Titanic Workers

A mural from the the famous Sandy Row in Belfast depicts the Titanic Workers, many of which came from this working class area.  The Titanic is Belfast shipyard's most famous export by a country mile - for all the wrong reasons, of course.  There are a lot of murals around this part of Belfast and I snapped up a few while I was there but I've come to the conclusion they aren't the easiest things to get a decent shot of.  I cut most of the letters out of the frame since the workers were the most interesting part of the mural to my eyes, not the word Titanic.

The history of the Harland and Wolff shipyards is interesting in itself and while it is well known that the workers were overwhelming Protestant this article scratches beneath the surface of that headline.  Anyway, to the masterpiece!

Belfast Mural, 2021.  Yashica T4, HP5 printed on MGV paper. 

Check out the paint tins - and the dog! On the right, just above the workers you might just be able to make out a sketch of the Titanic Museum, which is designed as four pointed hulls, 38m high, the same height as the ill-fated ship.  Also, I didn't notice at the time but it looks like there's a hidden door to the building on the right.

A Grand Entrance

This one was lurking at the start of a film which finally got finished last week.  It's always nice to come across some shots you've forgotten about although generally I try not to leave a film in a camera too long.  The OM-1 that I acquired some years ago has some marks on the chrome runners inside the back of the camera, due, I was informed by the guy who serviced it, to a film having been left in it for a very long time.  Must have been years, I reckon.  The marks are still visible even after the cleaning but don't cause a problem.

Anyway, here we are at the entrance to the Downhill Demesne sometime earlier this year, with the sun casting nice shadows of the impressive ironwork gates:

Entrance gates at Downhill.  M6 on HP5+ in HC-110.  Foma 313 paper.

Shooting contra-jour is always an exposure balancing act - do you meter for the highlights, or the shadows.  The former and you'll risk the shadows going to black, the latter and you'll risk blowing the highlights.  I'll either take a couple of shots and bracket or I'll go somewhere in the middle and hope for the best, as I did here.  Assuming your negative holds detail in both shadows and highlights the trick then is to get it on the paper in some sort of acceptable form.  In this case, there's a still a hint of detail in the stone arch and the highlights aren't paper-white, so while it isn't going to win any awards I'm OK with the print.

Hiker guy at Magheracross

The lay-by at Magheracross, just outside Portrush, has been given a make-over.  They've built two circular viewing platforms which are right on the cliff edge, one to the West, looking towards the ruins of Dunluce Castle and beyond to Benbane Head.  The other looks East, over the White Rocks towards Portrush.  This shot is of the one to the West and was taken early Saturday morning:

Magheracross viewing platform, 2021.  HP5+ in HC-110, on Foma 133 paper.  The sky got a bit of a burn in, as did the sea just under the horizon; more-so on the left of the figure in order to balance out the cliffs on the right a little.  

The centre circle looks like it might get a compass addition in the middle at some time in the future - the sort of thing that points to Jura, Kintyre (or Iceland) and tells you how far away you are from those places.  If the light is good you can see the Western Isles of Scotland quite clearly from most places along the Antrim Coast but they weren't visible on Saturday morning.  I quite like the viewing platforms - before, you got to stand in the corner of a patch of boggy ground and point your photo-apparat over a wooden fence. But I'm not too good with heights and standing near the edge made me feel quite uneasy, in spite of the metal railings.

I snapped up Hiker Guy as quick as I could, as he wasn't hanging around.  I noticed him walking along the road as I drove in - there weren't many folk carrying full backpacks at 7.30 in the morning.  He was an older man - looked like he'd been camping overnight and was getting an early start.   He only stayed a minute or so on the platform and took a couple of phone snaps before getting on with wherever he was walking to.  Ordinarily I might have spoken to him but my poor hearing precludes pretty much all small talk, so I didn't try.  Besides, he looked like he was quite content with his own company.  He might have been walking the Causeway Coast Way, or part of it, which stretches from Portstewart to Ballycastle.  As the Walk NI website states, "This route...passes through the Causeway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a World Heritage Site and several Areas of Special Scientific Interest.  It includes views of wide bays, sandy beaches, dramatic cliffs and off-shore rocks".  Whatever he was doing, he was getting a fine day for it...not too cold, not too warm and what showers we had were light and short.

