Homeless

I pondered about this one, because, despite the title it isn't technically about being Homeless - please read on though - hopefully I'll be able to explain myself better.

There's a gulch near my house - I guess round these parts you'd call it a glen, albeit a really really small one. It is steep and contains a well-maintained public footpath.
It's been there for a long time as far as I can tell.
There's a wall alongside it that I would say dates back to at least the mid-1800's by the look of it, however it is probably likely that the course of the path runs much further back in time.
The wall is certainly on the 1847 Charles Edwards Survey Map.
In my experience boundaries of all kinds are usually far older than they seem.

Prior to the railways arriving, the Firth of Tay was boundaried in this part of town by a cliff before it hit the docks of the city centre. This gulch runs down through what is still there of the cliff.
There is vegetation everywhere - dense old trees, ramsons, ground ivy, bramble, gorse. 

It is (unusually, for public land) completely wild; the council haven't attacked it with weed killer or strimmers.

There are what appear to be animal trackways - they could well belong to deer or foxes or just the humble coney. They're well used, but there's no spraints of any animal variety, just human and then not very often, but it doesn't half give you a surprise!

In amongst this wildness, this lost parcel of land, someone has, at some point in recent time, chosen to take refuge.

I'll pause there, because immediately to my mind the word desperation makes itself felt.

Well. you'll see what I mean when you see the photographs. 

I can sort of understand it though. 

The area is relatively secluded, well, actually, it is very secluded, yet you're within a ten minute walk of food shops and so on.

And yet, despite their invisibility, the sites (there are/were two of them) are despoiled.

Vandals?

Madness?

Who knows?

The site in these photographs contains a (not very obvious) sleeping bag kicked into the dirt and the remnants of a campsite - old buckets, plastic, bottles and tins.
The refuse is actually quite well hidden in the undergrowth, like they wanted it to be secret.

Slowly nature is reclaiming this brief intrusion, as she will always.

The other site contains the same detritus, plus the wreckage of a tarp shelter; a traffic cone; more buckets; some tins and, perhaps shockingly to these modern sensibilities, some sad, lone bits of excrement.
It's a weird thing - everybody does it, few talk about it, but when you discover such a thing, when you nearly plant your foot in it, it becomes a matter of outrage.
You feel really unclean.
I came home and sanitized my tripod legs and shoes

With regards to our depositor of surprises, where has this person gone? 

That's what I'd like to know.

In the past year of so, this is the fourth destroyed campsite I've seen, and not just in my area, but in various bits of the town - the Docks and Seabraes.
Is it the same person?
If it is, to just abandon everything like your sleeping bag, tarp, tent etc., why?

Anyway, I'll leave the unponderables.

Maybe you have a similar thing going on where you live.
It's always worth lifting those bushes and checking - if someone wants to take themselves out of society, well, though not easy, it can be done.

I'm actually reminded of a brilliant book by William Boyd, called Ordinary Thunderstorms, about a scientist, who, through no fault of his own, is thrust into the world of invisibility and starts sleeping rough.

It's a rip-snorter of a plot and highly recommended.

Anyway, enough - on with the photos, though as usual you get the notes too!

Film #66/72

1. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f8 ZIII - Garage

2. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f22 ZIII - 21cm Focus - Parallax - Gargh!

3. 1 second reading to 3 seconds - f16 ZIII

4. 1 second - f11 ZIII  - Homeless

5. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 48cm

6. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Tape Measure 52cm - Ivy

7. 1 second - f16 - ZIII

8. 1/2 second - f22 - ZIII

9. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f11 ZIII - Homeless

10. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Ivy + Tripod Leg

11. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 50cm to 150cm Focus

12. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Quick Release Plate Came Loose

Used a small tape measure a lot - worked well, be sure to use it in the future.

5+5+500ml PHD 22℃ - agit to 14 mins, stand to 18 mins.

