Pinhole Pleasures

 A bit late to the whole pinhole party thing but that seems to be typical for me.   Anyways, I bit the bullet last week and splashed some of my hard-earned (well, once upon a time, anyway) cash on a rather splendidly made Titan Pinhole camera, made by the fantastic Mr Mike Walker in conjunction with Harman (Ilford).  It takes 4x5 sheet film, which is just perfect as I can rattle off one or two sheets at a time.  Mr Walker, by the way, exemplified good customer service...I emailed him a question last Wednesday morning and he replied promptly.  When I said I would be ordering one then and there he said he would delay going to the Post Office until he saw my order come in.  And indeed he must have done, as less than 24 hours later the thing was in my grubby little hands.  It didn't matter that my hands were grubby, by the way, since it's made from injection moulded ABS...I think I read somewhere you could put it in the dishwasher to clean it - although I think I'll pass on that.  

The pinhole has an angle of view of 72 degrees (which I think equates to about 30 degrees wide-angle lens in 35mm space) and an effective aperture of f/208.  The kit includes a ready-reckoner cardboard spin wheel to help you get the exposure, since meters typically don't include an option for such a small aperture.

Coincidentally, on the same day I received some paper from Ilford (thanks to their 10% voucher last weekend), which included the new MG V RC paper, so these shots are printed on that.  More about that paper in a future post.

My first ever pinhole shot...Portstewart Prom, of course (lower deck):

Ilford FP4+ Delta, on MG V RC paper

Impressive considering there's no lens...makes you wonder why we bother, really.  On Saturday I drove round to Portrush...there was quite the choppy sea but it got smoothed out with the long exposure:

Portrush West Bay

With the small aperture/large f-stop and a fairly slow film (Ilford FP4+ Delta has a box speed of 100ISO but I was rating it at 50) you're always going to get long-ish exposures.  And once you're longer than 1 second there's film reciprocity failure compensation to take into account. Ilford recommend a factor of 1.26 for FP4+ (take the suggested shutter speed and raise it to the power 1.26). From memory the first shot in Portstewart was 12 seconds and the second one in Portrush about 30s, hence the smooth sky and sea.  There was a bit of burning in to both sky and sea above.  Contrast in the negative was a bit high in both shots so in the future I need to pull back on exposure, or developing, or both a little but I was reasonably happy for the first attempts.  

Pinhole photography is simplicity itself - no aperture controls, no shutter speeds and with the 4x5 sheet film there's not much to do there either - simply pull the dark slide, lift off the pinhole cap and count the seconds.  The Titan Camera is so light - even on the tripod it's so easy to carry.  I'm hooked already!

Country Life

Most days I try to get down the road for a bit of a stroll and this is what I see when I turn for home:

I pointed the camera directly into the sun and that meant I had to burn in the sky a little under the enlarger.  OK, a lot and not very well at that, but it's easy to overdo.  Not the greatest of shots or prints but I said some time ago that I would try to show more of my immediate area, so here yah go.  On Fotospeed RCVC paper.

Our house is somewhere in the middle of the trees just left of centre and Yes you'd be right in thinking it's a bit closer to thon big wind turbine thing than is desirable.  We were here first, in case you were wondering but that counts for little when you're the little guy up against a £100m University that wants its turbines (there are two of them - the other is out of shot on the left).   It could be worse, I suppose - there's not much noise from them (thanks to the trees) but the shadow flicker in the winter months can be visually very disturbing. 

We're looking almost due West here - away over the low-lying hills in the distance and you're en route to the City of Derry/Londonderry, about 40 minutes away by car.  To the left (South) is the University and then the town of Coleraine.  To the right (North) we have Portstewart and the Atlantic Ocean.   Coleraine-Portstewart-Portrush is called The Triangle Area and we wouldn't be too far from the centre point, so although we're in 'the country' we're only a mile or so away from the three towns and the beaches at Portstewart and Portrush.  We're not bothered by too many neighbours, thankfully - although from time to time we do get the odd intruder in the garden.  It comes as a bit of a shock when you look outside and see a couple of tons of cow staring back at you through the window, but a call to the local farmer solves that particular problem and it's not long before the animal is back in the fields beside us, the fence repaired and I'm out with a bucket and shovel to collect the soon-to-be-fertilizer for the vegetable patch.  Ah the joys of country living, eh?  

Ballintoy on lith

A lith print from a pre-lockdown trip out to Ballintoy.  The sea was mesmerising that day - I could have stood and watched it for hours as the waves broke over the rock formations.

Sea at Ballintoy.  Lith, Foma 133 paper.

