Along Some Rivers

Morning folks - please excuse me for a pinchin' Robert Adams' book title, but I kind of thought it was appropriate.

It's amazing when you're travelling along some road - either well used or not - and you see a small gorge and think to yourself:

"I'd really like to explore that" 

but you rarely have the opportunity, because you're literally passing through (as it were.)

I was lucky enough last year to be staying somewhere where there was a nice wee under-bridge gorge just along the road and I explored and photographed it, and got a decent tick bite to boot! 

If you can help it, never cross a deer path is my sage advice . . oh and don't wear shorts in the Scottish countryside either!

I wrote about the gorge HERE

Anyway, the one I am writing about today is closer to home - just a few miles up the road actually and whilst it is close to a well-travelled road, it is as far removed from reality as possible. 

I have also written about it and shown the photographs before, however recently, doing some tidying up, I realised I'd done some further explorations with a few different cameras and had not shown the pictures - indeed they were stuffed into the side of one of my print drawers. 

(This year has been something else for other stuff going on, so I obviously just put them aside and promptly forgot.)

I do hope it isn't a sign of me approaching T.A.M. (That Alzheimer Moment) as I have recently done a few things that have surprised me including putting jars of instant coffee in the fridge and turning up to a dental appointment a week earlier than I should . . 

Anyway, back to the gorge. 

At some point in its life, it must have been a proper roaring one, indeed there's a small waterfall there that is called locally "The Devil's Cauldron". 

But sadly the force of water (which is actually an accumulation of a multitude of small burns running off the back of the Sidlaws) is now semi-stilled by a smallish loch and what does run down is beautiful, but hardly enough to put Hades out . . this is because at some point in the late Victorian era, it was dammed. 

No Simpkins, not DAMNED.

The dam (I presume) was to provide a regular and tamed water supply to the nearby local village . . but it also provided regulated water to a small fish farm which was built in the early 1900s.. 

The fish farm is long gone (sadly) but it's ditches and buildings and tanks remain and it was these and also the gorge that I explored over several journeys with impunity.

Who's Impunity? I'm not saying . . . .

I think they work well as a sort of series.

They were all photographed with the following:

Mamiya C330F with 80mm Blue Dot.

Hasselblad SWC/M.

Hasselblad 500 C/M with 40mm Distagon.

All images were taken with film (naturally - Ilford FP4 and SFX processed in 1+75 Fomadon) and printed initially on Foma fibre, Ilford MGFB and Ilford Portfolio and then latterly as a series on 5x7" Portfolio. 

Scanned on ye anciente Epson flatbed with no unmasking, debriefing or general shenanigans  

Processed and printed by me, back 'ere at Sheephouse Turrets.

It felt good to be in the darkroom printing this lot.

I've looked back and I don't seem to have published any of these, so go on, sit down, reach for that pint of foaming nut-brown meths and have a scroll.

To be honest, there's quite a number more I could have added, but I don't want you getting all bored and petulant, so I trimmed them. 

I quite like the transition from moody waterfall, to the stillness of a small pool - were I pharty, I could say it is an alegory and metaphor for my ageing . . but nah . . it's just a bunch of photographs that interested me.

Regular readers will know that I've been practicing some digital stuff recently . . well this lot is as firmly schooled in the old school as you can get - can you not smell the fixer coming off the screen?

Are there many people out there writing about printing?

Anyway, I am happy with them - they're especially nice to handle on Ilford's Portfolio (though this will still exhibit a curl depending on weather conditions) but it is a fine paper and Ilford should be bunging me some for the sheer amount of promotion I have given it 😃

And that's it   - a wee stop-gap, before I get out with some nice medium format cameras again.

Take care and remember people in glass houses shouldn't throw gnomes.

H xx