The detail on every leaf is extraordinary   - it's like they are etched - very pleasing to my eyes especially considering the blurriness from the PVD which is ongoing and very flarey

Homeless I

Homeless II

Homeless III

Homeless IV

Homeless V

Homeless VI

Homeless VII

Homeless VIII

I know, I can hear you saying it to yourself:

"But where's the filfth? Where's the grinding poverty? Where the Don McCullin man?"

Well, you know, they're/it's not there and that's the sort of semi-surreal thing about it, and I guess that why I am most pleased with Homeless VIII.

The 19 second exposure has given movement to the tree's branches, which in turn has added an air of unreality and dream to it. 

Well it has to my eyes.

Don't worry - I don't think I'll be going all Lee Big Stopper on you yet - that whole branch of modern photography is rather sad. If you want to see what it can truly do, please search out John Blakemore - he was innovating (after a manner with the baton from Wynn Bullock) decades ago.
If you've never looked at either photographer's works, please search them out.

Kudos must be paid to Pyrocat-HD as a developer - without a staining developer there's no way in heck the highlights would have had a chance of being printed.

I know I am lucky too in having the SWC/M to rely on - every single piece of veining on leaves shows up - the Biogon is without a doubt the greatest lens I have ever used.
Not the easiest, no, but certainly the one that renders foliage in a most extraordinary way.
The closest I can get to it is by saying that you can count every leaf and blade, which you really can't with a lot of lenses.

I used my handy Ilford Reciprocity tables - basically, apart from SFX, most Ilford film under time pressure exhibits the same reciprocity failure, so I knocked up a sheet (along with Kodak) affixed it to some card, and laminated it with cellotape - works great!

These are all 800 dpi scans off of the original prints. 

They're all made by me, on my knees (!) in my guerilla darkroom - I guess where there's a will there's a way.

Paper is my current easy go-to paper - Ilford MGRC and they're all on Grade 3, except the contact which was Grade 2. I suppose if I was using a condenser head on the DeVere I'd be Grade 2 for the prints, but no, it's a colour head, so  Grade 3.

I will say, that with my current PVD affecting my eyes, it was damn hard using the grain focuser - they both seemed to be disagreeing (I have two - a Paterson and a Micromega) but in reality it was my eyes at work - very difficult . . but I got there.

Weirdly and cosmically, there's a denouement to all this:

Last night me and t'missus settled down to watch the physicist Brian Cox in his Wonders Of The Universe series - she had some wine and I enjoyed a couple of fine glasses of Ardmore whisky.
Old Coxy boy was explaining atoms and elements; you know the 'We're All Made Of Star Stuff' stuff, and it hit me, that this homeless person and their soon-to-be-returned-to-its-natural-state camp; all the detritus; my camera and film; tripod; the time measured with my Gossen meter and its handy Zone wheel; clothes; me; chemicals; paper; Ardmore; the missus; Coxy; my TV; the tide running deep and wild out in the estuary; my CD player (and Mike Oldfield as I type this); keyboard; ICs in the Mac; phone cables; satellites; you . . .

We're all from the same gaff.

From the same complex, vast in both time and complexity, mishmash of cosmic mashiness.

Like the best bubble and squeak you've ever had, where everything works together, or should work together.

Humans, we have to get there.

There's no going forward nowadays without tolerance, kindness and co-operation.
We're at a point in time where it could soar or go utterly shit-shaped.
For human-kind to progress and lift itself above the sad, petty madness, people have to change.
It is probably unlikely, because there's nothing humans like more than regularity and confirmity and the certainty of the known, but I think you have to move out of that comfort zone sometimes.
Change is good.
It's why we're here.

Maybe homeless person has changed or change has happened to them?
Maybe they 'got lucky' and are driving around in one of the countless bloody Audis you see coming up fast in your rear-view.
Or maybe they copped it and are hidden deep within some Lost Council Wildness waiting for some unfortunate photographer to discover them . . .
Maybe they're still out there, sheltering under some forgotten hedgerow, waiting for time to be kinder to them . . .
Who knows.

That's all there is to it.

For myself I've resolved to think even more on things and try to be less persnickety and pernickety.
Sometimes you have to force yourself to approach things differently.
To quote my hero, Rambling Syd Rumpo from the Sussex Whirdling Song:

"So there he is, a-plighting his troth ...