I'm hoping to get out there again this week with some fellow film-shooters, now that the schools are back and the weather has become more unsettled - two events which will hopefully mean there is space to breathe and enjoy the place. 

I haven't used Foma 133 with lith developer before but their Classic 131 paper liths nicely so I expected this one to be fine, as indeed it was, giving the very warm tones you see here.  

Saturday afternoon I took a run down to Portstewart Prom with the 'Blad, to so some street photography.  It took a while to get there, as the traffic was fierce, it being a Bank Holiday weekend and all but I struck lucky getting a parking space slightly off the tourist trail which is only a short dander to the Prom itself.  There was a huge number of cars driving through (nose-to-tail) but not too many people out&about - it was windy and a wee bit fresh, which maybe put people off.  I wasn't complaining - there were enough to photograph and being around too many people isn't a great idea at the minute anyway.  It's tough getting the balance right in these things but after barely being out of the house for 6 months it felt good to be outside and the strong off-shore breeze made me feel a little safer.   The Hasselblad isn't the ideal stealth street-shooters camera and I did get a few (a lot) of funny looks but while people in this part of the world aren't exactly comfortable getting their image snapped they are also not prone to confrontation so I just kept my head down, avoided eye contact and pretended to look through them and not at them, all of which seemed to work.  The negs look OK.  I haven't printed any yet as I'm waiting for a delivery from Ilford with some new paper - they had a 10% off promotion this weekend.  I'm going to try their new MGV RC paper, which is about half the price of fibre paper but should be fine for 'everyday' work.  We'll see.

Tree vs Turbine

This was one of those shots that really only revealed itself after the snapping event.  At the time I thought the tree would simply provide a bit of a reference point for the turbine and make the shot more interesting but now I see the natural twists & turns of the tree versus the rather stark uniformity of the metal wind turbine and the lights behind:

University of Ulster wind turbine, 2020.  Ilford MGIV RC paper.

The concentric rings around the lower part of the turbine go from dark green at the bottom to light green and then grey all the way to the top - presumably to help the whole thing blend in naturally with the surrounding foliage.   Why did they bother, I wonder?  I mean, it's a couple-of-hundred-feet-high metal structure with rotating blades so it's a bit hard to miss, isn't it?

The two turbines that the University owns sit at the edge of sports fields.  I've never seen the pitches in such good condition - no doubt due to the fact that they've not been used in the last 6 months, which is all a bit sad, really.  

There's not much else going at the minute.  Missy went back to school this week for the first time since February.  We're very apprehensive about the whole thing but by all accounts the school has done a remarkable job.  Students are required to wipe down chair and desk before and after each class.  Sanitisers are everywhere (and must be used) and there's a one-way system operating in the school corridors (where masks must be worn).  Teachers have a perspex screen between them and students and markings on the floor around his/her area - Teach isn't allowed to move outside the marked area and neither are students allowed inside.  No paperwork or books is to be handed between teacher and student.  I'm not sure how homework is being assessed - presumably online in some way (I've yet to hear the details).  Lunch breaks are staggered so that numbers in the canteen at any one time are limited.  We'll see how it all pans out but there has already been a few COVID cases in and around Coleraine in the last week - in hotels and restaurants and McDonalds (see what I did there?) so I reckon it's only a matter of time until a student goes down with it.  What happens then is anyone's guess but at the very least I would hope that fellow class-mates&friends would be offered tests and for a deep clean to take place throughout the whole school.  We did consider keeping Missy off for a week or two until we see the lay of the land but it's her last year at school and after 6 months of being at home she really needs the structure of school to kick-start her motivation for the final push before A-Levels and, hopefully, University next year. 

We're keeping our fingers (and everything else) crossed on this one. 

A run up the town

Uptown Coleraine, to be precise, with our lovely Italianate Town Hall dominating the pedestrianised precinct.  Pedestrianised, that is, apart from the delivery vehicles and other 'Access' vehicles which in reality means hardly pedestrianised at all.  Anyway, here's my rather feeble attempts at street photography, using the M6:

35mm lens.  HP5+ on Fotospeed RCVC paper.

Since I use a walking stick/cane when I'm out and about, it's not so easy to shoot and run, so I usually find somewhere to stand to 'do' my street photography.  I was propped up against a rather large raised flower bed here, cradling the camera while hoping I was holding it reasonably straight.

I've mentioned before that as a general rule, Northern Irish people aren't too happy to have a camera stuck in their faces.  It's a far cry from New York or Tokyo, so a bit of subterfuge is generally required.

I turned around to take this one:

Greggs.  The times we live in, eh?

