AWOL

(Ed: No sign of yer man today.  He's been holed up in his dark room ever since that delivery man came with a big box of stuff yesterday.  All I can hear is water running, silence, fissling of paper and from time to time an exclamation, although not in any language that I am familiar with.  No food or drink has entered (or left) the room all day.  Most likely he'll be back tomorrow as if nothing unusual has happened.  No explanation will be offered, of course - and none sought either, not after the last time.  In the meantime all I can lay my hands on is this print, which I retrieved from the bin when His Nibbs wasn't looking).

Wasted paper

Not working

The legs aren't working too well today - probably on account of all the metal, ceramic, screws and chicken wire holding them to my pelvis, or else it's just my ankylosing spondylitis playing up.  Either way I'll not be doing much today apart from a few gentle stretches to loosen things up a bit.

So for your amusement here's a couple more posts from my little trip up the Ballymoney Line the other day.  I liked this - window-box, Ballymoney style.  Unfortunately something happened in the darkroom that shouldn't have happened, hence the rather extreme white cloud thingy encroaching from the left.  For the technical-minded darkroom afficionadas among you the contrast filters must have been knocked out of position by someone (Ed: Hmm, I wonder who...).  But hey, I'm no Michael Kenna.

Window box, Ballymoney style

A wall in Ballymoney

Cow Town

Got to wander around Cow Town the other day, or as it is affectionately known in these parts, Ballymoney.  Very friendly people in Ballymoney, although not too many about at 6.30 in the evening - probably at home having their tea.  And no, before you ask, I didn't see any cows.  Saw these guard cats, though.  Clearly doing a good job in front of the local barracks, or whatever that place is.

Guard cats in Ballymoney

I quite like this photograph.  It might be a contender for 'Photo of the Month', what with the yard brush and gas canisters as well as the cardboard box, which is probably home for the cats.

Ballymoney is a lovely little town with an interesting history photographically.  Once was the manufacturing centre for Corfield cameras, which was in fact the only company to manufacture cameras in Ireland, ever!  But unfortunately the business, which had moved from Wolverhampton in the 1950s, couldn't compete with the Japanese and production didn't continue past the 1960s.  Still, the local museum (which is well worth an hour of your time next time you are passing through) has acquired a few example cameras, lenses and accessories and a nice wee story it makes too!

Charlotte Street, or Piper Row if you prefer

I like the look of Charlotte Street in the town (or Piper Row as it used to be called), so here's a print for your eyes only, complete with meteor shower (sloppy darkroom technique, many apologies won't happen again...much).  A nice row of older houses, with a modern car thrown in for free (but no satellite dishes!).  Here is what it looks like in a balmy September evening, with the temperature hitting a very unseasonal 60°.  I'll be back here in a month or so when the coal fires are burning as I think it might make an interesting little photograph.

No news

Didn't manage to get printing yesterday - was feeling somewhat fatigued to be honest after a dander about in the morning along the banks of the River Bann.  We're having some very clement weather right now for this time of year so it's nice to take the air.  Instead I thought I'd write a little about my plan for this place. (Ed: What's that? He's actually got a plan? That's a first then...)

Ah yes, the name.  Where we live used to be part of the North East Liberties of Coleraine, a divisional barony created in 1584 during the creation of the County of Antrim (although it was later moved into the new County of Londonderry).  More of that to come later but we quite like the term North East Liberties - evokes thoughts of freedom, separation, independence and all that. 

So the basic idea is to record my musings as I wander about in what is the early part of the 21st century, reflecting on my family&friends and our local culture.  All being well there'll be the odd photograph or two - mostly snapped by me on one of my little collection of film cameras and printed in my wee darkroom.  No digital stuff here by the way - apart from the necessary to get the images on here (which will therefore be warts, dust and imperfections and all).  And not much colour either, strictly monochrome!

Arthur, somewhere on the Bann, 1977

OK, couldn't go without leaving you something.  This is Arthur.  No longer with us, Arthur was a skilled craftsman when it came to working with wood.  And he liked to fish too, hence the boat which took us down the River Bann manys-a-time when I was a spotty youth, although I remember more fishing than fish, to be honest.  He's looking very bemused here, probably since he was having an OM-1 loaded with FP4 pointed at him by yours truly.  Taken in 1977, printed 2014!

More Ikonta

Hoping to get back into the darkroom this afternoon for a sesh, so in the meantime here's another couple of prints from Ikonta negs.  Mum's Yew trees are just fantastic - well over 100 years old now and looking in good shape (fogged film and all!).

Yew trees in mum's garden, in rude health

And speaking of mother, here's a rare sighting of her - captured on FP4+ steeped in DD-X and then printed on MG IV pearl with lots of added dust to boot.  She didn't know I was taking it (obviously, or she'd have hidden from view).  Engaged in her favourite pastime, which is sitting on her patio enjoying a good Irish cuppa - in a decent cup.  She's notoriously camera-shy, so there'll not be too many pics of her here - she's about the same age or even slightly older than the camera, which is a nice thought.  Both still in reasonable shape and working as well as can be expected!

Mother

Old Camera

Mum's Fushia, in full bloom

Well I managed to escape to the darkroom yesterday evening and was pleasantly surprised with the results.  These are my first prints from a charity shop find some time ago - a fairly rough-looking 1930-something Zeiss Ikonta 520 which delivers 6x4.5 negs.  I only ended up with about 8 negs as it didn't come with a manual, strangely enough, and I obviously wound on two frames at a time - d'oh!  It has these 2 red windows in the back to help you wind on to the next frame - and leak light by the look of things.  Next time I hope I'll get the full complement of 16 shots and remember to close up the windows using the shutters.  But things turned out not too bad for an 80-odd year old camera.  It has a nice 7cm 3.5 Tessar lens complete with push on yellow filter.  Had to guess the exposure and remember to set the focus manually (no rangefinder in this one!) but that was OK, well most of the time anyway.  I think there's more to come with this little folder but here are the first offerings.  Not the most contrasty negs I've ever had to print (partly down to my guestimate of the exposure no doubt) but not bad, acceptably sharp and nice depth of field to boot.

Portstewart Prom

View from our nearest seaside town, Portstewart, looking west from "The Prom", where folk go to sit in their cars and eat ice cream. The building in the background is the Dominican School, originally the site of O'Hara's Castle, built in 1834.  It was quite a foggy Friday morning and the Ikonta has captured that very well I think.

Trees

You're probably going to see a lot of trees here.  This particular one was captured in late August morning sun on FP4+ which was steeped in DD-X, which seem to work well together although DD-X is not the cheapest dev on the block at 1+4 dilution.  I know there are cheaper developers out there - and some very interesting (including this one) so maybe I'll try something different when the DD-X is finished.  This one was printed on Ilford MG IV pearl and scanned, wonky borders and all, for here.  The scan appears somewhat softer in focus and contrast than the print, although I'm wondering if maybe that's not a good thing... Anyway, here it is for your delectation.  Taken at Mountsandel, if you're interested - one of the oldest known settlements of human-folk in Ireland, dated around 7000BC and just a mile or two up the road.

Tree bathed in late August early morning sun, Mountsandel