A troth, by the way, is a small furry creature with fins. It's a cross between a trout and a sloth or slow-th, and it's a curious match. I often wonder what they saw in each other in the first place, though I suppose the sloth, hanging upside down, tends to have a different slant on things."

There, something that makes me laugh, with language distilled from that most disliked of humans (next to the immigrant) the Romany.

It's what everyone needs though - a different slant on things - celebrate your inner sloth.

Weird eh, and sorry for expounding when all you wanted to do was read about film and stuff . . but that's what you get from getting up at 5 AM and drinking too much tea (Hi Mike!!)

Anyway, that's shallot.

I am relatively up-to-date photographically now, so it could be a while before I post anything new.

I did think I could do some more SFX stuff, but the spectre of wrong Nm hit me - it was ghastly and might well be a tale further down the line . . .

Oh and things might change on the next FB simply because Google have decided to change the way you use it to write - I've tried it already and it was more for phone-users and not keyboard heroes . . . 

Over and out - watch out for that trout.

Told you so.

PVD Blues

OK - a slightly more serious tone than usual and about something you maybe know nothing about - I know I certainly didn't until it happened.

Life can be strange sometimes - after a break of approximately 5 years, I decided I really must trundle out the LF gear and start using some of the expired film I still have left before making an ultimate decision on what to do with all the gear that is clogging my study like a deep-fried pizza in the arteries of a 60 year old.

So there we were, eating our tea (coincidentally - home-made pizza) and literally like a bird crapping on your chips a cloud of black smoke appeared in front of my left eye.

At first I wasn't sure at all what it was - had someone set fire to the piece of pizza I was holding?

Why just one eye?

Had the dining table burst into flame?

Had I just expunged a rare and deadly black wind?

I looked sideways and the smoke followed.

Up.

Down.

Sides.

Periphery.

Every way I looked it followed.

I had by this point stopped eating and was trying to understand what was going on.

I'd also stopped talking, which my family knows meant something was up.

In truth I was shitting myself, not literally, but more along the lines of:

Oh FECK,  am I having some sort of small stroke?

Everything felt alright. No droops or dribbles. All limbs functioning. To all intents and purposes everything was fine . . . except for the smoke.

The sun broke through and looking out of my periphery, the smoke took on the colour of deep black blood.

I panicked, left the room, followed by my wife and son, who were trying to work out what was going on.

I sat and explained, or at least tried to explain what the heck was going on.

I tried to calm myself down - there was no pain, but everywhere I looked the smoke followed.

I waited to see if anything else would happen.

I opened and closed my eyes a myriad of times; looked every which way; focused; de-focused and thought to myself if I didn't know better I would say it was like all the floaters I'd ever seen in my eyes coming to life at once and doing a lovely little smokey dance.

No pain though.

That was the thing that kept me going and stopped me battering around the house like a headless chicken.

To say I was severely worried though, would be an understatement.

My wife's advice was to remain calm and sit and see if anything else happened, which is exactly what I did. 

And it didn't.

Sounds pretty scary doesn't it, well it felt like that too.

Everything remained fine that night and the next morning I phoned the doctors, who immediately said phone an optician, which I did. 

Fortunately there is one quite close to us, so he asked me to come in for an inspection . . so there I was a few hours later, up on the ramps, mask on and some interesting optical toys to look at - Topcon!

I was glared at, blinded, flared and generally given a most thorough going-over, and was told that what I had had was a PVD and that it was very common (he was averaging around 3 a week) which surprised me, especially seeing as I'd never heard of it.

Here's a run-down on them:

Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD) is a natural change that occurs during adulthood, when the vitreous gel that fills the eye separates from the retina, the light-sensing nerve layer at the back of the eye

SYMPTOMS IN DETAIL

Mild floaters in the vision are normal, but a sudden increase in floaters is often the first symptom of PVD.

