More old stones

 From our walk around Bonamargy:

Via the Hasselblad/50mm, on FP4+ in HC-110 (1:31 for 9 minutes in case you were wondering), printed on MG Classic fibre paper.

I think there's a better shot/print in this than I've managed here, and I shall endeavour to capture it next time I am there.  The inclusion of part of the gravestone (bottom right) adds a little context to the scene.  Who knows, next time I might even capture the ghost of the Black Nun, which is said to walk around the walls of the friary.  Sister Julia took to living in the friary after it had been abandoned in 1641 and was something of a prophetess, according to the story.  It is unclear whether she was murdered or slipped and fell to her death, but she is buried by the entrance to the building, by her wishes, so that visitors would have to walk over her grave as they entered to worship...a testament to her humility.  

This one required a little dodging of the interior, which I didn't want to go to black.  Still, the outside stonework here (and in the print above) is a bit lighter than I would like it.  I elected not to re-print either of them, since I wasn't 100% happy with the focus.  Another one I shall re-take next time I'm there.

Bonamargy Friary on FP4+

Bonamargy (what a great name - it means 'foot of the Margy river', apparently) Friary lies just East of Ballycastle, about a 20minute drive from Chez McNeill.  I met my fellow film shooter David there last week for a morning's entertainment.  And very good it was, too.  Access is limited, so we parked at the Golf Club, with fingers crossed they wouldn't actually hit us with a £100 fine like the notices suggested (they didn't).   Five minutes later we crossed the third fairway (part of the golf course appears to be built around the friary) and entered the walled abbey through the graveyard.  This was taken as we were leaving, when the light was rather nice and soft:

Entrance to the friary, on an October morning in 2021.  I had the 50mm Distagon on the 'Blad and at first look I thought I managed to provoke a little flare with the light coming through the trees.   I can't be sure, though - I think it may just be the light hitting a branch.  The stone on the left is dedicated to all the unknowns buried in the grounds. Up until recently I always reached for RO9 when developing FP4+ but I've found that 9 minutes in HC-110 dilution B (1:31) does just as well and that's what was used here.  Printed on the luscious Ilford MG Classic fibre paper and very lightly toned in a weak home-brew thiourea mix as per Tim Rudman's recipe for Rayco toner, which just warms the print every so slightly.

Bonamargy was originally built around1500 by a certain Rory McQuillan but those pesky folks from the rival McDonnell Clan took over in about 1588.  There's a sealed vault somewhere inside which apparently holds the coffins of several Earls of Ulster, including the main man himself, Sorley Boy McDonnell (him of Dunluce Castle fame and on the receiving end of the massacre of his children and faithful Clan members at Rathlin Island).   The name Sorley Boy is an Anglicised version of Somhairle Buidh (Mac Domhnaill).  Somhairle is itself a Gaelicised form of a Viking name, meaning Summer Wanderer, of the yellow hair (son of Donnell).  Hope you are paying attention as I'll be checking later...

The ruins of the friary are rather spectacular, I have to say - well worth a visit if you are in the vicinity. The stonework in particular caught my eye:

Superb stonework makes up the friary walls.

I need to return to Bonamargy some time with a tripod thing - FP4+ isn't the fastest film on the planet and to be able to hand-hold the Hasselblad meant shooting at f/4 or f/5.6, which isn't the best idea when you need a bit of depth of field.   There is some restoration work going on at the minute (and for some considerable time, the locals tells me), so there's a bit of scaffolding around parts of the ruins.  I stood and watched a couple of workmen for a while - they were re-pointing some of the stonework and I could see they had replaced at least one window arch as well.  I hope they do whatever needs to be done to weather it so that it blends in a bit more sympathetically, as at the minute it sticks out like a sore thumb. We shall see...

