Inside Derry's Guildhall

The Guildhall in Derry~Londonderry is really something - and it has a great permanent exhibition on the Plantation of Ulster, where large swathes of land were given over to the London Guilds (Drapers, Clothworkers, Vintners, Mercers etc) on the understanding they would invest and build a brighter future for everyone.  It didn't quite work out like that, of course, but that's another story for another day (and probably somewhere else other than this place).  Anyway, I took The Brother and his daughter up to the city for a day and we did the Guildhall, the Walls and Badger's Bar & Restaurant for a spot of lunch.  I had the OM4ti with me and these handheld shots were taken with the Zuiko 24mm, on HP5+ rated at 800:

Norman & Beard Pipe Organ in the Guildhall, from 1891.  A thing of beauty it is, too. 
On Ilford MG Classic paper.

The Organ dominates one end of the Great Hall and the other end is given over to a decent amount of stained glass windows:

Stained Glass Windows of the Great Hall. 
The detail and colour of the glass is impressive - but you'll have to take my work for that. 

In other news, both my wife and I have been a bit under the weather recently, with what we assumed was a bad cold/flu.  My wife had a bad head all week whereas I was just a bit under the weather, feeling a little tired and with a bit of a cough.  We never even thought about that-other-thing, until someone suggested we do a test and sure enough, both of us tested positive.  My wife has been hit a lot harder than me but I had my last booster in May, whereas my wife's was almost a year ago, so that may well explain it.  Either way, we seem to be on the mend, albeit slowly.  As Covid began to spread, I was pretty sure we couldn't avoid getting it at some point, but the goal was always to try for that not to happen in the first wave so Mission Accomplished with regard to that.  Hopefully we'll bounce back without any lasting issues.  

S at BH

Here's my American niece, who we shall refer to as S, enjoying some good sea air at Ballintoy Harbour the other week:

'Blad/150mm Sonnar, FP4+ on Foma 133 paper.

Should that be 'whom'?  I think it should, but I'm a tad hazy on these things.

Dunluce Castle and Benbane Head

Looking East from the new viewing platform at Magheracross - the ruins of Dunluce Castle in the foreground and Benbane Head (Causeway territory) in the distance:

The view changes, not surprisingly, depending on the light and on the day we were there, the light was good.  There was a fierce wind, mind you, but that's hard to capture on film when there aren't any trees or flags around. 
Via the 'Blad/150mm Sonnar, FP4+, Ilfotec HC and Foma 133 paper.

 Apparently there was a castle here in the 13th Century but the ruins you see here date from the 16th&17th Centuries.  Dunluce served as the seat of the Earls of Antrim - either the McQuillans or the McDonnells depending on when you happened to pass by.  Eventually, when the money dried up, it was abandoned to the elements - various bits fell into the sea and stones were scavenged for other projects.  At one time, due to marriage, it was part-owned by Winston Churchill but he gave his share to the Northern Irish government in 1928.  I had a walk around it a few years ago and to be honest there isn't much to see, but it's a pleasant enough place to dander about, sit on the stones and wonder what life must have been like back in the day.  Fairly brutal, I'd imagine.

Big Seas at Ballintoy

Naturally when The Brother was over we had days out.  Pretty much every day, actually, which was great.  Ballintoy Harbour was a given and on the day we visited, the seas were spectacularly big and the light was good:

  

Big seas at Ballintoy Harbour, October 2022. 
Hasselblad/150mm, FP4+ in HC, on Foma 133 paper. Slight burn in on the sky.
Not long after this we could see rain coming in across the sea from the North, so we beat a hasty retreat to the car.  We didn't mind as we'd had a great couple of hours walking about and, well, just looking at the sea.

Old friend

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by an old friend who I kicked around with at Uni some 40 years ago. Hadn’t seen him since then although we hooked up on social media a while back. The gist of the message was that he & family were having a short break in The Liberties (Portrush) and if I was around it might be good to grab a drink & a catch up. So we did just that - and obviously I brought Mr Hasselblad with me to capture the moment:

Mike, by the banks of the River Bann, September 2022. 60mm CB lens, FP4 on Foma 133 paper.
(Updated scan from the original post)

Although obviously a lot of years have passed since we last saw each other, it doesn't take long before the traits and personality of the person we used to know surfaces.  Soon we were reminiscing about our carefree student days in the lovely city of Bath.  These days he seems to spend a large part of his life travelling to and from The Continent with work, so he was bemoaning the whole Brexit thing, which has introduced a whole new level of paperwork and hassle for him.  I'm glad he reached out - it was good to catch up.

The Diamond Hall

The Diamond Hall at the Ulster University campus next door to where I live is a real 1960s classic.  It was refurbished about 10 years ago.  To be fair, I don't think Foma 133 was the right paper for this subject matter - it could do with a less toned paper with a bright base.  Something like Adox MCC would have been a better choice although it didn't help matters that it was a very dull day when I was there:

On the 'Blad, FP4+, Foma 133.  The shadow lying across the quad is down to a little problem I had in the darkroom - a bit of light entering where it shouldn't have been.  Fixed now, I hope.

