Ballintoy, towards Rathlin

Another one from Ballintoy - this time looking towards Rathlin Island.  Rathlin is the bigger island just visible in the background - not the big lumps of rock in the mid-foreground.  They probably have a name as well, mind you - most rocks in the sea do around here - but I don't know it.

Ballintoy, looking towards Rathlin Island.  Ilford Warmtone Fibre paper

Generally speaking I avoid going anywhere near the sea when there's a storm about - (and we'll be getting plenty of those over the next few months) but this little beach might be a safe option - there's reasonably good access and given its shape it might be possible to stand at sea level but a good distance away from the water.  We'll see - I'll have to do a risk assessment or two before committing.

A Secret Beach

As I think I might have possibly said before, there are a few of us now in the Club who do film and -  even better - we're getting out&about on a regular basis.  I'm enjoying that enormously - it's good to share and talk old cameras and film developers and swap tips with like-minded people.  The other week we went to that old favourite, Ballintoy.  Unknown to me, the others knew of a 'secret beach' (shhh!).  It lies behind a huge lump of rock that unless you walked right up you would assume was part of the cliff face.  But there's actually a thin strip of sand behind it - between it and the cliff proper.  Very clever.

It was getting late and the light was fading but still, with a tripod and cable release sure anything is possible...even losing the cable release somewhere between the beach and the car.  At least I didn't lose the Hasselblad - I'd like to think I would have noticed a certain lightness in my bag.

At the Secret Beach, Ballintoy. On Ilford Warmtone fibre paper

Decisions. I know the horizon is off (again) but that can be fixed easily enough during mounting. I burnt in the sky a little but while there’s detail in the negative for the rock I didn’t try to keep it in the print - I kind of wanted to emphasise the rock's size & presence so I was happy for it to go to black.  As I look at the print I wonder if if that was the best decision.  Also I'm thinking I could use the magic of pot ferri to lift those waves a little.  I can't do anything about the rock at this stage, but think I will try to bleach the surf - carefully, as I don't want the sky to lighten any, just a little more contrast in the part where the waves are hitting the rock.

I had HP5+ in the ‘Blad rated at 200 but since the light was fading I was able to go down to 1s to get a little blur on the water.

Update-I gave it the pot ferri treatment this morning. I just dunked the lower part of the print and for a few seconds only. The print is still wet so perhaps not a fair comparison but this is it:

Heat

My morning ritual in Valencia was to get up early, as the sun rose - by far the nicest time of the day, before the heat began to build.  My morning cup of tea with my book (more on that later) on the terrace was very pleasant.  In fact, given this morning's weather here in The Liberties (overcast, wet, windy and decidedly cool), I'd actually swap for for those first couple of hours in Valencia.  Unfortunately the shops there didn't open until 9 and by then it was already blisteringly hot.  But off I would trudge, through the back streets until I got to a Supermercado where I could get provisions for the day.  Breakfast & lunch we would normally do in the apartment and a couple of times we cooked in the evening too (probably the best food we ate in the week, to be honest).

This was the small park en route to the shops and this park of it I snapped on the M6 with a Voigtlander 21mm f/4 attached.  Most likely with an orange or red filter - I forget which.  A little beaut of a lens it is, by the way, tiny as tiny can be - thankfully with a rather large focus pin to help people like me with fat fingers...

Morning in Valencia, on Ilford Warmtone RC paper

The book.  Oh yes, the book.  In recent times I've developed an interest in the lives and antics of some of our most famous despots.  I think it started with Stalin, then moved on to Mao but when in Spain I thought it only right and proper to tackle the Spanish Civil War and Franco.  The particular book I had with me was The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston.  An eye-catching title, for sure.  The subtitle is Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain.  It's a meticulously researched book which documents the atrocities on both sides (Republician and Falangist/Francoist).  And there were a great many atrocities to document, that's for sure.  It's not an easy read.  It's a very uncomfortable read, perhaps because it's geographically closer to home than Stalin and Mao, and similarly, not that long ago.  By the end I was wondering if Spain at that time was inhabited by some sort of alien species, since the bloodthirstiness of a great many people was off the scale.  It made me grateful for being born and growing up here in Ireland - which for sure had (and still has) its problems, but nothing like Spain in the '30s.

Aqua Multiespacio

One of the few shots from Valencia with any merit - and not much, at that.  Taken in what I think was the largest shopping centre in the known universe as the women in my life did what they had to do, apparently (Aqua Multiespacio if you are anyway interested in such trivia and I lie it’s not really that big but after an hour or two wandering around and sitting about I gave up and found a generic Tex-Mex American bar-restaurant thing and went in for a quiet beer but then they found me so that was the end of that. The food was yucky by the way - so bad I refused to pay the the full bill and that doesn’t happen very often but I got the impression it happens there quite a lot ‘cos the guy on the till didn’t put up much of a fight, much to my relief).

So, as I said, while the ladies browsed I hung around outside, pointing my camera in various directions - upwards for this one :)

Somewhere in Valencia, on Warmtone RC paper

Portstewart

There is a small (but growing) band of film users in our wee Photo Club and the other evening we headed out for a shoot. Nowhere very ambitious - just down to Portstewart. The early evening sun was lighting up the Promenade nicely and I shot this on the Hasselblad with the 250mm Sonnar. On a tripod, of course - I doubt if that combination is hand-holdable. HP5+ rated at my usual 250iso and developed in ID-11 1:1 for 13mins.

Portstewart Prom, August 2019. Adox MCC paper.

I burnt in the sky a little (too much?) and added a vignette to the corners&edges, as well doing my usual thing for the black borders so there were 5 steps to making the print. That’s a lot for me, but I was pretty happy with the result. 

Parody

The train ride from Belfast back to The Liberties isn't particularly exciting but you never know what you're going to see out of the window (remember this time), so I carry a camera at the ready - particularly when we're getting close to a station.  This was Ballymoney and I liked the lines, particularly good since the sun was out.  We sat there for a good few minutes and as I held the Yashica T4 to my eye a couple of people walked over the footbridge.  Then I saw this guy on his bike and I thought 'Yup, that's the one'.  As luck would have it I caught him nicely between the uprights of the safety barriers:

Ballymoney Train Station, 2019.  HP5+, ID-11, Adox MCC fibre paper.

I kind of looked at this for a while & then it hit me. It's an upside-down parody of Cartier-Bresson's most famous shot at Hyeres - this one.  I know, not quite in the same league.  Ah well, one can but hope and carry on...

This one

So it's GCSE results day here for you-know-who and it's been a busy morning going up to the school, collecting results and enrolling for the next big adventure (A Levels).  The girl done good - we are all immensely proud and I just had to dive into the darkroom this afternoon to print this shot of her - taken last Christmas in Dublin on HP5+ in the wee Yashica T4 point'n'shoot thing and printed on Adox MCC paper:

Missy, growing up too fast

I didn't want to change places with her this year - the new exam format is just plain nuts.  A few years ago they decided to move away from continual assessment so now pretty much 100% of the assessment is exam-based.  Over 4 weeks of exams and since most subjects have 3 papers that's coming up on 25-30 written exams.  For 16 year olds that's a big ask.  They never stop tinkering with the education system in the UK and I doubt they ever will.