Brown's Café and Camp Coffee

It takes a while in any new place before you suss out the best places to go for a cup of tea and a bun.  Generally I try to avoid the big chains on the High Street - I'd rather give my hard-earned £ to a local establishment.  Besides, the big chains are just so achingly boring - the same fare pretty much in them all, and extortionate prices to go along with their baristas, flat whites and lattés.  I stopped drinking coffee a couple of decades ago so I never had to learn what all these new terms meant.  In my day, I just drank black filter coffee - much simpler!  One of the best and most reliable coffees, I'm a little embarrassed to say, was to be found in McD's.  I've no idea if that is still the case.  

Funnily enough the other day I found myself thinking about the coffee in the hospital in Bath I used to attend - the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (see here).  When I first was an in-patient, in 1983, the only coffee you could get on the wards was this odd concoction which went by the name of 'Camp Coffee', which was a thick syrup that came in a glass bottle containing, I read, sugar, coffee essence and...wait for it...chicory.  You just added a spoonful to boiling water and in case you were wondering Yes it tasted as awful as you might expect.  I guess it made financial sense and England was always a nation of tea-drinkers so there probably wasn't too much complaining about it from the patients.  Besides, generally speaking in the UK it's a brave soul that criticises anything to do with front-line services in the National Health Service.  Managers and politicians are fair game but we all know that on the ground, in the operating theatres and on the wards everyone does their best, given the resources available to them.   And that last bit is, of course, the issue.  The last report from the Office of National Statistics shows that healthcare spending in the UK in 2017 was the second-lowest in the G7 group of large, developed countries and about the median in OECD countries.  My guess is that since then we've gone backwards in comparison with other countries and I doubt we're ever going to catch up without some radical reform.  And I'll leave any more thoughts on that for another time.

Back in Oxford, fortunately we happened upon the Covered Market, just off the main drag.  It's a treasure-trove of small, independent businesses - everything from hand-made soap to cheese shops and places to eat.  Brown's Café did us nicely for tea and a late breakfast:

Shadowy figures in the Covered Market.  OM4ti/85mm/HP5 via HC-110, on Adox MCC.

Brown's must be doing something right as they've been going since 1924.  I'll have to make sure to visit during their centenary - their apple pie looked the business. 

As you can see the shop next door sells fancy cakes and they did look rather special.  You can gawp through the window and watch them at work, as we did for a few minutes.  There was an older couple in front of us.  My wife told me afterwards the lady turned to her husband and said 'Why would I want to buy one of those when I can make one just as good at home?'.  The husband replied something along the lines of 'Yes, dear'.  Sometimes it's good not to be able to hear too well as I may have had difficulty keeping a straight face with that one...

College Entrances

 I think you could spend quite a while photographing Oxford College Entrances.  This is Magdalen (pronounced Maudlen), just along the High Street.  It dates from 1458:

Magdalen College Entrance in 2021.  OM4ti/85mm, via HP5 & HC-110.  Cropped from 35mm and printed on the lovely Adox MCC fibre paper. Yer Man there has obviously clocked me, standing on the opposite side of the street. I had been standing a while, waiting for break in the traffic and spotted him a way off, striding purposefully along.  I was fortunate to get him on his own, without other distractions.

Brasenose College Entrance, dating from 1509:

This is actually a more typical scene in the city, with the bicycle exiting stage right.  Bicycles are ubiquitous in the city and would appear to be the preferred mode of transport, particularly for students.  You have to be careful where you leave them, though - we saw quite a few notices along the lines of  'Bicycles left here will be removed'.  I guess the metal locks they use can do a bit of damage to the railings, which are rather lovely and definitely worthy of a photograph in themselves, although that will have to wait until next time...  

Mural

Another mural from Belfast, which we happened on by chance as we walked around the Cathedral Quarter (which is the cool part of the city nowadays, with a smattering of restaurants and bars).  This one was big - really big - but strangely was tucked away behind a small car park, between apartment blocks and warehouses, out of sight.  

I was lucky to get the seagull in the shot.  Pity it wasn't a dove (I'm guessing it's the dove of peace in the artwork), but there you go.  So close to being a masterpiece...again:

Belfast Mural.  Cropped to square from 35mm.  Yashica T4, HP5 on Foma 133 paper.