Yesterday I took Brother and Niece to Belfast, to start their long journey back to Illinois.  The trouble with us living so far apart is that when we do hook up it's for a limited time and so we fill our days.  As a result, my wife and I are completely zonked now.  Still, it was worth it - what with Covid we hadn't seen each other for about 3 or 4 years, which has been the longest time not seeing each other for...ever, actually.  So it was great - even if our chat this time around was peppered with talk of retirement options, pension funds and the general bad state of things in the world.  While there are still decisions we can take, there's a lot in the world that we as individuals can't change and so there comes a point when you just have to get on with things that are in your power to do.  So I'm off in a minute to catch up on developing a few films from our days out over the last couple of weeks.  There's still a buzz at the moment I take the film out of the Photo-Flo and grab a first look at the negs as I hang them to dry.  I don't think that will ever change and I know I'm not alone in that.  When I get them on the light box for a decent look then I'm automatically thinking which ones will be worth sacrificing a sheet of paper on.  Hopefully there'll be a few in this batch worth showing on this place.

Busy busy

I'm grabbing a few minutes on a very wet Sunday to write this post.  Brother and his daughter are here for a few more days before they head down to Dublin and then back to the US of A.  It's great having them here but it's busy busy, with lots of days out and lots of cooking.  We've done OK with the weather - managed to dodge the worst of the showers so far - but the last couple of days have seen a notable downturn and today it's rained all day.  Given we're well into October now that's to be expected in this part of the world.  I've no chance of getting into the darkroom for another few days but the good news is I've a couple of films waiting to be developed, so I'm looking forward to catching up when things get back to normal.  In the meantime, here's another print from the Portstewart Prom series from a while ago:

The lady with the pram has obviously clocked me but seems OK with having a Hasselblad pointed at her.  Probably the 50mm Distagon, FP4+ on Foma 133 paper.

He didn’t drink here

In my youth I frequented many an Ale House in England, and it was a common sight to see a sign hanging saying that ‘William Shakespeare’ drank here. Or maybe I’m confusing him with Charles Dickens. Anyway, my wife and I ventured into Stratford’s oldest pub, The Garrick, for a small libation. Although the building dates back to the 1400s it wasn’t a public house until after Shakespeare’s time so it seems fairly safe to say that he didn’t drink here, which is a tad ironic. Inside, it’s obviously a very old building, with small cosy rooms, stone floors and lots of timber beams and we had a pleasant time while figuring out options for dinner. We could have eaten there but it’s run by a big chain (Greene King) and I’m generally not a fan of these chain eateries.  We opted for a Thai Restaurant next door and in hindsight that wasn’t a great choice, Both my wife and I are ok with spicy food but both our dishes were off the scale hot and we came away wishing we’d gone elsewhere. In fact, we didn’t get good food anywhere on our trip this time - even Oxford let us down. Or maybe we were all tired and out of sorts. Part of the problem I think is that we cook pretty well at home, so when you are forking out decent money in a restaurant it’s annoying when you come away thinking you could do a lot better in your own house for a lot less.

Inside The Garrick, Stratford.  I presume that's the Man Himself on the extreme left, or a representation of him.  For this shot I placed the OM4ti on the bar and pressed the shutter, as it was pretty dark in there.  HP5+ at 800, developed in Ilfotec HC, printed on Foma 133. 

I read that the hospitality industry in the UK is in dire straits - mainly due to the huge increases in electricity and fuel costs.  This month our electricity increases by 40% - and that's on top of earlier rises his year of 30%, so it has pretty much doubled in a year.  Much like the cost of gas and kerosene, which we use for home heating.  I think there isn't going to be a lot of spare change around UK households this winter, so I expect a lot of pubs and restaurants will be under severe pressure.  It's going to be a tough winter and no doubt it'll be the coldest on record, as that's the way it seems to go in life.

The Bard's House

We didn't hang about too long in Oxford - decided it was best to leave Missy to it, once we'd stocked her fridge and larder and made sure she had all the essentials for her bedsit.  Her bedsit, which costs an arm and a leg, by the way - Uni Halls of Residence are not cheap. Still, she's safe and warm and that's one less thing for my wife and I to worry about.

We planned to take a couple of days to ourselves before getting the ferry back from Liverpool-Birkenhead to Belfast, and the first of those days was spent in Stratford upon Avon - birthplace, as I'm sure you know, of a certain Bill Shakespeare.  

This was one of those 'compose-and-wait' shots.  Wait until there was decent separation between the actors in the foreground.  That's Shakespeare's house in the background, of course, and it sits in the middle of Stratford's high street.  To be honest, there ain't a lot else in the town other than the museum (out of shot to the right) and the huge Royal Shakespeare Company theatre down by the river. It's pleasant enough but we'll not be rushing back any time soon. 
OM4ti/35mm Zuiko, HP5+ on Foma 133 paper.