The end of summer

I know it's only just past mid-August and that title might seem a tad inappropriate but it feels like there's a definite change in the air here in The Liberties this last couple of days.  In the house I've been wondering about putting on an extra layer and 'putting the fire on' in the evening has already been mentioned.  And the real indicator - in the darkroom the ambient temperature of the chemicals has dropped from a perfect 20 degrees to 18.  I'm holding out for another couple of weeks on the fire front, though - and not just because the chimney needs swept.  No, once that game starts it's pretty much a nightly occurrence until May.  I don't mind so much bringing in the fuel (we use smokeless fuel in our multi-fuel stoves) but it's the daily cleaning and the huge amount of dust generated that I'm not so keen on.

Over the weekend we've alternated between torrential downpours to blue sky & sun. September can be a lovely month here in Ireland and it's usually a good time to be out and about with a camera - the light is a little clearer (less haze), clouds are getting more interesting and with a freshening wind the sky changes frequently.  I'm ready for it.

It was a busy old summer, what with GCSEs, short break in Valencia and then hosting family from all parts of the world.  While it's great to have people around for a time it's also nice to get the house back to ourselves.  We've just over a week to get the place ship-shape before the school runs start again and then it's back to that routine for another while. The Brother went back to the States yesterday, armed with several more prints for various walls - some for his home and some for his office.  These you might have seen before, but they're now mounted and finished off - it took a full day to get them prepared.  They just about fitted into Brother's suitcase, wrapped tightly in some mount card for protection, which I'm told worked as intended - they arrived intact.

First off we have my Brother's wife Kim, in pensive mode as she posed in the front porch last August:

Next up a shot from downtown Chicago by the lake - as the light was fading.  I think they were Skyping with their eldest daughter - Kim was impatient to get the phone out of my Brother's hands :)

Liam, on the left, is a good friend and colleague of my Brother.  He's another Irishman - from Cork originally - so they share a lot in common, including liking a small libation after work on occasion:

Finally some more of Brother's work colleagues:

I like this last shot a lot, printed in lith developer.  Sean in the foreground is probably talking to Brother just to my left and Michael in the background looks deep in thought, as befits a Philosopher.

All shots on the Hasselblad & Ilford HP5+ dunked in ID-11 diluted 1:1 for 13 minutes, should you be interested in such matters.  I usually expose HP5 at 250 iso.  My other go-to film, Ilford's FP4+ I expose at 80iso and develop in RO9 1:25 for 9 minutes.  Both these scenarios usually give me negatives that are easy-ish to print in the darkroom, assuming I get the exposure more or less correct.  I've taken to carrying a small Sekonic light meter with me wherever I go (one that fits neatly in my shirt pocket which means I can take an incident light reading without too much pfaffing around). I like this approach, since it means I can ignore any information in the viewfinder of the camera and just concentrate on composition.  Nine times out of 10 this works well, the only caveat being if the subject is back-lit or I'm standing in shadow and then a bit of compensation is required.