River Boy And The Autumnal Darkness

Well folks - good morning and apologies for the length of time since I last posted anything, but my bloody eye thing isn't really clearing up and to be honest I probably have more swirlies now than I did back at the start of the Summer. 

If you've ever seen Quatermass And The Pit, where one of the workmen drilling into the alien craft disturbs something, is chased by a telekinetic vision of Martian life and is heard to utter:

"They were jumping, leaping through the air, in and out, them big places . . . in and out of them . . huge, right up into the sky!"

Well, that's what a PVD can be like with floaters!

Anyway, what excuse is that when you have nice little DOF engravings on your lenses? 

Oh YUS! Hyperfocal focusing is a wonderful and useful thing - it's like bungee jumping without knowing whether anyone has attached your bungee to the bridge, but fortunately, physics has clipped you in, so you can jump to your hearts content.

So, have I taken any photographs? 

Oh yes. 

But are they any good? 

Oh no. 

Not really; however there's a few that I do quite like, but that's mostly from the point of view of the light conditions.

The below were taken at dusk (approximately 7.22 PM ST [Scotsman Time]) whilst on holiday.

Having our tea and then heading out with my wife's blessing and a camera around my neck has been something of a feature and great pleasure of holidays for me for a number of years. 

I love the gloam, and especially so when you add in some top-notch countryside.

River Dark 1

I think I love it so, because it takes me back to being a teenager living next to one of the great trout rivers in the South of Scotland and having a quarter mile stretch of riverbank as my own domain. 

I would sit in the oncoming dark and watch trout rise; birds settle for the night; mist rise from fields and gently lay itself over the water; fishermen (unaware of me) about their business; coypu (honest); mink; kingfishers; heron; clouds of flying biters (who never bit).

In fact anything you can think of that could call a river home were my subjects  - I'd have my beady mincers on them all.

And somehow this recent holiday, spent alongside another of Scotland's great rivers, connected me with that time.

It made me think deeply. 

Maybe it was the fact that everywhere I looked, everything looked like something published in Camera Work (and you'll have to look that one up . . Steiglitz' Camera Work - fab Taschen Hardback around at the moment!). 

The glare and fuzz (like an early portrait lens at times) made me deeply aware of my own mortality. 

I'm no spring chicken, but I like to keep healthy and fit; however when something like a PVD (OK - Posterior Vitreous Detachment) happens you realise you're not anything special, just a hummin' bean. 

I felt that the dark was oncoming, both metaphorically, literally and (in my case) physically.

When you start counting the counters, you realise you've spent over half of what you were given and some monkey is pinching your change.

I've just re-read that and realised there are only two possible outcomes to the ageing process.

1. Oh alright then, that's fine. I'll just get my slippers and a nice cup of tea. Remember to close the curtains when you leave.

Or.

2. F**k me! I am going to die. SOON. Right you bastard, I am going to meet you head on (with my crash helmet on of course!) and have a bloody good go at keeping going as my old self for as long as possible.

Age takes everything. 

Your hair; fitness; facial structure (I won't even talk about the beard shaving-off that happened during lockdown . . well OK . . it was like Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers . . . but with Gnomes); mental faculties; memory; word to speech co-ordination; memory . . . 

But what has this got to do with photographs and gloam you might well be asking?

Well hold onto that swig and listen to the sound of birds and a fast running river . . . ah, that's better isn't it!

Well, it's just that in that glorious oncoming dark, with the sun dropping fast behind the hills (which in turn threw the whole river valley into a state of noise and peace) I realised that he was still with me.

He?

Yeah.

Him.

Over there, young chap full of vim and hope. 

I quite like him actually. 

He's not too bothered what you think any more (that's the consequence of being a reformed fat-boy) but he's quietly hoping for a future that isn't too difficult.

He'd really like to do something of consequence with his life, but then the future is darker than the shadows under those sloe bushes. 

He can't read it. 

He can only hope.

The worst thing is that he's leaving this place soon - this bank where he has sat and dreamed and watched and listened. He's only known it for a handful of years, but the time has gone so fast - an all too brief interlude in the noise of life. 

However in that short time, it has eaten him. 

All the serenity and the weight of time and the power of Mother Nature in all her rawness - it's eaten him right away.

He feels at one with the world. 

His soul is at peace - how could it not be? - however the excitement, uncertainty and sheer terror of the future are weighing heavy on him, because (even though he's never heard of Heraclitus) he knows that: 

You really can't step in the same river twice. 

This is it.

He's leaving.

