Feeding time

I had an early morning stroll along Portstewart Prom the other day.  There was a biting wind and I almost turned back but decided to persevere.  Up at western end by the bandstand I came across this feller having a nutritious breakfast al fresco while a young seagull looked on from about as close as it safely could.  The guy turned round to see what I was up to but he was more interested in his bacon bap or whatever it was rather than me so I was able to get a couple of shots.

"Hey mister I'm hungry too".  OM4ti/85mm Zuiko, via HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic paper.

I did a slight burn-in around the edges of the print and also on his breakfast roll, but the strong morning sun has it almost bleached out so there's not much detail on the bun, unfortunately.  

St Ann's Hotel, Buxton

There's a swanky new Spa Hotel in the Crescent in Buxton and I'm guessing it replaces an older establishment, since this was left in the stonework of the building:

Part of the original hotel in the Buxton Crescent, I guess. 
OM4ti with probably 35mm Zuiko; HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic paper.

Just opposite the Crescent is St Ann's Spring, which is probably the reason for Buxton being a Spa town in the first place, as well as reason for the name of the original hotel on this site. 

A tale of two darkroom papers

I don't really do much technical stuff on this place.  I doubt that will change much but today I thought I would mention a little play I had last Sunday morning with a couple of different darkroom papers - my recent go-to, Foma 133 and Ilford's fibre multigrade classic paper. They are different beasts, that's for sure.

I guess my motivation was down to the fact that I'd just used my last sheet of Foma 133, whereas I still have some Ilford MG Classic left.  I have a selection of others, too (Foma, Ilford, Adox and Slavich) which I fully intend to 'use up' before buying another sheet of new paper.  Most of it is in the freezer but even there it won't last forever, so it's getting used. My wife will be happy there's space being freed up in the freezer.  Also, it might inspire me to get out and take some decent shots.  Something needs to, that's for sure.

So, this was my last sheet from the box of 100 10"x8" Foma 133:

Breaking wave at Ballintoy. Cropped from the square ('Blad, 150mm, FP4+ in Ilford HC)

I was happy with this - the Foma did a fine job of giving some detail in the highlights (the breaking wave) while still keeping texture in the rocks.  This was a straight print - out of the box using the figures for exposure and grade from the enlarger probe.  I've an LED head, which defaults to split-grade printing and it works a treat with this paper.

The blurb for Foma 133 states that it has a warm image tone, suitable for portrait photography and retro-style work.  It goes on to say that the paper is manufactured using a special silver chlorobromide emulsion that gives the image a brown green to warm brown tone that can be further influenced by the type of developer used.  I used good old Ilford Multigrade develeper, so nothing special there.  This is the fine-grain, velvet finish, baryta coated - it's available in glossy and semi-matt as well.  I know I've said it before, but I really love this paper.

To satisfy my curiosity, I printed the same scene on Ilford MG Classic fibre paper, which Ilford describe as premium quality (225g/m2) baryta-coated paper designed for all enlarger types, with improved DMax and shorter exposure time, neutral image, great clarity and good response to toners.  It's available in glossy and matt finishes - this is the glossy:

Same scene, different paper. 

Again, this is a straight print, using the time and grade suggested by my enlarger probe.  This actually looks a lot better than it did when it came out of the fix, where there was very little detail visible in the sky at all.  Clearly dry-down is more significant with this paper than with the Foma.  It's a much brighter and more contrasty print - the highlight detail has been lost in the wave but the rocks are pretty similar in both prints, given the differences in the paper base (warm tone in the Foma, neutral in the Ilford).  

I thought I should be able to do better with the Ilford, so I dialed in an extra chunk of exposure at grade 0 for the whole print and then a shorter exposure at grade 5 to up the contrast in the sky with a partial burn-in.  This was the result:

 

Second attempt with the Ilford paper

So this is much improved over the first attempt - the sky has more oomph and there's a bit more detail in the wave highlight, though still not as much as with the Foma.  

I'm getting close to the original print on the Foma paper and with another couple of iterations I might get there.  But at this stage it's probably time to sit back and think about the bigger picture.  The two emulsions are plainly different and trying to make one look like the other is, well, probably kind of stupid.  There's a lot of variables in the process - the negative itself, my enlarger LED head, the probe and the built-in configurations for the two papers.  What is clear is that for my setup, for this negative, the out-of-the-box straight print competition is won hands-down by Foma.  For a different negative we might see a different result.  It's horses for courses.  Isn't it always?

Stormy Weather

 Where else but Ballintoy Harbour:

Cropped from square; 'Blad/150mm lens, FP4+ in Ilfotec HC, on Foma 133 paper.

Posing with the Bard

If I had a penny for every time someone stood by this statue for a photograph I reckon I'd be pretty wealthy.  In the middle of Stratford-upon-Avon, of course...

Shakespeare&admirers, Stratford, 2022. I wonder that the pointing girl is saying - 'Move over that way a bit', perhaps.
OM4ti with probably a 35mm Zuiko f/2.8, HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic paper.

