Busy Saturday

It was busy downtown Bath on a Saturday evening in November - hardly a place to sit:

I know - a bit murky, that one.  Probably should have upped the contrast a bit, but it was fairly gloomy, if I remember correctly.

Very sociable, the people of Bath, as you can see.  I must admit it was quite pleasant to amble about among the hordes for a while, but only as it made such a change from Life in The Liberties, where things are generally winding down around 5pm and good God-fearing folk are heading home for their tea.  In Bath they would be having supper, no doubt.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I missed the beach, though.  And wind that would clean you, as they say around these parts.  Of which we get a lot, particularly at this time of year.

It's all around her

Ah there she is herself, surrounded by nature.

On Kentmere, via HP5&ID-11.  One of our favourite places, that is - Downhill, but the other side of the road from the ruined Demesne and Mussenden Temple.  The Hound loves it there too - all those trees!  There's a big lake there as well and he likes a wee swim:

Actually, he loves swimming - he can't get enough of it.  He's very cute too - those wee legs working hard to retrieve the sticks Missy throws in for him.

Debrecen

It would appear that The Uncle and his mates enjoyed a few boat trips while in Hungary.  Of course in those days you had to bring your own entertainment:

The band were clearly doing a sterling job and spirits were high.

I wonder what was so interesting over there?  The dress style of the lads is interesting - all those big shorts, wool socks and brogues...and those neck-ties, are we talking Scouts here?   The cut of Yer Man's cloth on the right is also interesting - boater hat and just check out those fancy deck shoes.  His missus must have been feeling the cold, though, since she brought her fur.

Eventually we find ourselves in Debrecen, on the Great Hungarian Plain, way to the east of Budapest.  Clearly it's a bit off the beaten track and there wasn't much evidence of the internal combustion engine in use:

That horse clearly enjoying a bit of a snack - although from the look of it snacks were few and far between.

The streets look pretty deserted...where was everyone?  At least one family were heading into town, perhaps to get some essential supplies from Tesco, or whatever the equivalent was in 1938 in Debrecen.

The strangers were obviously of interest to the local youngsters:

The children are pretty well dressed though - everyone has good shoes from the look of it.  And that definitely looks like Scouting Regalia...

Just looking

They had funny-shaped windows in Roman times:

Still, the absence of glass means it's easier to take snaps.

What was she thinking?

There she stood - just long enough for me to snuck up behind her and capture her image on HP5:

I don't think she realised - but there is a heck of a thunk when an FM3A mirror moves up and then down again so you never know, she might have.  Taken at the Roman Baths, as you can see.  You have to go there when in Bath - it's the law, y'know.  I always enjoy it - especially when it's winter and there's not too many tourists about.

It was all a bit much for this lady, though:

Now I know what you're thinking: He's gone and cut her feet off, clearly working too quickly in an attempt to capture 'the moment'.  And you might be right.

All on the Nikon/50mm/HP5/ID-11 combo...hard to beat.

Tidelines

I think that's a word, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, this was Portstewart Strand one day last week, taken from the usual 5'9" perspective.

Printed on Kentmere and lightly Sepia toned.  I'm not sure about that left-hand edge - think it might need a bit of darkening down now that I see it in the flesh, so to speak.

I wasn't sure if this darker version was better or not:

I think probably not, but it's one of those things where you have to look at them both for a while.  And then probably throw one or other in the bin.  Or maybe both.

It's hard to get shots like this, as it's a big dog-walking beach, as you know.  Normally there's paw prints and evidence of ball-chasing all over the beach.  Oops!

Clare's shoes

I know you've seen these before, but not like this.  I actually managed to get into the darkroom last week - after too long.  It felt good to be back in there.

Anyway, I printed Clare's shoes on Kentmere RC Select paper.  As seems to be the norm these days, I split-grade printed them - a couple of seconds at grade 00 and then about 5s at grade 3.5 seemed to work.  I was stopped down 5 stops hence the shorter-than-I-usually-like times.

This was a straight print and I thought it could benefit from darkening down the top edge and a little along the right hand side, to kind of balance things up a bit.

Now I'm not great at burning in and such, but was reasonably happy with this.  I gave this one a light tone in warm Selenium as well - there wasn't a huge colour shift but the shadows darkened down a little, not bad considering I was using RC paper.

This one will soon be winging its way to a certain Mr Roy Karlsvig, with whom I'm doing a little print exchange.  He runs a most excellent blog, by the way.