Lith on Foma 133

A reprint of a shot from a while back (here), but in lith developer.  I haven't done much lith on the Foma 133 paper but on the basis of this result it's not as warm as their 131 paper, which is probably no bad thing. 

Ramore Head, Portrush, looking towards Benbane Head (Causeway territory).  The Skerries islands are on the left - they are a haven for seabirds in the summer - razorbills, cormorants and guillemots.

The sky got a little burn in but otherwise it's a straight print, overexposed by 3 stops in the darkroom, if I remember correctly.  It took about 5 minutes for an image to appear and then perhaps another 5 to reach this stage.  Developer (Fotospeed lith) was 15ml A + 485 water and 15ml B + 485 water, about 25 degrees.  That was the end of my bottles of Fotospeed lith, which is now discontinued, so I'll be going back to Moersch Easylith.  

Number 11

Number 11 is where I grew up and what you see here is part of one of a pair of stone pillars that mark the entrance.  My mother daubed the numbers on in white paint about 20 years ago.

Number 11.  On FP4+ in RO9, printed on MGV paper.

Not long after I moved back to Northern Ireland from the South of England, where I had been for the best part of 20 years, we got a chance to build our own house in the field adjoining Number 11.  If you'd told me at the age of 18 that I'd be living 'back home' when I was 40 I would most likely have laughed in disbelief.  At 18, I couldn't wait to get away - The Troubles were in full swing and our society was a mess.  When I returned in 1997 things were different - the Good Friday Agreement was being drafted and most of the troops and checkpoints were gone.  We weren't out of the woods yet, though. Yesterday, the 15th August, marks the 23rd anniversary of the single worst event in the whole 30-year nightmare: Omagh.  That one car bomb in 1998 resulted in 29 deaths, including a woman pregnant with twins, 6 teenagers, 6 children, 2 Spanish tourists and over 200 injured.  I was staying in a guest house in Scotland when it came on the news - the images on the TV were unbelievably distressing. I think I went out and dulled my thought processes with the help of some local malt whisky.

It would be nice to be able to say that the Omagh Bomb marked the end of The Troubles and while things definitely settled down in the immediate aftermath, there remain a few people still of a mind that the only way to achieve the change they want is by bombing and killing.  But thankfully it's only a few - to the tourist, or causal observer, everyday life in Northern Ireland today is just the same as many other parts of the UK and Ireland.  Let's hope it stays that way.

Gate

This old gate is lying up against the side of my mother's garage wall.  It's one of those "By 'eck they don't make 'em like that any more" gates and it really is a Thing of Beauty, nicely weathered with lots of rust to show its years.  It was hanging across the entrance but the fixings to the stone gate posts were rusted through so we moved it before it fell off and caused an accident.  It should probably be inside her garage rather than outside, as it's quite steal-able but it's a ton weight.  Well, maybe not quite a ton, but it's too heavy for me to move on my own, so there it sits.  The grass has grown up around the bottom of it so nature is slowly fixing it to the Earth once more.

Gate, at my mum's house, 2021.  It was one of those 'end of roll' shots...Hasselblad, 150mm lens with extension tube. FP4+ film on MGV paper.

You might notice some strange vertical lines running down the print from the top edge.  They're not scratches - I think they are threads from spiders' webs on the gates. 

I should take a shot of the walls of the outbuildings as they are equally Things of Beauty.  They're just made from big old land stones, held together with mortar - although the mortar is more dust now, so I'm not quite sure what is holding them together any more.  They are around 100 years old, possibly more. When I was young I remember the outbuilding walls being whitewashed every few years but that hasn't been done in very long time now, so the natural stone is showing through in places.

