Can't win 'em all

'Tis funny, since quite often you know when something might or might not be quite right when you press that shutter release.  Actually, writing that sentence made me wonder, do digital cameras have shutters - as we know them, that is?  Turns out they do, or probably do, since apparently the sensors need some sort of shutter to stop them recording what they see all of the time.  So there you go.  No better explanation on the 'Net will you find.  Perhaps.

But to get back to to the case in point, sometimes when you press that shutter release button, usually on the top of the camera - although on my old Practica MTL5 it resides about 3/4 way up from the bottom plate, which is actually a really comfortable place and one wonders why other manufacturers did not follow suit but that's another question for another day in what is already becoming a very long sentence - one has a bit of an inkling whether or not there might be something worthwhile captured.  As we film users don't have the luxury of 'chimping', we're left wondering until we pull the film from the Paterson spiral after the final wash and as we dunk it into the Kodak Photo-Flo we catch a sneaky look to see if there might be something there.  Hanging it up to dry in the improvised film-dryer courtesy of Ikea we sneak another peek.  But only after drying said film, as we cut it into strips of 6-, or maybe 5-negative rows before inserting into our PrintFile negative sleeves (or similar) do we really begin to look closely.  And then maybe we might lay said film strips onto a light box if one has one available and look through a magnifying loupe, or alternatively, as I do, one holds said film-strips up to the light to see what one can see.

But anyway, after all that palaver, you might get the impression there might be something worth printing - perhaps a couple of frames of the film at least.  I've said before that I gave up scanning negs some time ago and much the better do I feel for it.  Most times I'll print it if a neg looks half-decent and after looking at the print, if it's still only half-decent I'll not do anything more with it.  If I think it 'has potential' then it's a different story...usually an expensive one as well as it'll take a few, or more than a few, sheets of paper to get it the way I want it.  Sometimes, of course, it never gets to be 'the way I want it' but takes me on a different path altogether and that's OK.

After all that chat, here's a print.  Now I kinda knew at the time that there was a lot I liked in this shot - lines, shapes, stonework and even churchy stuff in the background -  but I also knew that I'd be losing the sky, since there was really nothing there...it being Portugal in summer and all.  A filter of some sort might have helped, but it was a family holiday and I was in 'tourist' mode and wasn't going to break up the party for half an hour while I futtered about with camera stuff...

Steps of the São Francisco Church, Porto, poorly snapped and poorly printed

To futer, by the way, is pronounced 'footer' and is a good NE Liberties word (probably Scots fouter, possibly originally old French foutre :) or Irish futar) meaning to fidget, or similar, although my grandfather would have used this word frequently in the context of being a bit kack-handed, or clumsy.  'Stop futtering!' 'What are you futtering at? - give that to me!' Not to be said in any angry sense, mind you, more a relaxed/helpful way...