We're loomed!

There's an old TV programme called Dad's Army that you might be familiar with and in it there's a jovial Scotsman called Frazer who's catchphrase was 'We're doomed, doomed I tell you' - spoken in a strong Scottish accent along with mad, staring eyes.  He was, of course, anything but jovial (he's an undertaker) but a great character.  Nothing whatsoever to do with this print, by the way, just I was reminded of his catchphrase by the subject matter:

Old Dutch loom, Orvelte Museum Village, The Netherlands.  Ilford Warmtone paper, sepia tone

I didn't have high hopes for this when I first saw the print emerge in the darkroom but after sepia toning and drying it I was pleasantly surprised.  There was a lovely soft light coming in from a window on the left and HP5 seems to have captured it pretty well.  On the M6/35mm lens.

Kitty of Coleraine

Another print from my walk around Coleraine Marina recently.  This was a brass fixing and screw on a very old wooden boat in the process of being restored.  A very famous old boat, as it happens - none other than 'Kitty of Coleraine'.  Now I know that as well-read you lot are, it is very unlikely you will know about Kitty of Coleraine, but around The Liberties it's known not just as the name of a boat, but as the title of an old Ulster folk song.

Part of the boat Kitty of Coleraine, under restoration.  Ilford Warmtone RC paper, sepia tone. 120 neg.

Perhaps a little better known that I imagined, actually, since a bit of desktop research reveals that none other than the great Bing Crosby covered it, which if you are a Bing fan you might like to see&hear by clicking here.

Not quite sure...

...what this is, but as it was from the roll of film snapped on my walkabout Coleraine Marina I'm guessing it was part of a wooden hull of a boat.  I think I had the close-up filter on the front of the lens, so I'm not even sure anything much is in focus but since when did that matter?  On Ilford Warmtone RC paper with a bit of sepia toner after-effect:

Kelp House, Rathlin Island

A place at which I have stood a number of times and even printed it out on lith more than once, but this was the state of play earlier this summer:

From the 'Blad, HP5+, Foma paper and Easylith developer

I had to clamber over the rocks to take this snap and Missy, who was exploring round the other side of the Kelp House when I pressed the shutter release, had a panic attack when she saw where I was.  I was ordered to 'Stay Put' while she came to my rescue - I was actually quite happy to accept help, as if I had taken a tumble the 'Blad might have got damaged :)

House

The house in The Netherlands we were staying at recently.  Not a typical Dutch House, apparently - more your Scandinavian/Finnish House.  Lots of wood inside and out - very nice it was too.  Sauna upstairs and all. Anyway, I snapped the outside of it up on the M6, printed said negative on Foma paper and dunked it in some lith developer.  Came out rather well, I thought - some darkish bits, some lightish bits and some bits in-between:

A Finnish-style house, in The Netherlands, 2017

Dutch barn

When I printed out a 35mm neg from our recent visit to Orvelte Museum Village in The Netherlands, it turned out like this:

The side of a barn, via 35mm rangefinder camera&35mm lens

So I dried the fibre paper thing off and pressed it for a couple of days in the garage using my bespoke pressing apparatus - a couple of bits of melamine-covered chipboard on top of which I place a very old and heavy Sony CD player once belonging to my Uncle and a similiarly heavy socket set from the days when I used to mess about under cars - long gone I can tell you.  Anyway, it seems to work OK for after a couple of days the prints are fairly flat.

After all that, I decided to immerse the print in some H2O and then bleach it and finally sepia tone it.  After another round of drying and flattening it came out looking like this:

Not quite sure it was worth the effort, to be honest...

Westerbork Transit Camp

A rather grim, but important reminder of the bloody history in Europe not so long ago is Westerbork Transit Camp, in Drenthe, Netherlands.  We went there.  There's an interesting and very informative museum with many stories and artefacts of the camp's inhabitants.  Unfortunately most of the written history is in Dutch and I was surprised how little I could understand - my school German, with some top-ups over the years isn't too bad but Dutch seems to have different roots so I was floundering a bit.

Originally, the camp at Westerbork had been erected by the Dutch as a refugee camp for the many thousands of Jews streaming across the border with Germany in the 1930s.  Interestingly, in 1938 The Netherlands closed their border with Germany due to the increase in refugees after Kristallnacht.  In 1939 Westerbork was built to house the refugees (although the Committee for Jewish Refugees had been required to underwrite the camp's expenses).  Anyway, when Germany invaded, the function of the camp changed to become a transportation centre to Auchwitz-Birkenau (over 60,000), Sobibor (over 34,000) and Bergen-Belsen.  Only a handful survived.  Anne Frank and her family were among the families transported in one of the very last trains to leave the camp.

It wasn't a place that I really felt like taking many photographs but I did like this piece of sculpture which I snapped up as I passed.  Printed out on Slavich paper, lith developer and some sepia tone.  It's a bit over-done, but perhaps that's appropriate given the subject: