Ramblings

It must be all the clearing out at my mother's place but I've taken to decluttering my film stuff lately, listing various bits of gear on that well-known auction site as well as locally.  I'd prefer to sell locally as the other place's charges are ridiculously high these days - 12.8% of the total amount of the sale (which includes postage, weirdly - how can they justify taking a cut of the cost of postage?), plus 30p (a bit random), plus a 0.42% 'regulatory operating fee', again on the total final value.   I had listed an old computer magazine (Personal Computing) from the early 1980s, just for fun really, to see if there was any interest; listed at 99p.  Amazingly it sold - someone paid £3.69 for it, included postage.  After fees, I ended up with...drum roll...41p.  Worth the hassle?  Absolutely not.  So I deleted all the things that I had listed for less than a tenner (which will now go to charity) and upped the postage costs on everything else.   

 Anyway, the point of today's ramblings is that I came across a lens attachment thing which I thought would be the perfect thing to sell, for maybe a tenner or so.  There were two parts to it - one was clearly a fish-eye optic and the other bit, which screwed on to the rear of the fish-eye, was a close-up optic. Bound to be rubbish quality, I thought.  But I noticed it had a 49mm thread.  Interesting,  I thought - both a bunch of Olympus OM and Pentax ME lenses take a 49mm thread.   Then I remembered I had half a film lurking in the Leica which I really should get finished and developed, which might mean I have something actually worth printing in the darkroom for a change.  So from the Leica I wound the film back into the spool (well, not completely, obviously), loaded it into the OM4ti, stuck it on manual, 1/2000 of a second at f/16 and in the darkroom, in a black bag for safety, fired off the half of the film that had been exposed.  Back in the light I attached the close-up/fisheye optic on the end of a 50mm Zuiko and headed to the garage to see what I could find to photograph up close.  This was one of the shots, after developing in HC-110 and printed Sunday morning on Kentmere VC Select paper that was kindly sent to me recently by an old friend whose daughter used to print some time ago.

Can you guess what it is?

I was right - rubbish quality, optically.  But the end result was most pleasing.  Bottom line, I'm keeping it.  I promise I'll try not to over-use it but it is tempting to go a bit mad with it, I reckon.

Oh, what is it?  It's a shot of an old (very old) motorists emergency Pifco lamp.  It has a red dome which would have flashed once upon a time and a headlight torch (the headlight is what you can see here, with the body of the lamp just about discernible to the right if you know what it is.  One of my father's purchases, no doubt, about 50-odd years ago.  Well done if you guessed correctly ;)

This man walked in space

Cet homme a marché dans l'espace was the headline in the Paris Match edition from 27th March 1965.  How do I know this?  Because yesterday, up in my mother's garage, I was holding this magazine in my hands, having discovered it (and a few others from that era) lurking in an old box.

The guy's name was Alexi Arkhipovich Leonov, a Russian Cosmonaut
- the first man to conduct a space walk (which lasted 12 minutes and 9 seconds). 

I'm guessing my father must have subscribed to Paris Match at a time; he was always interested in European languages and did all he could to keep up his knowledge of French, Italian, German and Spanish, having travelled all over Europe in his bachelor days - on his Triumph motorbike. 

Space exploration really took off in the 60s, of course and magazines like this would have offered readers a glimpse into these historic events - in colour.  It was still a few years before colour TVs became commonplace in Ireland.  We got our first colour set around June of 1976 and I remember being amazed by the fact that the tennis courts at Wimbledon were a vibrant green - who'd have guessed! 

From 1963 we have this edition which covered the coronation of Pope Paul VI - who looks like he's either about to go into space (or just arrived from space):

When I get time, I'll post some phone shots of the contents of these magazines.  For now, I've left them with my mother to peruse.

Film is alive in Ireland

A few years ago the local Photographic Club was gifted some old cameras and darkroom gear from a local school art department that was closing (the school was closing, not just the art dept).  As chief 'film and darkroom guy' at the club the stuff fell to me.  I helped one guy set up a darkroom in his house but he's since gone on to have a clatter of weans (that's children - wee ones - in case you aren't familiar with the vernacular) so I don't think he has the time for it right now.  Two other enlargers (Durst M670BW and Meopta Axomat) have been sitting in my garage for the last few years and there seemed little (i.e., no) interest from anyone else in the Club.  So I listed them on FB Marketplace, free of charge.  Yesterday a guy drove 3-and-a-half hours from the other end of the country to pick them up.  Over a cup of tea he explained his plans.  Originally from Belarus he started an online business a while back, digital printing service mostly, calendars, photobooks and the like.  He also offered a film processing service by mail order - the only one in Ireland, apparently.   Enter Covid and lockdown and his film processing service took off, since the shops were mostly closed.  He tells me he does about 500 films a month, so I guess film is well and truly alive in Ireland.  Though over 90% is C41 colour, for some strange reason ;)

He plans to open a community darkroom, hence his interest in the enlargers.  I wish him well - he seems to have the determination to make it happen and I was very happy to gift him the enlargers to help kick-start his efforts. 

What better way to start the week than with a photo of a cute lamb.
This one with my fellow Photo Club member Graham, who reared this little one a while back. 

Summer (what summer?)

This summer has been the worst weather-wise in a very long number of years.  A few warm, sunny days - and only a few.  Mostly it's been rain, rain, rain.  All day yesterday and more this morning.  At least it is warm. Yesterday I spent sorting out the garage, having a major clear-out that is needed every now and again.  I think it's partly because I am helping my mother clear out her place, little by little.  It's infectious.  And liberating, I must admit.  Mind you, usually when I throw something out I haven't used in years I'm looking for it about a week later...

Sand dunes at Portstewart, à la lith.

In other news, the Oxford adventure is over - Missy has finally vacated her shared house.  And...drum roll...the next adventure beckons.  She has been offered a place in Newcastle University to study for an MRes in Neuroscience.  The MRes is a Masters by Research - a 12 month thing.  There are taught modules in the first and second semesters - research methods, essential groundings in neuroscience and more specialist modules of the student's choosing, such as 'The biological basis of psychiatric illness and its treatment', 'Scientific basis of  neurological disorders', 'Sensory systems'.  Then it's into a 24-week research project where the student (under guidance of a supervisor) gets to grip with a lab-based project in the area of their choice, ending up with a 30,000 word dissertation.  Effectively the student takes responsibility for their own learning along the way and can attend various taught courses across the Faculty to support that learning.  I've always like the structure of the MRes - it seems to be more like how people learn 'in the real world' as opposed to being taught and assessed by exams (which were never Missy's forte).  Exciting times. My brother helpfully chipped in: By the end of her project perhaps she'll be able to finally fathom out what happened to her father's brain...