Burton's Men's Wear used to be on the corner there where Greggs is now.  Greggs, in case you don't have one near you, is a national chain of cafes selling pastries, sandwiches and drinks.  They seemed to spring up from nowhere about 5 years ago and are now on pretty much every high street in the UK.  Their USP is 'cheap'.  I was rarely in Burton's and have been in Greggs only once, to try their 'famous' vegan sausage rolls.  That was a damn good marketing story, I have to admit.  Once was enough.

We like our flowers in the town, as you can see.   In places they can be overdone and the town council is always messing with them but in general I'm in favour.  

This was probably the best of the street shots that day:

The magnet that was drawing the ladies in was Coleraine's bestest department store which was just to my left.  There was a guy outside, just out of shot, collecting money for 'Getting kids off the street and into fishing'...one of the more bizarre groups that you get asking for money every time you are in town. You can see his table and collecting buckets.  In the twenty minutes or so I was there he seemed to do pretty well.

The last one for today.  Another shot from the hip:

I liked the social distancing here - these guys talked for some time while the little girl stood patiently.  The older guy on the left was masked, the other one wasn't. The ubiquitous 'Poundland Shop' in the background advertising Amazing Value Everyday.  Menarys, on the right, is a smallish clothing store with a restaurant which caters for the traditional eater (home-cooked and piled high, best for potatoes and meat). The fact that it's home-cooked means I'd go there rather than Greggs but unless things are desperate I'll usually pass on both and eat at home. 

Probably like a lot of High Streets in the UK Coleraine's has undergone a bit of a revolution in recent times.  Most of the established stores have gone, or are in the process of going.  Replaced by chains of cafes, Charity Shops and £1 stores.  And Chemists/Pharmacies...Coleraine seems to have a lot of them, for some reason.  Probably as we're not a very healthy nation (see Greggs, above). 

American Girl

I liked a lot of Tom Petty's songs back in the day and American Girl was a good 'un.  This shot was from a couple of years ago when Missy & I paid a visit to The Brother.  We had gone downtown Chicago to see some prints of a certain Mr Ansel Adams and this was taken on Michigan Avenue on the Hasselblad with a standard 80mm lens:

On Fotospeed Oyster RC paper.

I printed it this morning (that would be yesterday if you're reading the day of publication) and was just using up some old paper that, well, needed using up - in this case some 5"x7" RC paper.   So the image itself is a whopping 10cm x 10cm in size.  Actually it's kinda cute, this small.  I should do more this size.  When I started printing seriously again, a few years ago, I couldn't wait to print big.  And yes, big is beautiful but small is rather nice too, I'm finding.

The print is much nicer than the scan, by the way, which looks a bit dull on my screen.  

I seriously need to get out and about this week and snap something interesting but it's still busy as heck out there.  One more week and schools will be starting up again and hopefully everyone will bugger off back to their homes...I mean their first homes.   The weather is starting to change as autumn is nearly upon us - we had a serious bit of wind here last night which meant this morning I've been out tidying up - small branches and detritus everywhere.  I'm not mad keen on summer here as a time for photography but the light is starting to get a bit cleaner and the stronger winds will bring more interesting skies so I'm excited for the coming months.  

The Lads

 A few of us film-shooters ventured out last week just to see if the place was as we left it six months ago.  (It was, strangely enough).  It was a Nikon day for me - the FM3a had the 180mm on it and these were taken with it (which also goes to show that we were 'social distancing', or at least for these shots anyway).  First up we have Mr Lee, who although is the right side of 40, likes his film gear.  He's particularly fond of Exacta cameras (and let's face it, who isn't?).  Well, he was, until his camera mysteriously stopped working one time we were all out last year.  Actually most times we are out together something disastrous happens....we're still trying to work out who it is that is bringing the bad luck.  

A film waster.

Next up we have Mr David, who seems to be in the process of collecting any film camera that comes his way.  Sounds like a good plan, if you ask me...

And another one.  Both on HP5+ printed on Fotospeed RCVC Oyster paper.

Unlike David, I try to show a modicum of restraint these days with my camera-buying but my resolve wilted the other day when I was offered a decent looking black Nikon F2a at a 'friend' price.  The F2a is the one with the matched needle display instead of those 'orrible new-fangled LED things in the newer F2as.  I didn't need it, but I wanted it.  The F2 was the iconic camera of the '70s when I was a lad and it's a beast compared to, say, the Olympus OM-1 but it is a thing of beauty and I love it.  I think you could probably drive over an F2 and it would still work...it feels as tough as old boots.  I'm seriously considering selling the FM3a as having two Nikons is a bit of overkill.  It would be the sensible thing to do...but sense and me don't always go together like they should. We'll see.