A day for sitting...and street photography

The last couple of weeks have been really quite warm in and around the North East Liberties of Coleraine, although near the coast where we live there have been days when a cooling sea mist has appeared.  That's  both good and bad, but go inland a couple of miles and it's been full sun - and hotter than I ever remember it being here.  Nothing like California or Nevada or the West Coast of Canada are currently experiencing, thank goodness, but still, for this part of the world things have been bordering on the 'uncomfortably hot'.  That's high-70s, in case you were wondering.  Don't laugh - I know, it's pretty pathetic.  

My wife fancied a wee trip to Ballymoney last week - and why not, eh?  Ballymoney, aka Cow Town, is a grand wee place and the people are as straight as they come and friendly with it.  While my wife did the Charity Shops I dandered up and down with the 'Blad, a 50mm wide-angle lens and some FP4+ inside.  The Hasselblad is, I think, a pretty good street camera, in spite of it's size and weight.  It's a slower shooting camera than a 35mm and so often I'm stood framing a shot for a length of time, while people wander into and out of the shot.  Maybe since I'm looking down into the camera rather than directly at them (as you would with most 35mm cameras) they feel less intimidated.  Not that it mattered in this shot, since the main subjects had their back to me...

Ballymoney on a warm day in July 2021.  Hasselblad, 50mm Distagon, FP4 in RO9 on Foma 313 paper.

You can tell it was warm - folk were sitting down.  I had to wait a while until I got a break in the traffic to get this car-free shot - Ballymoney can be a busy wee place.  The guy on the bench in the background just makes this shot, I think - plus the fact that there is no-one walking around.

It makes me smile to myself when I see older guys with their sports coat/blazer on, like the gentleman on the left of the bench.  When I was a lad most adult men wore a shirt with a collar, tie and tweed jacket 365 days of the year and the jacket was very rarely off them, no matter what the weather was like.  That was certainly the case for my grandfather and uncle, who dressed like that even on days we went fishing.  The last time I wore a jacket and tie was when I was working and I can say with some confidence I will rarely do so again - weddings and funerals perhaps, otherwise, no - these days I feel much more comfortable in less formal gear.