The outlaw Cushy Glen

The road from Coleraine to Limavady stretches over a rather lonely and desolate area and for years it was known as the Murder Hole Road, on account of the actions of one Cushy Glen and his band of outlaws.  They were highwaymen and robbers in the late 18th Century and, as you might guess from the name of the road, threw their victims' bodies into a hole.  The story goes that he frequented a tavern in Coleraine and when he knew that someone (preferable someone with money) was making the journey to Limavady he would slip out quietly and lie in wait for the unsuspecting traveller.   What happened next is probably best left to the imagination.  

The story goes that in 1799 cattle farmer Harry Hopkins had made a good sale in the town and had gone to the tavern to slake his thirst before setting off for Limavady.  As he was leaving, the bartender urged him to stay the night, warning him of robbers along the mountain road but Mr Hopkins decided to chance it.  The barman sent him on his way but pushed a loaded pistol into his hands as he left.  Some time later Cushy Glen stepped out in front of Mr Hopkins' horse, pointed his pistols at him and ordered him to surrender his money.  Mr Hopkins reached forward as if to throw his bag but instead fired off his gun and hit Cushy Glen full in the chest.  His horse bolted and carried Mr Hopkins away to safety.  Cushy Glen was mortally wounded.  The local vicar was sent for by his men and taken blindfolded to his hide-out but was unable to save him.  After three days the minister was returned to his home, complete with blindfold so that he was unable to say where he had been, only that he had closed Cushy Glen's eyes after death.

The Murder Hole Road was renamed to the much less interesting Windy Hill Road some time ago but a statue of Cushy Glen was erected in a picnic area - something to interest you as you eat your sandwiches, I guess :)  It stands facing the road and is quite a spooky thing as you drive past.  I stopped off there a couple of weeks ago to see it up close and the sculptor has done a really good job of capturing the essence of a highway robber, I think:

The outlaw Cushy Glen.  Hasselblad, FP4+ in RO9 on MGV paper. As you can see, I added a strong vignette under the enlarger.  I will let you know that I suffered for my art that day.  It was very hot&sunny and as soon as I stepped out of the car I was attacked, not by a highwayman, but by horse flies, which proceeded to bite anywhere they could find a bit of exposed skin.  Next time I'll go in the winter.

I was lucky in that I could use the statue to hide a rather large waste bin and picnic table, which would have been rather distracting in the background.  They never think of us photographers when they're planning the layout of a picnic site with a statue, do they? 

 

Old Coastguard Station, Portstewart

Up above Portstewart Harbour on one side and the Herring Pond on the other sits this rather strange little brick building.  It's not used for anything these days, it just sits there and looks out over the Bay towards Donegal.  Not the first time I've photographed it and probably not the last either, but I preferred it when it was white.  It's painted a deep red colour now, so I have to put a similarly deep red filter on to make it look anyway interesting at all...

The Coastguard Thing in Portstewart. Via Hasselblad, 250mm Sonnar & FP4+ in HC-110. Foma 313 paper.

The square is hard to beat, isn't it?

Back out there

Well, not really back out there (the Ballintoy Place) - this one is from a while back but printed yesterday morning:

Ballintoy.  Cropped to 6x12 format from 35mm. HP5+/ID-11, on MGV paper.  There's just a hint of detail in the big rock formation on the right, which I like.

I've a new bit of kit in the darkroom - an LED light box.  Nothing expensive, a charity shop find by my wife, for the princely sum of £1 (so it's probably the least expensive thing in the darkroom, by some mileage). It was marketed as a Birthday Message thing and has three 'rows' separated by plastic strips.  There were no letters with it (probably accounting for the low price) but I would have been binning those anyway.  Amazingly, a strip of 120 negatives fits perfectly between the plastic strips...almost as if it's made for them.  I'm already wondering how I ever did manage without one, as I can see at a glance which negatives are worth printing and which are just 'Meh...'.  Too many in the latter category, of course but you have to try.