The Twelfth

Some colour for a change.  Not often you see that on this place, as you well know.  See I have a few rolls of Provia slide film in the door of the fridge and loaded one into the FM3a a couple of months ago for The Lad's graduation.  Try as I might, I can't make the FM3a wrongly expose a shot, when on auto.  I have to remember to put it on manual from time to time, to keep that side of the thing working.  It's full auto and full manual, y'see - one of, if not the last of the manual Nikons before auto-everything took over.  From the feel of it, you can tell that 30+ years of Nikon know-how went into it.  It was a bit of a luxury, I'll admit, and every so often I think I'll trade it for something medium-formatty, but then I take it out for a walk and it's just so nice in the hand.

Anyway, I digress.  So at the graduation I did a few formal ones, which were just OK and then I asked Blondie aka Clare-with-the-shoes to give the boy a peck on the cheek, and she duly obliged, bless her:

The young ones, in full regalia, outside The Lanyon Building of The Queen's University of Belfast, to give it its proper title.

So after all that I had a film to finish quick in order to get back to some good old B&W.  As it was early July, that meant one thing - The Twelfth.  Now if you're reading this and wondering what I'm on about then clearly you are not from The Liberties.  The Twelfth of July is a Very Big Day in Ulster, when thousands upon thousands of menfolk, wimmenfolk and weans celebrate their Protestant History.  There's a whole story about that which we'll get to in a day or two and one or two twists and turns along the way which surprised me, I must admit.  Anyway, on the morning of the Twelfth off I went with the Provia-loaded camera to catch a bit of it.  We ended up in Limavady - you know, that place where the dog leapt over the river and all that O'Cahan history wot you learnt about earlier - assuming you were paying attention, that is.

Now this guy has the Orangeman look down pat - dark suit, white gloves, bowler hat, orange sash and cuffs and a fearsome determined look about him:

Behind him are the standard-bearers and musicians from his district - from the banner it would appear this group are from Burntollet, just outside Londonderry-Derry.   Red, white and blue are favourite colours on the twelfth (as well as orange), since they represent the Union of the United Kingdom, to which all good true Ulster Protestants subscribe.  Or so they would tell us.  It wasn't always like that though, as we shall see.

More to come tomorrow...

Greencastle

A couple of shots from Greencastle, Donegal looking out over the Foyle Estuary.  It's a big, wide river at this point, as you can see.

Looking over towards the table mountain of Binevenagh.  

A bit further up the coast, towards Londonderry-Derry is the port of Lisahally.  Probably most famous as the place where dozens of German U-boats surrendered after the second world war.  Eventually most were taken out to the open sea, just off Donegal and sank.

Looking west, towards the Antrim coast.  Via HP5+ and a little 21mm lens - hence the sky.

Doagh Famine Village

As you may know, we took the ferry over the Foyle Estuary in order to get to the Doagh Famine Village.  The Potato Famine, as it used to be known, was when the potato crop failed for a few years around the middle of the 19th century.  Blight was to to blame, which causes the spuds to rot in the ground and that is not a good thing when the main diet is potatoes.  What we now know is that during the famine years Ireland was exporting tons of food to England - the problem was not lack of food, but that the peasant Irish couldn't afford it.

But the DFV is more than just a few thatched cottages and talk of the famine.  In fact, there was relatively little talk of the famine, truth be told.  There was some talk of death:

I know, it's very dark.  Well it was very dark and yer man there standing by the coffin was telling us all about the local customs regarding death and wakes and stuff.  The norm in this part of Donegal is to wake the deceased for 3 days, during which time the coffin remains open and everyone sits around and drinks cup after cup of tea.  There may or may not be hard liquor.  "Death is a debt we owe to nature.  I must pay it and so must you" is what the sign on the wall says.

We learned about evictions, when families were ousted from their dwelling - mostly due to the law that meant landlords had to pay a tax for any tenants whose rent was less than £4 a year.  The landlords faced huge bills, so they simply demolished the houses on their land and thereby solved the problem. Well, it solved their problem. The landlord's agents would turn up and literally batter the house to bits, using the sort of portable ram depicted below.  The evicted families were forced to either live in the ruins of their cottage or find shelter wherever they could in the open - other tenants were warned against offering evicted families shelter, even for one night.

It was not a good time to be born into a peasant family in Ireland, that's for sure.

A re-enactment of an eviction - local police in attendance to deal with any resistance.

