Brother mine

We're on a bit of a roll on this place at the minute - with people, that is.  So let's continue in that vein for the moment.  Today's offering is The Brother, who must have visited back in 2016 as he too was on that rogue film:

The Brother, as he looked in 2016.  This one needed pre-flashing under the enlarger in order to bring out what little sky there was.  It's still on the flat and lifeless side of flat and lifeless.  In my defense it looks like a fairly typical dull Northern Irish day...not a shadow in sight and just a big diffuse soft-box in the sky.  Anyway, he's giving me rather a whimsical glance and it's a nice moment to have captured.  It reminds me our grandfather, who always had a ready smile for us back in the day, as well as a well-turned phrase or two.  As youngsters we would take turns on goading him into saying one of his favourite phrases and then laugh our heads off when he unwittingly walked into our trap. 'Not half' was one such phrase - meaning, of course, 'Yes, absolutely'.  'Grandpa, would it hurt if I stamped on your foot?'...'Aye, not half!' and Oh boy we laughed ourselves silly at that one. I'm sure he thought we weren't right in the head at times.

Les Jeunes

This is one of the shots from the 2016 film that came out of the mix at the weekend.  Taken on the young fellow's graduation day at Queen's, Belfast.  The young lady on the right of this shot you might recognise from before (here) and in a few months she will be tying the knot with my stepson.  Yup, I know, he's a lucky boy.  My daughter on the left is now doing her thing at Uni. 

Missy & Clare, at Queen's in 2016.  Via FP4+ in HC-110 and most likely through the M6.  On Ilford MG Classic fibre paper.

I know this was 6 years ago but Hey isn't time flying?  I mean, Clare hit a major birthday this year and Missy has just over a year to go until her teenage years are gone.  What the heck?  I never used to think too much about this stuff when I was working - I guess I was too busy.  Perhaps it's having more time on my hands that means I'm more able to notice the bigger picture.  

It's awful news today on the world stage, with Putin finally showing his hand in Ukraine.  A quick check shows that the population of Ukraine is about 44 million people, so it's no drop in the ocean.  I can only imagine the stark and probably very limited choices the average Ukrainian is facing this morning.  However this pans out I hope there is minimal loss of life and that restraint and common sense prevail - although when it comes to war and politics history teaches us these are often in short supply.

A

I've known A for over 40 years, which sounds like a long time when you read it out loud.  She now lives in the Big Smoke over there in England but returns home to her roots every now and again and we usually head out for a walk on the beach or similar when she's here.  I'm not sure A would thank me for this shot, taken on a windy day outside Babushka Café in Portrush but I like it a lot.  Not solely because of the presence of my friend, but of the significance of the scene captured - our catch-up chat after the walk (inclement weather notwithstanding - raincoat and scarf were, I suspect, very necessary), the tabletop with tea (me), cappuccino (A), water, phone and with the sea and clouds just visible on the left.  Pre-mask days, in case you were wondering...although I only just uncovered this shot and printed it yesterday morning.  The story behind that continues below...

Sit down and a tea in Portrush, no doubt after a bracing walk along the West Strand.  From the look of it most likely a 21mm lens, which means it must have been the M6.  FP4+ in HC-110 (1:31, 9mins).  Printed on Ilford MG Fibre Classic paper.  I've not used the gloss version of this before but it's rather nice. 

You might recall I was doing a sweep of my 35mm cameras the other day and not only found a film lurking in the M6 but there was also one in the OM-1.  So I finished it up on Saturday with some Still Life and headed into the darkroom to develop said film.  It didn't go smoothly.  I couldn't figure out why the damn thing wasn't going onto the reel (Paterson) as it should - the last 6 inches or so resolutely refused to budge, no matter how many times I 'gently' tapped the side of the reel.  I decided the best course of action was to rip off the bit of film that wasn't loading, hoping that there weren't too many masterpieces on it.  Fast-forward to lifting the film out of the Photo-flo prior to hanging it up to dry and What do I find?  Two films!  What the heck...two films connected by sticky tape - the same sticky tape I use when bulk loading.  Somehow I got my cartridges mixed up and ended up adding a length of new film onto the end of a film already exposed.  That's a first for me.  So the reason the last few inches of film was refusing to go onto the reel was that the reel was full.  D'oh!

The good news is that I uncovered some shots taken in 2016, one of which you see above.  I can tell the year as there are some shots from my son's graduation on the film (the same lad you saw in my last post) so all in all it was a good outcome from a rather strange mix-up.  