We did Shakespeare at school, of course - and I never read another word of his afterwards.  How do they manage to do that, I wonder?  And the worst of it is, we had (I thought) an absolutely fantastic English teacher who I really liked.  In junior years we did Richard II - you know, the one where John of Gaunt says This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle... and that's about the only thing I remember about the whole thing.  Then a few years later we did...wait for it, A Midsummer Night's Dream - the one with all the fairies dancing in the forest and what have you - perfect for an all boy's school. I jest, of course - most of us hated A Midsummer Night's Dream, I just didn't understand what the heck was going on.  In fact, I didn't really get Richard II either, truth be told.  And I was an avid reader - still am.  Looking back, I think it was because it was never explained to us how to read a play - I had no idea how to get to grips with all the characters and how to extract the plot from the dialog.  So, that was my experience of "the greatest writer in the English Language".  

  

Derry Girls

Are you a fan of the show?  We watch it - well, my wife is a Derry Girl herself and I used to live and work in the city so we have to, really.  It's good and mostly we go along with it in spirit but as in so many comedies these days the language is a tad colourful, which puts us off.  A bit like that other Irish sitcom, Mrs Brown's Boys, which I can honestly say I've never watched an episode of - the first few minutes was enough for me.  I think the language thing is all too often used as a crutch for poor writing - when all else fails, throw in a few F's and sure that'll carry the scene.  Anyway, that's just my $0.02.

The big Derry Girls mural in the city is striking - you can't miss it when walking around the walls.  My niece duly posed for a shot, and through luck and perspective I managed to get her head more or less the same size as the drawn figures - all part of the plan, of course ;)

Derry Girls, plus new cast member, 2022.  HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic paper.

Buxton

 It seems like an age ago we were dropping Missy off to start her second year at Uni, but in reality it was only about 6 weeks ago.  Oxford was less than a 3 hour drive from Liverpool/Birkenhead but we had planned to take a couple of days to ourselves on the way back.  We stayed one night in Stratford and for the second night we drove up to Buxton, on the edge of the Peak District.  From there it would be relatively easy cross-country dash to Birkenhead.  I'd never been to that part of the country before so it was all new to me.  Buxton is, or was, a Spa town, of which there are a few dotted around England - Bath being perhaps the most famous.  I was looking forward to it.  

The drive North was straightforward enough with Sat-Nav, although there were a couple of times I'd have been totally flummoxed without it, having to switch lanes right and then left in quick succession.  We started out on the A3400, which you could say was the picturesque route through that part of the Cotswolds north of Oxford, by way of a succession of rather easy-on-the-eye villages.  It was vaguely familiar to me, since for a year I used to drive from my placement year in Solihull back and forth to Oxford to meet up with my brother and friends, but that was nearly 40 years ago so things had changed a bit in that time.  I never remembered any A3400, but I was certain it was the same road and then I passed a sign that read, "A3400, formerly the A34".  Ah...now it made sense!  The A34 definitely rang some bells.  It's not a road to drive if you are in a hurry, though, as each village had a strict 40mph limit - reinforced by a hellish number of fixed speed cameras dotted about.  Fair enough - we weren't in a rush.  We kept to the backroads all the way North and eventually the landscape changed from Cotswoldy-twee-ness to a more rural environment, with sheep and mile upon mile of dry-stone walls.  Eventually we hit our destination, dumped the car at the hotel and headed off to explore the Spa Town of Buxton.  

No offence to the good people of Buxton, but it was nothing like I expected.  I guess it didn't help that our hotel (Premier Inn, dependably clean and comfortable) was on the less salubrious side of town, so our walk into the centre didn't fire our senses with anticipation of what was to come.  By the time we hit the main drag it was late afternoon and most places seemed to be on the verge of closing, or had closed.  There weren't a lot of people about but there seemed to be a lot of pet shops.  A lot.  And the town looked and felt nothing like Bath, with its wonderful architecture and lively ambiance. We started to look around for places where we might eat later on.  We didn't find any.  Well, there was a fish and chip shop/restaurant but my wife took one look at it and said No, so that was that.  Behind the main square the land fell away quite steeply and we realised that was where the 'Spa' part of Buxton lay, so we girded our loins, headed downwards and tried not to think about the steep uphill walk back.

Buxton.  The fancy part.  OM4ti, HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic

Once we got down the hill the architecture looked more like the Spa town we had been expecting.  There was a Georgian crescent (pictured), impressive looking domed buildings and what seemed to be a rather beautiful park.  This is more like it, we thought.  We dropped into a hotel for a small libation in one of the nicer buildings (from the outside) and quickly dropped out again.  Inside it looked very tired and strangely quiet, so we resorted to another aimless dander about.  We poked our heads into a large pub but it was jammed packed and noisy so we didn't stop (it looked like a Wetherspoon's and therefore not the authentic Buxton experience that we were after).  The next pub we came across, which looked promising from the outside, turned out to be closed down.  We never did find anywhere to eat (we ate back at the hotel - it seemed like the safest option).  We found more pet shops, though.  

So that was our experience of Buxton and we won't be back.  Granted we only had one evening in the town and perhaps if we'd only walked a little further we'd have come across all manner of lovely restaurants, bars and bistros - but on this occasion they eluded us.  We left with the impression Buxton's best days are well and truly behind it.