Rookie Mistake (updated)

A couple of weekends ago we were in the City of Dreaming Spires, to give our daughter a little lift before her finals, which are approaching at the speed of a bullet train.  As my wife and I wandered around the city I was thinking to myself this could well be the last time we do this.  Next time we are there will most likely be for graduation - and that is probably going to be a quick-in-quick-out affair.  So I was making the most of it, complete with the M6, 28mm Elmarit and a bunch of HP5.  The icing on the cake was that as we passed by the entrance to All Souls College we noticed a sign saying 'Open to visitors'.  That was very unexpected, since mostly the colleges have signs stating 'Closed to visitors'.  So in we went.  Had a wee walkabout the front quad and marvelled at the interior of the Chapel.  I took a few snaps - glad I had the rangefinder since light was low and I was down around 1/15s, which is just about doable with the M6.

Fast forward to the weekend just past, when I developed the first of the films.  I knew there was something wrong when I saw the negs - too thin.  What had gone wrong?  Turns out I had somehow managed to load FP4 into an HP5 canister.  So not only was my exposure off but so was my developing time.  Rookie mistake - and one I have never done before.  But of course, it had to happen with an important film, didn't it.  Tried to print yesterday morning but it was pretty hopeless - this is about the best it got, taken from the inside Quad of All Souls, looking out towards the Radcliffe Camera:

Dreaming spires  

I've another film half-shot still in the camera, so I'm going to have to do a clip test and see if that too is FP4, or HP5 as I thought it was.  What a pain.

Update: Mystery solved.  I did the clip test, and good job I did as it too was FP4+ in an HP5+ canister.  So I developed the rest of the film for 17mins in HC-110, dilution B (1:31).  The negs look better, but I won't know for sure until I try to print from them.

I also did a clip test on the film inside my bulk loader.  That's where the problem lay.  The sticker on the top said HP5+ but inside was, you guessed it, FP4+.  How I didn't change the label I will never know - must have been half-asleep.  

Down by the sea

A right mess of rocks and waves it is. It looks like clouds but it's all just angry sea:

'Blad/250mm/FP4+ with red filter so a few seconds exposure - on a tripod but not that you'd know as it was very windy.  Foma133 with thiourea tone.

Onocentaur, or maybe not

Not the sort of doorways you see around The Liberties, I must admit, but I guess these sorts of grand entrances that we came across from time to time in Budapest aren't that uncommon in the old cities of Northern Europe.

Spotmatic, 28mm, home-brew thiourea tone on Foma 133 paper.

Interesting fact: it occurred to me during our short trip that this was the first foreign trip I've made where I didn't take - or need - any local currency.  Hungary uses Florints - and there were 450 of them to the pound.  Not an easy number to do on-the-spot conversion, unless you round up to 500 in which case it's a little more straightforward.  Still, when you see something advertised at 14,000F it's still hard to get your head around the fact that equates to £28, more or less.  I think that was the cost (each) of our open top bus tour ticket for two days, which included a short river cruise.  The guy taking our money - well, scanning our credit card with his machine - was very pleasant and offered to throw in a third day for free.  Not much good to us when we only there for two days, unfortunately.  The cruise was an hour long and everyone told us to go near sunset so that we could appreciate the lights of Buda Castle and the Parliament Building.  We weren't that organised though - we'd spent the morning and most of the afternoon hoofing around the city before we found ourselves near the river.  We were in dire need of a sit-down so we just decided to go for it, earlier than planned which meant we missed the lights.  It was interesting enough but a cruise is just a cruise - not much to do other than look left and right and listen to the commentary.  Still, it was a welcome rest and the commentary was pretty good with lots of historical stuff as you might expect in such an important city.

What was surprising was that the subway machines (well, machine might be more accurate as usually only one seemed to be working), which looked like they were ancient, actually gave us tickets when we tapped our card.  Every other outlet - restaurant, pub, shop all were geared up for contactless, no matter how small or large the transaction.  It still seemed weird that we were able to take a 3-hour flight, walk around a city in a foreign land for a couple of days and not even think about (or use) cash for anything.  'Tis the future, begorrah - right now.