We're just back from another trip to see Missy in Oxford.  It was a late flight and we weren't home until midnight.  I'm a bit rusty when it comes to booking flights, since the last couple of years have been 'stay-at-home' years.  Usually I just pick the cheapest option but a late flight is a waste - it just feels like you are hanging around all day waiting for the inevitable.  An earlier start would have been better - just get up and get on with it.  

The good news is that Missy is settling in OK.  She looked tired, though.  Her halls are noisy which is good and bad.  Good in that there's always stuff going on which hopefully mitigates the fact that you are away from home and missing all of that.  Bad in that it can be difficult to get a good sleep at times, since there's always somebody blasting out music at all hours of the day and night.  If the wardens get a complaint she says they will visit and ask for it to be turned down, but it's a half-hearted request and they don't enforce it too rigorously. 

And now I'm away to develop the one and only film I shot on the trip.  It was another quick-in-quick-out visit, just two nights so there wasn't a lot of time for anything other than trying to feed Missy up as much as possible and re-stock her larder.  We've one more visit planned before the Christmas break.  I think after that we might not be needed quite as much.  The second semester is broken by Easter so it won't feel like such a long stint and by then she'll be much more comfortable with the whole Student Thing.  It's a big change for her and she is one of the younger ones, only just turning 18 at the start of the summer, so she's doing well.  She's off today on a field trip, which will keep her busy.  Something to do with trees, apparently.  Sounds good to me!

Winch

I'm guessing this is used to haul in the nets, which means there must still be a few fish in the seas around Portrush:

Fishing net crane on an overcast day in Portrush.  Benbane Head in the distance.  OM4ti/85mm/HP5/HC-110/Foma 133.

Dominican College

On Tuesday I said a formal Au Revoir to my fellow Governors at Dominican College, Portstewart and bowed out.  It has been a rewarding experience and hopefully I was of some help in moving the school forward.  I was fortunate in that my tenure coincided with a major expansion of the school (due in part to another school in the area closing) as well as the school reaching its 100th birthday so it was an interesting and challenging period and there was plenty to do.  Dominican College must have one of the most dramatic locations around, perched as it is on the edge of the cliff overlooking Portstewart Bay and out towards the Inishowen Peninsula & Donegal.  We used to meet in the front room which has magnificent views from its three large windows...I must admit there were times during Governors Meetings it was a challenge to concentrate on the matters in hand rather than the matters out there.

Dominican College, Portstewart, Binevenagh in the background.  Donegal lies away to the right, just out of shot.  On the Yashica T4&HP5+, on Foma 133 paper.

There's nice grain in this print, due to the fact that it was taken on the diminutive Yashica T4 point and shoot camera and enlarged to a good degree in the darkroom.  The negative was lacking in bite but in those cases I significantly underexpose under the enlarger and use a heavily diluted developer - with patience the mid-tones and highlights come good.

Before I became a Governor I had no affiliation to the College and although I no longer have a formal role to play any more, I will always think fondly of the place and the people in it.  I feel fortunate to have been part of it, if only for a few years.

Lines

This scene in Portrush caught my eye the other day.  The guy half-way up the steps just turned in my direction as he paused for his dog (hidden in the bushes). 

Portrush, 2021.  OM4ti/85mm, HP5+ in HC-110 on Foma 133 paper.

I'm not sure he adds much, if anything, to the shot - given where's he standing he's not that noticeable. I might have been better waiting until someone was walking down the centre part of the steps, between the two sets of railings.  Or maybe no-one.  Patience was in short supply that morning.

I like the 85mm focal length on 35mm cameras but for the way I shoot it's as long as I want to go these days.  I'd sometimes think I'd like to try something between 50 and 85 but there ain't many about.  I'm not a big fan of zoom lenses - I seem to work better with one camera/one fixed lens combination at a time.  Leica do a 75mm and while I'm sure I would enjoy playing with it their 75mm lenses are all relatively new and therefore somewhat unaffordable.  Besides, I think the Leica works best with wide-angles and 50mm lengths. I've an older 90mm for the M6 which I picked up a few years for not too much money but it doesn't get a lot of use.