Stoned

No, not me.  The Earl Bishop's ruined house at Downhill (this one).  This shot is taken near the rear of the ruin, just before the walk down to Mussenden Temple.  The brother and I were taking a moment's respite from the ferocious wind coming in from Donegal direction - a wind which would have cleaned you, as my mother would say.

Can't remember what camera - and can't be bothered to go dig out the negative to check the notes.  Apologies all round.  Probably OM4ti with HP5.  On Kentmere fixed grade paper.
Not sure anything is sharp in this shot, but as we all know from HC-B, sharpness is a bourgeois concept.  It is what it is.  Don't you just hate that phrase?  I admit to having used it on occasion (and perhaps even on this place) but when I see it written down it's just so...eugh.

The Finger

This big lump of rock sits by the Prom in Portstewart.  To me it looks like a finger pointing to the stars.

Kentmere fixed grade paper

Coastguard lookout

 The abandoned Coastguard lookout on the top of the hill above Portstewart Prom, on pinhole:

Fomapan 200, rated at 25.  30 second exposure on a very cold and windy February morning.
On old Kentmere fixed grade paper.

The composition is better in the second shot but annoyingly, as you can see, there are a few 'issues' with it.  I must have been careless with the negative and there are some scratches and blemishes on it.  4"x5" negatives are lovely things but they are so large it's easy to mark them.  

Switched on

 I got my cochlear implant switched on yesterday.  It was a tiring day - about 2 hours of programming it to my hearing, identifying low and high volume settings across a range of pitches.  But it works, it's on and I'm getting something through it.  Speech sounds weird.  When my wife talks, it's like nothing is coming out of her mouth, but someone is whispering her words directly into my head.  And it sounds like Marvin the chipmunk speaking into a tin can.  But - and it's a big but - there doesn't seem to be the distortion present that I was getting through my hearing aids, so I'm excited about that.

It's a three-to-six month journey, I'm told.  And I have to walk before I can run.  I'm not too good at that, I have to admit - I want it all, and I want it now.  But I guess I'll have to play the long game.  I have four preset programs to work through over the next 2 weeks and then the device gets remapped again.  And then again a few weeks after that.  It feels good to have started the process - that was a long 3 weeks since the operation.

Boarded-up window in one of my mother's outhouses.  Not quite sure why this one was barred. 
Lith print on Slavich paper.

Room with a view

This rather splendid Cotswold stone house overlooks the Duke of Marlborough's estate, aka Blenheim Palace, in the village of Woodstock just north of Oxford.  Mind you, I'm not sure the Duke is too worried about being seen as he's getting dressed in the morning, as his gaff is at least half a mile away, with trees and lake in between.  

HP5+, Moersch Easylith on Slavich paper.

I was standing just inside the grounds of the estate when taking this shot, with Blenheim Palace some way behind me.  Ironically, the owners of this house have the better view.  In fact, they have an incredible view.  The downside is that they have to put up with hundreds of visitors passing by every day...some even with cameras, although I'm sure 99.99% have them pointed the other way, towards the palace.  There's always one, though, isn't there? ;)

  

Shadow lines

The strong sunlight casting shadows through this Oxford gate caught my eye.  The house was close to the Radcliffe Camera, if I remember correctly.

Lith print, Slavich paper.

Once in a while

 something half decent emerges from the darkroom.  Makes a pleasant change.  

Entrance to the Ashmolean, Oxford.  Lith print; Slavich paper.

Red Tractors

 It almost goes without saying that most of the tractors in Northern Ireland are of the red variety - Massey Fergusons.  That's 'cos Mr Harry Ferguson was a Belfast man.  Engineer, inventor, aviator, Formula 1 designer - he did it all and his name will forever by synonymous with tractors in this part of the world.  You can read more about him here, including his famous 'handshake agreement' with a certain Mr Henry Ford - an agreement which Ford's grandson ended and which resulted in a court case, settled in favour of Harry F but at great cost to his health.  

Anyway, these two big boys were being used to gather spuds a while ago, in a field just down the road from us.  I got in close with an Olympus OM4ti and 85mm Zuiko lens:

Massey Fergusons on HP5+; Ilford MG Classic paper.

This next shot shows the potato-gathering contraption, to give it its proper title ;) 

I spent a good while studying how it worked that day - it was pretty interesting!   The tractor was going up and down the field very slowly - I mean, at a snail's pace.  Inside the thing were two people (a man and a woman) who I realised later were doing an essential, if dirty, job.  The device itself was gouging up copious amounts of good Ulster earth, most of which was deposited back in the ground not long after.  The nuggets (spuds) were being shook free of the earth in some way (that happened inside the thing, so I wasn't party to the details).  The potatoes were then transported to the hopper via a conveyor belt, and every so often they would be moved to the large trailer you might remember in this shot.  The man and the woman were, I eventually figured out, picking out anything which wasn't a potato and ensuring it didn't end up in the wrong place.  When they stopped for a break it seemed very important to them to look carefully through the various things they had picked out.  To me it looked like a lot of junk - old tin cans and the like - but perhaps they had, at some time in the past, found something of value.  You never know what the ground might give up, I guess - there have been instances when gold and other precious metal artefacts have been uncovered around these parts.  I don't think they found anything much the day I was there - or if they did, they were keeping quiet about it.  Who knows?