We also learned about the great migration of Northern Ireland folk to the US and Canada - something like 8 or 9 US Presidents have come from Presbyterian Ulster stock.  The Penal Laws had placed strict limits on what Catholics and Protestant Dissenters (mostly Presbyterians) were allowed to do and so many upped sticks and left the country.  A famous case is that of Rev James McGregor, who led his Presbyterian flock from nearby Aghadowey to New Hampshire in 1718 - in the end there were upwards of 1000 people on five ships bound for Boston.  Before he left, he delivered a sermon in Coleraine, stating he was leaving Ulster "to avoid oppression and cruel bondage, to shun persecution and designed ruin...and have an opportunity of worshiping God according to the dictates of conscience and rules of His Inspired Word".   Quite.  Once there, McGregor established the first Ulster Presbyterian settlement on the continent and the town of Nutfield, where he settled, was renamed Londonderry.

And wouldn't you know it, the first American potato was grown there - in 1719 apparently.  And the name of the neighbouring town?  Derry, of course - what else?

The youngsters having fun learning about the bad old days in Ireland, thanking their lucky stars they were born when they were - as indeed I was too.

As well as the history of the famine, evictions and what have you, Doagh Famine Village has a really eclectic collection of 'stuff' through the ages - a hoarder's dream, really.  They mustn't have thrown anything away for decades - old radios, cassette players, farm tools, tractors, advertising posters, household utensils,  - you name it, it's there.  An amazing place.

Can you feel the vibes?  The band struck up whenever someone entered the room - very unexpected it was, I can tell you.

Sea Stacks

Out by the RSPB Bird Sanctuary on Rathlin:

Sea stacks out by the West Lighthouse on Rathlin Island.  That would be the North Antrim coast there in the distance and in-between 3 miles of water with very strong currents.  Rathlin lies between Ireland and Scotland and it's where the Irish Sea meets the Atlantic, by the North Channel.  Many a ship has floundered around the island - it's a major place of interest for deep-sea divers, what with all those wrecks and everything.  Split-grade printed on Ilford MG IV for a change, and a light wash in some sepia that was brewed nearly a year ago and still seems to have some life in it.

For many a year, the 'ownership' of Rathlin was disputed - sometimes it was a Scottish Lord wot claimed it, other times it was the Irish equivalent.  Since the earliest settlements of man in Ireland lie not to far away near my home town of Coleraine, along the River Bann valley, it is thought that man first came to Ireland via Scotland, around 6000-5000 BC.  Perhaps it is not too unreasonable to assume that they stopped off on Rathlin on the way.  A few thousand years later and the presence of an extremely hard stone called porcellanite was discovered, found to the west of the island not too far from where this snap was taken.  Rathlin axe-heads made from this material have been found all over Ireland and as far away as Southern England, so it's safe to assume there was a thriving export business all those years ago on the island.

View from the platform at the Bird Sanctuary.  In July the big stack there in the foreground is covered with sea-birds.  In August, when we went, there were hardly any left - all the breeding had been done and they were off.

Flint was another rare raw material found in abundance in the limestone cliffs on the island.  Arrowheads, skin scrapers and axes have all been found on the island.  Interestingly, more artefacts were found in the days when the land was ploughed by horse, when you actually watched the furrow being turned.  Finds are not so common nowadays, since all ploughing is done by tractor.

Whatever the history, this place is pretty special.  I'd love to be out here in the middle of winter, in a howling gale for a few days.  That's love in the knowledge that I'd have McCuaig's Bar as a bolthole and then the ferry back home in a day or two.

Foyle Ferry

The ferry runs from Magilligan (Northern Ireland) to Greencastle (Donegal) and means you can avoid the lengthy drive along the Foyle Estuary through Derry-Londonderry.  Choose a nice calm day and it's a decent crossing, taking less than 30 mins.

A scan, this one, with the 21mm exaggerating the clouds somewhat.  There weren't many on the ferry on the way back - just half a dozen cars or so.

Greencastle is a nice little place - the National Fisheries College of Ireland is there, as is a fish processing factory.  Not on the scale of Killybegs, but the harbour had a good few fishing boats in.  Apart from that, there's a couple of pubs, Kealy's Fish Restaurant (highly recommended) and the old ruined castle, which is rapidly turning green as the ivy takes over:

There's a lovely coastal walk between Moville and Greencastle, along the Foyle Estuary.  We didn't do that on this trip, which was all about the Doagh Famine Village.  It was early evening before we headed for home.

Just about catching the sun's rays there behind the clouds.  On Kentmere RC paper.

Dunes

One I've posted before, I know, but one I liked enough to print again.

From the dunes on Castlerock Beach, at the Barmouth where the River Bann meets the Atlantic.  It was a very windy day and I was using a slowish shutter speed to catch some movement in the dune grass.

I think this one is better than my earlier version - not so overcooked in the old Lith developer.  Mind you, when it came out of the wash cycle I wasn't sure I'd cooked it enough, but once dry I was pretty happy with it.

