick enough. Prints need to be fully fixed beforehand to avoid staining and need a good wash before the toning stage. After toning prints should then be re-fixed - preferably in a non-rapid fixer which uses sodium thiosulphate rather than ammonium thiosulphate. I only had Ilford Rapid Fixer to hand so used it. And if you bleach too much you can always re-develop the print and start over.
In this second print the highlights were already pretty faint in the middle of the print and the bleach has almost but removed them completely. I probably should have redeveloped the print a little afterward bleaching to bring back a little more detail. I think the ideal would be to over-print the negative slightly in the first place so that's what I shall try to remember to do next time.
Anyway I like the colours - these were both, I think, on Adox MCC paper. The nice thing about FSA is that since it's really a redeveloper it is supposed to work on all papers, not just ones that tone easily. I think with the right print there could be a lot of mileage with this mixture.
These probably weren't the best prints to use but they were at hand. The process can be summarised as follows. They’d already been dried so first they got a soak in water. Then bleached in a potassium iodide solution followed by a good wash - you can either bleach to completion or if you want a split-tone effect then pull the print whenever you want. Then into the toner for a few minutes before another fix and then a final wash.
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| Portstewart Harbour |
FSA toner is a strange brew as once mixed, the toner takes an hour or so to activate and then only has a lifetime of between 1 to 3 hours. So a bit of planning is required to ensure you're ready to rock within the timeframe. For the record, the toning mixture I used was 5g of thiourea with 30g of sodium carbonate and then 1000ml of water. Apparently a little heating of the tray during the toning helps things along a bit. All this information taken from Tim Rudman's Toning book, by the way.
For the initial bleach stage there are a few options depending on the colours you want in the final print. I went for the 'red' potassium iodide bleach, which is 9.6g of potassium iodide and 35g of potassium ferricyanide again in 1000ml of water. It's a slow starter but once it gets going it's quick enough. Prints need to be fully fixed beforehand to avoid staining and need a good wash before the toning stage. After toning prints should then be re-fixed - preferably in a non-rapid fixer which uses sodium thiosulphate rather than ammonium thiosulphate. I only had Ilford Rapid Fixer to hand so used it. And if you bleach too much you can always re-develop the print and start over.
In this second print the highlights were already pretty faint in the middle of the print and the bleach has almost but removed them completely. I probably should have redeveloped the print a little afterward bleaching to bring back a little more detail. I think the ideal would be to over-print the negative slightly in the first place so that's what I shall try to remember to do next time.
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| Portstewart Bay, towards Donegal |
Anyway I like the colours - these were both, I think, on Adox MCC paper. The nice thing about FSA is that since it's really a redeveloper it is supposed to work on all papers, not just ones that tone easily. I think with the right print there could be a lot of mileage with this mixture.
Monday, 17 June 2019
Champion Dorsets
Once the Champion Sheep are chosen - after much deliberation, I should add - then it's time to pose for photographs. I should perhaps add that these sheep are not just any sheep - they are the best Dorsets in Ulster this year.
Yup, I know what you're thinking. Why are we looking at the wrong end of the sheep? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that - I failed to ask the obvious question. All I can offer is that this seems to be the important end of the animal, as far as Showing and Judging goes, at any rate. The judge there was flown in from Cornwall so it was a pretty big event.
Some of the sheep decided they wanted individual shots - and why not, eh?
Now this was an interesting time. Getting the sheep to stand still for a second or two, ideally showing it's best side and with head up - and without the support of its handlers - was no mean feat I can tell you. With luck you might just get a couple of seconds before the sheep realised it was more or less a free agent and could run off - which it tried to do many, many times. The impressive thing was how its handler (the girl above) could detect a few nano-seconds before the sheep broke position that it was going to do precisely that. The signs were too subtle for me to detect but she could see what was about about to happen and most times - most times - was able to throw her arms around the sheep's neck and prevent it from making a bid for freedom. A couple of times she was too slow and the sheep would get free and run buck mad around the pen. Once it came a little too close to me for comfort - and a sturdy sheep in a mad panic takes some bringing down, I can tell you. But luckily I survived to tell the tale...
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| Champion Dorsets, Ballymoney Agricultural Show 2019. HP5+ in ID-11, Adox paper in WT developer |
Yup, I know what you're thinking. Why are we looking at the wrong end of the sheep? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that - I failed to ask the obvious question. All I can offer is that this seems to be the important end of the animal, as far as Showing and Judging goes, at any rate. The judge there was flown in from Cornwall so it was a pretty big event.
Some of the sheep decided they wanted individual shots - and why not, eh?
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| Posing the Champ |
Thursday, 13 June 2019
This little sheep didn't want to go to market...
This wee sheeplet didn't look like it wanted to be dragged into the Showing Ring - but Grandad and Grandson had other ideas:
From what I could see, most of the Showing of animals is something the younger members of the farming community take on, with the Dads, Mums and Grandparents all helping out. It's a real team effort and winning or losing is met with the same stoicism. I think it's fair to say your average North Antrim person is fairly reserved in nature and to be honest I don't think there's much wrong with that. The girls and boys I saw all had an air of quiet confidence about them - perhaps born out of the fact that they've been working with animals all their lives and they know what they're about. Like the young man in the shot above, they know when to roll their sleeves up and get in there, rather than hang back and wait for events to happen. As you can probably tell, I was mightily impressed.
