Now doesn't that look like a nice place to live? Well it does to me. It's in Dunlewey, Donegal, very close to the old church that I snapped up a couple of years ago when on a trip with my mate Dr C. This is the gatehouse to a serious Country Estate which lies to the south of Lough Dunlewey - notice the 'Keep Out' gates leading past the house. I daresay a mile or two up the lane there's a big pile of bricks arranged in rather an impressive form. There are quite a few grand estates in Donegal - well, in Ireland as a whole to be honest. Personally I have no need nor want for a big castle thing, but this gate-lodge caught my eye. The tranquillity of the setting, the babbling brook leading down to the lough, the trees - well it all seemed pretty perfect to my eyes. So I snapped it up on the M6 with the 35mm Summarit lens.
The Summarit range of Leica lenses are the cheap ones, in case you didn't know. Of course cheap in Leica-land is anything but. But it draws beautifully on film, this piece of glass does. And it's a thing of beauty itself - taking 39mm filters it is really petite. Not the fastest lens on the planet, with a maximum aperture of f/2.5 but I find it absolutely fine for the sort of snaps I take. With the M6 I find I can handhold at speeds way lower than anything else, it being mirrorless and what have you. Well, enough for the size of prints I make, anyway.
This one was printed on 9.5"x12" Foma 131 fibre paper, followed by a dunk in some Moersch Lith developer. I was pretty happy with the outcome, apart from the burnt-out highlight there in the sky. One of those artefacts that if you don't see it, it ain't there...but once you do see it, it's hard not to look at it. Funny thing that...
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