The Poisoned Glen

There's always time for a good yarn in this part of the world and the reason for this place being called The Poisoned Glen is no exception.  Forget notions of old Irish Chieftains being called to their maker through drinking water which had been cursed by a witch - the real reason is, apparently, by accident.  It appears that some-one (English no doubt) wrongly transcribed the Irish word neamhe (meaning 'heaven') as neimhe (meaning 'poison').  Whatever - Heavenly Glen or Poisoned Glen, it's a grand place in which to find yourself standing in what goes for the middle of summer in these parts.

The Poisoned Glen

That one was taken with the Franka Solida 6x6 folder on HP5/DD-X, if you're interested.  A lovely little camera it is, with a Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 80mm f/3.5 lens.  It has a non-coupled rangefinder and the centre spot is still very clear and easy to use (when you need to - most times I'm down at f/8 anyway where there's reasonable depth of field to work with).   The rangefinder is magnified, which is a nice touch and makes it easier to focus accurately on your subject - although it's still a bit of a shock when I switch from viewfinder to rangefinder and suddenly find myself zoomed in.  You turn the distance dial on the top with your thumb when looking through the focus finder until the two images coincide, then transfer the reading from the dial onto the lens.  It probably takes longer to describe than actually do.  The hardest part is to remember to check/set both shutter speed and aperture - I find myself forgetting to check the shutter speed, since you have to either tilt the camera up a bit or turn it around to face you in order to see the shutter speed ring.   Most times now I just set it on 1/125 and leave it there. There's no meter of course, so you either guess or do something else.

It's a bit boggy round this part of Donegal, as you can see, so I didn't venture too far up the glen.  Actually I didn't go any further than you can see in the snap above - Dr C and his Bro went a bit deeper into the Glen, but I left them to it and just hung around for a bit, wasting some more film.  

The big lumps of rock round here are granite formations and there isn't much vegetation on them.  If you are lucky and are standing in the right place, at the right time of day and with the right light I'd imagine they catch the light quite nicely - not like in this snap below, where I just snapped what I saw before those clouds erupted.  

Granite rock formations in Donegal

Here's another one for good measure:

Grantie rocks and light in Donegal

Isn't it hard not to like the auld clouds in this part of the world?   I mean, Forget about the rock-things, which have been there for millions of years, not moving very much at all - those clouds move every minute of the day.