I keep giving my half-decent prints away, in the FADU Print Exchange.  It's a monthly thing - only one print a month required!  Sounds easy, eh?  But when you have standards - albeit it low standards - you want that print to be...well, something you are a little bit happy with.  Some months that can be challenging, believe-you-me.  But it does focus the mind somewhat to get out there and snap something and that's a good thing.

Hence the reason for printing this one again, since I'd posted the earlier print off to some other FADU person.  I might put this one on a wall somewhere, for a while anyway until something better crops up.  Most of my prints are in an empty Ilford paper box or scattered about the place, but some end up on the walls of the 'smallest room in the house', if you get my drift.  Well, it gives you something to look at, n'est-ce pas? But those walls are filling up and while from time to time some prints get replaced by newer/better prints, the time is rapidly approaching when other walls will have to be used.  Good, eh?

South Lighthouse

I had a long session in the darkroom on Monday.  I haven't really been in much over the summer, what with our visitors here and everything and I was feeling the need.  It ended up a much longer session than anticipated, though.  I'd tried lith developing once before (using Foma MG Classic 131 paper) and was pleased with the results so the plan this time was to try Ilford's Fibre Warmtone paper.  Now some folk say the Ilford paper doesn't lith but Bob Carnie over there in Toronto appears to get it to work for him.  He's even posted a couple of videos on it.  The trick, he reckons, is to pull the print well before you would usually do so and then it comes to life in the fixer.

It's probably me, but I couldn't get it to work.  I pulled the print early all right - that bit was straightforward, but when I dumped it into the fix nothing happened.   Now if I'd been anyway organised at all I would have cut up a sheet and tried a small print first, but that would have been far too sensible.  So...one large sheet of fibre paper in the bin.  Not a great start to the afternoon.

So I retreated to the relative safety of the Foma paper for the rest of the afternoon.  The only thing I can think of, with regard to the abject failure of the Ilford paper, is that while Mr Carnie was using Fotospeed's lith developer I was using Moersch Easylith.  Would that have made a difference? Dunno - but when I run out of the Moersch developer I'll get some Fotospeed and try the Ilford paper again.

The South Lighthouse, Rue Point, Rathlin.   Knocklayde just visible in the distance.  The print was slightly too big for my scanner so lost a bit of the bottom margin.  When wet I thought the sky to the left of the lighthouse had no detail at all but once dry, well as you can see some detail appeared.  The top right of the print has some black flecks appearing, which according to the instructions may be a sign of too high dilution.  Hard to see in the scan but the lith process really suited the rocks.  This was the first shot I took when at Rue Point and just caught a small wave breaking to the right of the lighthouse.  The Brother and I waited and waited, me poised ready to snap, for a larger wave to break but in the end we had to admit defeat.  Isn't it supposed to be every 7th, or is it 9th wave is a big one?  Something like that anyway.  No doubt as soon as we turned our backs the whole lighthouse would have been engulfed.  Taken on the rangefinder/21mm/HP5+ combination.

Anyway, I had some success with the Foma paper and I did notice that when the print went into the fix the blacks deepened appreciably.  Interesting.  I was using 40ml of Solution A and the same of Solution B with about 2 litres of water, at around 25 degrees (to start with anyway) - this equates to about 1+25 dilution.  According to the Easylith instructions, you can dilute anywhere from 1+15 to 1+50 and overexpose by up to 4 stops (I was overexposing by 2 stops).  More exposure and higher dilution leads to longer development times and more intense colouring, shorter exposure and lower dilution should give you higher contrast and less colour.  I suppose the thing to do would be to print the same negative several times over, with varying dilutions and exposures - kind of like the thing Tim Rudman does in his Lith Printing Course book, which I should really re-read.  But sometimes you just have to get on with it and experiment yourself - I mean, that's half the fun, right?

It doesn't take long for the developer to exhaust.  After the failed Ilford attempt and about 6 Foma prints, of 9.5x12 size, things started taking a lot longer.  The first few Foma prints started coming up after about 5 minutes and by 8-10 minutes I was pulling them from the developer.  I think my 7th print was up to about 20 minutes before the blacks had reached anything like a tone I was happy with.   The thing is, the times just suddenly started getting significantly longer, without warning.  And for the 8th print nothing was happening at all after 20mins.  The instructions seem to suggest making up fresh solution for every print, which seems a bit excessive but clearly after a few prints a bit of replenishment is required.  I mixed another litre of develop on the fly, 20ml of solution A and 20ml of solution B and fired it into the tray and the image came up.  But it was another 10 minutes or so before I pulled it, so 30 minutes in total.  Too long sit-standing and agitating the tray.  Actually as I write this I seem to remember writing something similar after my first lith session - which just goes to show that I should have made some decent notes at the time.  D'oh!