Another oldie and a rant

Another of those 6x4.5 negs that I printed the other day:

Apart from the obvious mis-alignment of the neg and the big white spot thing in the water I quite like this one.    There's something going on there, anyway.  Certainly something going on in the water, that's for sure, but I've no idea what created that vortex.  There's only ducks there at Downhill, even in them days.

Downhill has two sides to it - separated by the road that runs from Coleraine to Derry/Londonderry along the coast.  We don't go to the side you see here so much any more, on account of it being 'owned' by the National Trust.  The NT is also custodian of the Giant's Causeway and even Portstewart Strand, where I walk the Hound.  It doesn't really own these places, of course, but it does own the car park and the visitor's centre at the Giant's Causeway, the entrance to the beach and also this side of Downhill, where the remains of the Bishop's House and Mussenden Temple are.   In the good old days we could visit all of these places for free and we did, regularly.  During the good weather we would be at Downhill a couple of times a month, every month - it's a big estate and plenty of different walks to do.  Nowadays it really is a small fortune to go any of these places.  If there was a concession for locals I'd be happier about the Whole Thing, but there isn't, so I'm not happy about it at all, as you can probably tell.  I do get the fact that these places need looking after and that doesn't come for free, but from what I read these days the NT is more concerned about the income from their coffee shops than any real conservation.  This was reinforced by a conversation I had recently with Liam, one of the NT volunteers on the Strand, who is there every day of the year.  He informed me that every NT location has a 'recruitment target' for the season - theirs is 500 new members signed up before the end of the season. 500, just for Portstewart Strand!

So here's my proposal to the National Trust, who I am sure read my posts regularly (Ed: You sure about that?).   Offer a nominal rate to residents who live within a 20 mile radius of your properties.  Allow them to visit as many times as they want to without paying full visitor rates every time.  After all, you rely on locals for volunteers as well as for general goodwill with regard to maintenance, planning issues, historical research etc.  There.  Rant over.

Some time ago

This one wasn't taken yesterday.  1978 probably more like it, I would think:

Yes, that's me at The Bishop's Place in Downhill...probably when I was about 15 or 16.  As you can see, flares were indeed all the rage in the 70s.  I'm holding some sort of camera - most likely an OM-1.  The Brother was behind the camera - and a rare camera it must have been too, since it was a 6x4.5 neg that I had to deal with this morning in the darkroom.  I suspect it must have been one he borrowed for a time, since I don't remember either of us owning anything other than a 35mm in those days.  I was mostly into action photography anyway - cars, bikes etc so 35mm was the only way to go.  The Brother was more into nature, although his first love was birds and he needed some long glass for that, so again 35mm was the weapon of choice.  He had a 500mm mirror lens for his Contax RTS which got a lot of use, I seem to recall.

You see, we tramped around Downhill in them days, too.  We were country boys, really.  Still a grand place to go for a day out, is Downhill.

I must get out and take some new snaps, but at the minute I'm spending more time in the darkroom than anywhere else.  I have to admit I'm starting to like these medium format negs...a lot.

Same old

One you might have seen before, but on Kentmere paper this time:

I dived into the darkroom last night to print this neg, which was from the Sinar.  These are pretty much the full 4x5 negative printed onto an 8x10 print.  Like a lot of things, I've found it works best when you have a plan.  The Nova processor takes about 15mins to heat the chemicals up and then I'm ready to go - all in all it was only about an hour from switching on the Nova until everything was washed and the prints were drying on the rack.

Now the interesting thing is I couldn't wait to get this one toned in sepia, as I thought the subject would really take it well.  But I'm not convinced.  Perhaps the Sepia is past it's best - I have no idea how long it lasts before you need to make up a new batch, and this one has been around a while, to be fair.  Anyway, as you can see, the non-toned print has a lot more punch that the toned one.  I'll take a wee look at Tim Rudman's Toning book to see he has to say about it. 

By the way, if you haven't seen it, this video of yer man in the darkroom is worth a look.   I like watching other how other people work in the darkroom - it's kind of a personal/baring-your-soul thing to invite the world inside... 

More Parklife

No not the Blur sort of Parklife, the Hungary sort:

I've probably said it before, but these portraits draw me in.  Look at the girl on the left there above...her expression is just fascinating.

When I see these, I remind myself how fortunate I was to be in education all my working life.  There is something intrinsically rewarding about learning and I like to think the young people I was involved with were helping me learn as much as the other way round.

I wonder which of these kids became mechanics.  Secretaries, doctors, managers, shop-workers, nurses.  What were their dreams at that age?

There's something about the energy, the expectation, the enthusiasm, the interest in things around them that young people have that is very infectious.

Second attempt

OK so here we are then...the next instalment:

Yes, I know, not much different from the first attempt.  But this was the best of the next few sheets of Kentmere that I wasted this morning.  It's still all a bit overpoweringly dark.  I might try again, via a combination of light and contrast.  Spring is getting in the way of all this darkroom work, though - there's grass to be cut, raspberry canes to be sorted out, spuds to be planted.  Well the spuds are in, so that's a start.  We've had a decent spell of dry weather here in The Liberties - cold, but dry.  Rain is forecast though - no surprise there, right?

Oh, just for the record, we didn't get swimming.  By the time Missy got herself ready, it was afternoon and the pool was full of weans getting lessons.  So we went to Asda instead, which was pretty horrible.  Not as horrible as Brussels, though, which was on a completely different level of horribleness...

It's a start

I wasn't sure about this one - it's been lurking in my neg file for a while.  And on my hard drive.  But I got it out the other day and played around with it in software and thought there might be something in it.

And then since I had a free hour this morning I dived into the darkroom to see what would happen.  After wasting a bit of paper this one came out:

It was taken sometime towards the end of last summer - from Binevenagh, overlooking Lough Foyle with Inishowen there in the distance.  The light was pretty amazing for about half an hour that evening - when the sun came out from behind that cloud it was like a super trouper (I think that's what they're called - thanks to ABBA of course for that one).  Anyway, it was one of those evenings you were glad you'd driven the half an hour or so and brought the Sinar along.  Although since the light was changing rapidly, and by a lot, I was lucky that anything printable got recorded at all.

I don't think I'm done with this one yet, though.  Sometimes you have to look at a print for a while and run through a few What ifs? in your mind.  I reckon it's a time thing - I need some time to pass and keep looking at it and then the answer, or maybe just a different answer, comes.  With luck I'll get back in tomorrow for another go at it, although I've promised Missy we'll go swimming tomorrow, since there's no school this week. Mind you, if today's anything to go by it'll be lunchtime before she surfaces.  She's a bit of a reader, is Missy and is currently burning through her pocket money by buying Kindle books and then reading half the night.  Long may it continue...

What do I do?

I bumped into an ex-colleague from my lecturing days today.  That doesn't happen as often as one might think in a small place like The Liberties - mostly I guess 'cos when I'm out and about my ex-colleagues aren't...they're still doing something important. Indeed. But today it happened.  He said the usual stuff that people who are still working say to those who aren't - told me I was looking well and asked how many years I was out of it (3...I think).  Thankfully he didn't ask me what I'm doing with myself these days.

I mean, what can I truthfully answer to that?  What have I done in 3 years?

I took this photograph - that's one thing I did. And then I scanned it so I could post it here for your delectation.  You see, I didn't even enter the Dark Place and print it on some nice paper.  I'm pretty sure it's not worth printing, mind you - nothing's in focus, it's all low contrast, grey and horrible.  Like the weather in it.  It's not going to win any awards.  But then again, awards aren't all their cracked up to be, right?