Portrait of a Young Man

Kind of a nod to James Joyce with that title.  We've had a plethora of stories over here about JJ recently, what with the 100 year anniversary of the publication of his magnum opus Ulysses.  I read a good bit of Joyce in my youth and loved most of it (Dubliners, Portrait...) but I have to confess I ran out of steam with Ulysses.  I think I got half-way through before it beat me. Shame on me, I know.  I should try it again now I'm a bit older.  And for the record, I hardly scratched the surface of Finnegans Wake.  When I was courting my wife to be (and mother to the subject of today's print below) we took our first foreign holiday together in the North East of Italy.  That gave us the opportunity for a day-trip to Venice and, perhaps more importantly, a trip to Trieste, where Joyce spent some years in the early part of the 20th Century.  Mind you, when we went around the year 2000 it took a bit of research to find out where the great man lived and what cafés and bars he frequented but I did eventually track down one which we were able to spend some time in and think about the life of you-know-who.  Mind you, I much prefer that sort of experience to the in-your-face one where you walk down James Joyce Boulevard before heading into the James Joyce Café and buying the James Joyce frappé etc etc.  I don't remember too much about Trieste other than it was quite a lovely city to walk around (even in searing heat).  That, plus we had a rather superb pizza in a very unassuming café not far from the train station. 

Anyway, back to today.  Or last Saturday to be more precise, when we went a-visiting to my wife's youngest son:

HP5+ via the M6/28mm Elmarit, developed in HC-110.  Printed on very old Barclay fixed grade paper which has rather an unusual (but lovely) texture, which seems to accentuate the grain.

It's a big year for this guy - he's moving house in a few weeks and then in June he's getting hitched.  And a month or so after that his best man is getting married.  He's just beginning to realise the implications of all that those major events crammed into the space of a few months, which might explain the rather manic appearance in the shot above.

Him again

In the nearly eight years of this blog there ain't too many shots of yours truly - mainly 'cos I'm the one behind the camera.  There was this one, in case you missed it.  Anyway, I was checking through my collection of 35mm cameras the other day and I realised there was half a film lurking in the M6 so on Saturday I took it with me to my stepson's house and shot anything and everything I could to use it up.  Hence:

A mirror image of this blog's author, 2022.  M6ttl with 28mm Elmarit. HP5+ in HC-110, printed on very old Barclay graded paper.  I'll be 59 later this year.  Can't escape the fact that 60 is a big one and it's coming fast.  Nothing for it but to keep the head down and make more photographs.  To paraphrase Imogen Cunningham, my favourite photograph is the one I'm going to take tomorrow.  It feels like a very long time since I made a decent photograph and I'm not sure why that is.  To some degree I can blame the light - this winter has been awfully dull and miserable here in The Liberties.  To some degree I can blame 'events, dear boy' - our frequent trips to Oxford since September have been a bit strength-sapping.  The bottom line is that I have only that guy in the mirror to blame, so I'm telling him to Get his Act Together, and pronto.

Back amongst the dead

What is it about graveyards that's so interesting?  A link to our past, perhaps.  A reminder that, at some point, we must all die?  Whatever the reason, I can rarely resist a meander about a graveyard - and the older the better.  Although not particularly old, these three markers in St Patrick's Church of Ireland, Ballymoney caught my eye last week.  Together with the old tower in the background they made an interesting scene and I spent a little while trying to get the best perspective:

St Patrick's Church of Ireland graveyard, Ballymoney.  Hasselblad, 50mm Distagon FLE, Fomapan 100 in HC-110.  On Ilford Cooltone RC paper, which kind of suited the scene for a change.  The tower in the background lies in a much older graveyard and is presumably all that remains of the original church on this site.  You can't see it but there's a road between the two graveyards - I had to bide my time so I didn't catch any vehicles in the shot, which I suspect might have ruined the shot somewhat :)

In most graveyards in Ireland there will be a Celtic Cross of some description and this one was no exception.  The big one on the right would appear to be cast in concrete, but nonetheless is rather lovely. The other two crosses in the foreground are just hewn from stone, by the look of them. My favourite of the three is the little one on the left - unassuming beside the other two and it seems to be just placed on a rough stone. 