During PVD, floaters are often accompanied by flashes, which are most noticeable in dark surroundings. Most patients experience floaters and flashes during the first few weeks of a PVD, but in some cases the symptoms are hardly noticeable. if pvd is complicated by vitreous hemorrhage, retinal detachment, epiretinal membrane, or macular hole, the flashes and floaters may be accompanied by decreased or distorted vision. Floaters are most bothersome when near the center of vision and less annoying when they settle to the side of the vision. They may appear like cobwebs, dust, or a swarm of insects—or in the shape of a circle or oval, called a Weiss ring

Over time, the vitreous gel that fills the eye becomes liquid and condenses (shrinks) due to age and normal wear and tear. Eventually it cannot fill the whole volume of the eye’s vitreous cavity (which remains the same size during adulthood) and so the gel separates from the retina, located at the very back of the eye cavity.

Over the next 1 to 3 months, the vitreous gel further condenses and the sides of the gel also separate from the retina until the PVD is complete and the vitreous gel is attached to the retina only at the vitreous base (see Figure 1). Clear vitreous fluid fills the space between the condensed vitreous gel and the retina.

If a PVD progresses gently, gradually, and uniformly, the symptoms are typically mild. However, if the forces of separation are strong or concentrated in a particular part of the retina, or if there is an abnormal adhesion (sticking together) between the vitreous gel and the retina (such as lattice degeneration), the PVD can tear the retina or a retinal blood vessel.

Flashes and floaters are typically more obvious when PVD is complicated by a retinal tear or vitreous hemorrhage. These conditions can lead to further complications, such as retinal detachment or epiretinal membrane, which can result in permanent vision loss. However, about 85% of patients who experience PVD never develop complications and in most cases, the flashes and floaters subside within 3 months. 

So where does that leave me a month down the line?

Well, it is testing - I think my right eye has had one too though to a lesser extent. 

If you can imagine you're looking into sunlight using two early uncoated Cooke portrait lenses, you'll get the idea of how the world looks - soft and flarey in places, marvellously sharp in others, and it changes all the time.

I hope to goodness it does settle, because it can be testing at times, especially using a camera. 

It's fine with anything that has a focus aid like a split prism, or else requires guess-work like the SWCM, but for something which requires heavy duty oggling like a 5x4 then it is nigh impossible. 

I say impossible - if I had a mind to do it I am sure I could, but it would take even longer than usual and it always takes bloody ages anyway.

It's haunting me though.

What if it doesn't clear up?

I can't get past that question because it is a big one. 

Bright sunshine can be problematic, and I dread to think how it'll be in Winter, especially driving on a wet dark night . . . if it stays like this I won't be driving and that means no more visits to the hills at that time of year (not that I do it much, but all the same).

Anyway, I'll keep you posted - I guess the whole point in writing this is that as a photographer your eye health is primo. 

Look after your beady mincers!

On the subject of hauntings, not that I've captured anything spooky, but I think I might have captured some atmospheres. 

They hadn't been obvious before, but maybe it is my blurry vision . . I dunno.

Anyway, as I was stirring into action about the Wista, I was looking at a bunch of contact prints from about 2014 and they sang to me. 

Scouting around I also came across a couple of prints that seemed to have the same feel - see what you think.

The first two are scans off of prints.

The first was taken with the 16-On kit on the Rollei T.

The second was a Sinar with a mid-60's single coated 90mm Angulon - a lovely lens.

Everything after that is a mix of 90mm Super-Angulon and 127mm Ektar on the Wista DX  - the scans are off 5x4 contact prints.

Pilgrim's Way

Ghillie's Bridge (Broken)

Railway Bridge Piers

Time and Warer

Grove and Spring

Lone Tree

Edge of Grove

Twilight and a Weird Feeling

Old Oak and Time

And that's it really.

Be aware of your eyes and I hope it (or the worse things that can come from it) doesn't happen to you - it is a big worry, and typing this, this morning, through a light fog of mistiness I hope to goodness it clears soon. 

It's taken me a while to get enthused about using 5x4 again and I've got around 75 sheets of film to use up before it turns back into oil!

Take care.