Initially I had this as a Pegasus, but they are winged horses, so then I thought, Ah, a centaur.
But a bit of Googling (cheating, I know) tells me the centaur usually has 6 limbs - four of the horse and two human arms.
So this might be an onocentaur, but I'm not sure they have wings, so I'm back to square one on this.
Suggestions on a postcard, please (or comment below).

Postcard from Budapest

Last year I had a milestone birthday (60) and as a special treat my wife took me on a short trip to Budapest.  Yes, I know - but I'm worth it.  Haha.  Budapest was a city I had always wanted to visit, ever since I found out about the trip my uncle made to the city in the late 1930s (documented here, in case you've forgotten).   It didn't disappoint, although we only had two full days to explore, so it was a quick in-and-out.  The best part?  - we could fly direct from Belfast, which made the journey so much easier.  Well, except for the fact that we had to get up almost before we went to bed in order to make our early morning flight home. We went in October, which was probably a good time to go, since I'd imagine it gets very busy in the main tourist season.  The downside was the weather wasn't great - the first day was very dull and overcast, with some rain, so not much good for photography.  The second day was a bit brighter.  To be honest, although I had plans to shoot lots of film, in the end I only shot one roll. I think because it was the first big trip away for my wife and I without our daughter - we kind of focussed on enjoying the trip together and although I carried a camera I didn't much feel like breaking away on my own to do a bit of snapping.  So I came home with a few postcard shots and that was about it.  Still, a good excuse to return one day - and maybe for a bit longer next time.

The Danube, as it flows through Budapest.
Old Pentax, 28mm, HP5+ on Foma 133.  Thiourea toned.
The retro style of the paper suits this scene quite well, I think.

We stayed some way from the main drag and that ended up being a good move, since we got to see parts of the city that looked like they hadn't changed much since the days of the Soviet bloc, of which Hungary was very much a part.  Amazingly, it was only in 1991 that the last Soviet troops left the country.  I guess that went a large way to explain why everyone we saw over the age of about 50 looked liked they'd lived several lives, with a definite sense of world-weariness.  There was some serious poverty in evidence too - both men and women sitting (living?) on street corners with a cup for money and clothes that you and I would have thrown out a long time ago.  Of course down near the Danube, which was full to bust with large river cruisers like the one in the shot above, it was a different story - fancy hotels (Ritz-Carlton, for example) and plenty of designer shops.  I'm glad we got to see the other side of the city, although riding on the subway was, shall we say, interesting.  Not that we ever felt unsafe, but the subway stations look unchanged from those Soviet days.  

Looking west

 Still in a very cold and windy Portballintrae, but looking west this time:

That would be Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal way in the distance.
Blad/250mm/FP4+/Foma 133.  
I had a 10-stop ND filter on this one which took me down to about 8 seconds.

Runkerry Head

I finally got those last frames of FP4+ wasted and actually made it into the darkroom on Saturday morning.  I was a tad rusty, of course, but got something out in the end:

Looking out over Runkerry Beach towards the Causeway, which lies just beyond the headland
Blad/150mm/FP4+/Foma 133. 

I took this shot not far from the car park as it was ridiculously cold that day, with a wind that would clean you, as my mother would say.  My wife and I had intended going for a walk along the beach, but after about 5 minutes we both looked at each other and said 'Let's get back to the car'.  We shall no doubt return when the weather is a bit more clement.  June, perhaps.

Stormy weather

I'm pleased to report that the various things that have been keeping me from the usual nonsense on this place are gradually coming to an end.  I actually got a film loaded into the 'Blad the other day and got the shutter release pressed, oh, at least three times.  Impressive, I know.  I hope to press it another few times soon and then you might get to see some new stuff.  In the meantime, here's a oldie from a few years ago - Ballintoy, on a stormy day:

On a side note, we've had an uncommonly large number of pretty violent storms this winter.  Missy was booked on the Belfast-Liverpool ferry a few weeks ago and at the last minute decided that was not a good idea and rescheduled for a couple of days later.  Good job she did, as we read later the incoming ferry was unable to dock safely and spent several hours bobbing about Belfast lough waiting for the seas to calm down sufficiently to allow it to come into port.  Even when she did travel, it was still a pretty rough crossing but obviously she made it across OK, although she's probably thinking it's a mixed blessing, given the amount of work she has to do this final semester.