At some point most people get the opportunity to think about what they want done with their remains and whether or not they want a marker of some description.  Sometime after our daughter was born we made an appointment with our solicitor to make/update our wills.  I was somewhat taken aback with his first question, which was precisely that...What do you want done with your body?  Up to that point I hadn't really given the question much thought and I think I looked at my wife and we both muttered something about being buried together in the local cemetery.  In this part of the world there are usually two options - burial or cremation.  In our extended family we've had both - my uncle and his wife chose cremation and with that you get a tree planted and a small plaque in the crematorium's Garden of Remembrance, which is in Belfast.  My father and grandparents were all buried in the local cemetery in Coleraine.  My mother says when her time comes she wants to be cremated but wants no marker of any description - she's happy for her ashes to be scattered wherever I choose.  She wants no religious service.  Actually she wants no ceremony of any kind.  We're a small family and given my mother's age (she turned 90 in December past) she has no friends left to remember her - they've all gone.  Even the few neighbours that we had who knew her in her prime are no longer around.  So there will be just a few of us to celebrate her life, when that time comes.  

No Bicycles

While the ladies were checking out the shops in the new(ish) Westgate Shopping Centre I went for a dander.  I found myself in New Inn Hall Street, which apparently is one of the oldest streets in Oxford.  New Inn Hall was founded sometime in the 13th Century on the site of a medieval Inn (Bishop Trellick's - those clergy liked their ale).  There are some very old buildings along New Inn Hall St but unfortunately there were cars parked close to them, which kind of spoil the 'olde-worlde' feel so I had to walk on by.

It was late afternoon and already dark but this scene made me smile so I snapped it up:

No Bicycles, Oxford 2022. It looks like the bicycles have contravened the sign and been put in jail.  Spoiler alert: the owners have heeded the sign, not chained their bikes to the centuries-old railings but parked them in the courtyard behind. Yashica T4 with auto-flash, HP5+ in HC-110.  Printed on Ilford Cooltone RC paper.

I had to hold the Yashica up above my head to get the perspective I wanted and so the focus patch missed the 'No Bicycles' sign, but in hindsight the shot worked quite well like this. 

Talking of city noise, as I was the other day, this article about Theodor Lessing (the 'anti-noise philosopher') in today's Guardian caught my eye.  Lessing first wrote about urban din in 1901.  I wonder what he would make of life in today's cities.

Food

One thing that hits me about Oxford is the variety of food on offer.  It makes a change from walking around here on the North Coast of Ireland.  I know it's all relative and that where I live is not exactly a metropolis (thank goodness, eh?) but it's really very pleasant to have the choice of food that Oxford offers.  Gloucester Green market had a number of food stalls which looked (and smelt) amazing.  We didn't partake this time as we were getting too close to our early evening restaurant booking but lots of people were indulging.  We settled for a dander around some of the stalls, selling old maps, books, records and artefacts.  No old camera stalls, though that was probably a good thing...

French Onion Soup on offer at Gloucester Green market.  HP5+ in HC-110, on Ilford Cooltone RC paper.

But it's not all roses.  I'd forgotten how busy the city centre is - even on a cold Saturday afternoon in January.   Busy and noisy.  Every five minutes (or so it seems) there's a vehicle belonging to one of the emergency services trying to make it's way through the traffic - and that means full on sirens, which are loud.  Amplified of course by my hearing aids which are usually turned to a Spinal Tap 11 so when I get the first notice of an impending siren I instinctively reach to knock them off.  Ah the sound of silence - it's really rather lovely at times, although a little dangerous in a City environment where there are people, bicycles, scooters and vehicles - some of which don't always obey the rules.

This contraption was lurking round the back of the Colleges.  It looked pretty inviting and a crepe is hard to beat when you're in the mood, but there weren't many takers when we passed, about 5pm on Saturday evening.  I can only imagine what it's like working in there on a warm Summer's day with the griddles full on. 

We were en route to our favourite Indian Restaurant - a little gem of a place we discovered by accident on our last trip in November.  Amazingly, the owner Mohammad remembered us and even thanked us for the TripAdvisor review we left. “I knew it was you”, he said to my wife.  Even though it was Saturday evening and the place was buzzing he took time to chat to us and brought us a complimentary dish (which he also did the first time we visited).  That's the sort of experience that makes you want to return to a restaurant - and we will. Chutney's, on St Michael's Street, if you ever find yourself in the city craving for some authentic South Asian food.  You wouldn't think it from the decor (it is distinctively down-market compared to some Indian Restaurants) but with a claim to be Oxford's oldest surviving Indian Restaurant and with photographs on the wall of famous clientele including President Bill Clinton of the USA and President Asif Ali Zadarwi of Pakistan they must be doing something right. 

The food can be very spicy so care is required.  On our first visit my wife was visibly suffering so Mohammad brought her a large glass of iced mango juice, which he said he had found to be the best for mollifying the heat from the food.  And it was!  We've been converts ever since and now our fridge is always well stocked with mango juice for when we crave something with a bit of a kick at home.