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| Ballymoney Agricultural Show, 2019. Hasselblad, HP5+, ID-11, Adox paper, Fotospeed WT developer |
Monday, 10 June 2019
A Grand Day Out
So last weekend I ventured to the Annual Ballymoney Agricultural Show and what a great day it was. I was well armed with a ton of 35mm film for the rangefinder and 120 film for the Hasselblad as well. In the end I just shot with the 'Blad - it seemed like the right tool for the occasion, for some reason, although changing films in the middle of a field surrounded by sheep and farming paraphernalia was a bit tricky - the first time, anyway. I shot 4 films that day - a whopping 48 exposures and that was a lot for me with the Hasselblad. But I couldn't resist, as everywhere I looked there seemed to be a shot worth taking.
This was the first or maybe second shot of the day and set the tone for the rest. Almost no-one seemed to mind having a camera pointed at them - in fact, most seemed to be delighted. They were in their finest clothes, you see. Plus their animals were in tip-top condition and they were proud to be showing them off - and rightly so, as preparation for showing starts a few months beforehand, so I was informed. All the washing, clipping, pampering so that on the day they would catch the eye of the judges.
Just for the record, I was rating HP5+ at 250iso and metering with the little Sekonic 308 (which fits nicely in the top pocket of a shirt, by the way). Developed in my usual ID-11 1+1 for 13 minutes and printed on Adox MCC fibre paper in Fotospeed WT-10 developer at roughly 1+20 dilution. I was reading somewhere that the Adox developer works well with this paper so I might get some to see if the rumours are indeed correct.
This was the first or maybe second shot of the day and set the tone for the rest. Almost no-one seemed to mind having a camera pointed at them - in fact, most seemed to be delighted. They were in their finest clothes, you see. Plus their animals were in tip-top condition and they were proud to be showing them off - and rightly so, as preparation for showing starts a few months beforehand, so I was informed. All the washing, clipping, pampering so that on the day they would catch the eye of the judges.
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| Ballymoney Agricultural Show, 2019. HP5+, Adox MCC paper |
Just for the record, I was rating HP5+ at 250iso and metering with the little Sekonic 308 (which fits nicely in the top pocket of a shirt, by the way). Developed in my usual ID-11 1+1 for 13 minutes and printed on Adox MCC fibre paper in Fotospeed WT-10 developer at roughly 1+20 dilution. I was reading somewhere that the Adox developer works well with this paper so I might get some to see if the rumours are indeed correct.
Thursday, 6 June 2019
Hair
This is a print from a shot taken around 1976, of my dad. Like a lot of men in those days he had the Bobby Charlton 'comb-over' - although as you can see, it rarely did the job it was intended to do, namely, disguise a receding hairline. I've been lucky enough (?) to inherit my dad's hair genes but I prefer a Number 1 cut - much easier to work with. And I save a small fortune on shampoo, brushes, combs, hairdryers, etc :)
This would have been the OM-1 pointed at him back then, which he probably didn't care much for at the time as he was clearly in the middle of making something. He renovated the kitchen around then - him and my grandfather re-built it themselves. He was good with his hands, was my dad. He was a trained architect, but for some reason ended up in education, as did his brother. As did I. And my brother. Yup, there's a definite trend there in the males of the family which I'm sure y'all spotted...
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| My father, c1976. Printed 2019, Adox paper |
This would have been the OM-1 pointed at him back then, which he probably didn't care much for at the time as he was clearly in the middle of making something. He renovated the kitchen around then - him and my grandfather re-built it themselves. He was good with his hands, was my dad. He was a trained architect, but for some reason ended up in education, as did his brother. As did I. And my brother. Yup, there's a definite trend there in the males of the family which I'm sure y'all spotted...
Monday, 3 June 2019
Towards Rathlin
Probably the last of the prints from Ballintoy Harbour - this time looking out towards Rathlin Island. Not very much is sharp in this shot - light was fading fast and I was handholding the 'Blad most likely at f/4. There was a low-lying mist near Rathlin and everything was very still and serene. Good for the soul - apart from the fact that there was a dozen or so photographers prancing about all over the place. But it's a big enough place that we weren't tripping over each other so it worked out well enough.
This was another of those prints that I wasn't too sure about. When it came out of the fix it looked way too light with almost nothing in the sky at all. But - as we all know, right? - most fibre papers will darken as they dry (the 'dry-down' effect) so in the finished print the detail in the clouds is fine.
I'm hoping to get back in the darkroom soon - it's about a week since I printed and generally speaking I like to print twice a week if at all possible. Too long a break and I seem to lose that intuitive quality about what will work and what won't. But Missy is doing her first big national exams (GCSEs) this month and Yours Truly here is Tutor #1. Not that I'm any good with Chemistry or Biology but I can help out with the Physics and Maths side of things. That, and the general exam technique which doesn't seem to be taught in schools these days. It's been a lot of fun, actually, checking out the exam syllabi and poring over past papers to try to predict what might come up. We had a bit of good fortune with her Physics paper last week, since two of the questions we looked at in the morning of her paper came up. Doesn't happen often, that, but we'll take it when it does. Fingers crossed for more good fortune like that this week...
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| HP5+ in the Hasselblad, ID-11 developer, Adox MCC paper. |
I'm hoping to get back in the darkroom soon - it's about a week since I printed and generally speaking I like to print twice a week if at all possible. Too long a break and I seem to lose that intuitive quality about what will work and what won't. But Missy is doing her first big national exams (GCSEs) this month and Yours Truly here is Tutor #1. Not that I'm any good with Chemistry or Biology but I can help out with the Physics and Maths side of things. That, and the general exam technique which doesn't seem to be taught in schools these days. It's been a lot of fun, actually, checking out the exam syllabi and poring over past papers to try to predict what might come up. We had a bit of good fortune with her Physics paper last week, since two of the questions we looked at in the morning of her paper came up. Doesn't happen often, that, but we'll take it when it does. Fingers crossed for more good fortune like that this week...
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