His world will change dramatically.

In truth, he's scared to death.

So yeah, him. 

River Boy.

He got left behind when City Boy, Work Boy was born. 

He was packed away carefully though - mainly because the wrench of pain at having to leave somewhere he felt truly at home was all too much to deal with.

Yet, in the current dark of a quiet 2020 Autumn's evening, beside another powerful river, I realised that he was still there, standing there in the oncoming dark, watching whilst I fussed with focus and composition and light meter.

He'd been waiting, waiting for a moment like this quiet twilight to come forth and say:

It's OK. We're still OK.

Phew!

A while back I said:

"A boy and a river, once joined, can never be parted."

I liked it in a Ray Bradbury-esque sort of way, but it's true.

Me and River Boy - we're so different, but we're oh so the same.

That evening, the similarities struck me like the splash of a big salmon breaking free of its domain to briefly grasp the stars, before crashing back down to a watery reality.

I realised (standing there in really dark conditions - 0 to +1 EV on FP4 if you must know) that he would be well satisfied with the outcome of 40+ years; because here I was, NOW, trying to write (in essence) onto film, the feelings of awe and peace my soul had felt on our old riverbank all those years back. 

I was honouring the nature we both love(d) to the best of my abilities; quietly and with respect; the old intonements of reverence and silence measured by the soft buzz of a shutter. 

My concentration on the process a fit meditation on time and spirit.

Maybe this is all borrocks (as they say in Tokyo) and everyone feels the same. 

Probably. 

At least being Supreme Commander at FB I can please myself and air this and make sense of things.

40 years ago, all this guff would have been confined with brevity, to a diary, to possibly be read by those coming after, or else chucked in a skip. 

It might never have made it anywhere, only internalised, never to see the light of day.

Life is short.

Physical things like a PVD really hammer home how short.

We're not invincible - you don't need me to tell you that.

All the more reason, when you find your natural state of being (and I guess I am lucky, I know that a river runs through me) to pursue it, and if you are fortunate enough, to live it.

Being cut away from that is some sort of purgatory.

Not that I'm saying anything about where we currently live, I'm not, but it's not the same by any stretch of the imagination.

Maybe it is why I hunger for these sort of places - it's a hunt to recapture that state of otherness, yet naturalness, which goes beyond the normal physicality of life.

It's deeper than the life we know. 

It's a well-spring of feeling that transcends time.

Mother Nature will continue long after we have gone. 

I love that.

As for me, whether I am scattered to the winds or buried in the rich soils of the Southern Uplands, somewhere, at some time, along some lost riverbank, me and River Boy will be walking with just the one set of footprints again. 

I know that as completely as anything else.

River Dark 1

River Dark 2

Whatchoo talking about Willis?

You know, I don't know - sometimes I just write and stuff comes out.

Hope it makes you think though. 

If it does, that pleases me.

Right, at last!

Photographically the above were made on Hasselblads. 

The first on a 500 C/M with a 60mm CB Distagon. 

The second with a SWC/M.

Exposures on both were quite long - 6 and a half minutes in the case of the second one - I told you it was getting dark.

The first was HP5+, the second FP4+. 

Both were developed in Pyrocat-HD and printed on (for the first one) Adox MCC, and Agfa MCC for the second - just 'cos.  

The second print was also tootled in Pot-Ferry because the printing was a little heavy-handed.

Adox and Agfa MCC have the same emulsion but the surface's gloss is quite different. The Agfa is a late-90's box I picked up. Lovely stuff!

And that's it really, apart from . . here's a message from our sponsors:

River Boy then and River Boy now. 

River Boy 1978

River Boy 2020

1978 and 2020 respectively - the first was taken by (I think) my Dad - handler of all things photographic at the time, on my old Polaroid, though it could well have been my Mum. The mug contains whole milk with Camp Coffee in it (we couldn't even afford instant! . . and before you ask why I was using Polaroid film if that was the case, the film was around 4 or 5 years old) and that is my second Digestive. I was just in from school, before heading down onto the riverbank in the gloam.

It's a scan off the original Polaroid and has been stored in a very haphazard way over the years and is fading slightly, but then so am I. 

The second is a scan from a negative on Delta 400, taken by t'missus a month ago on a Nikon F3 with the 28mm f2.8 CRC lens - it was quite dark, so it was about a 30th at f4. There's something about it I rather like.

And that's it.

Sometimes you need to do a bit of meditation and that's what I've done here. 

Writing it has explained something about life and growing up to me.

Till the next time, take care and Gods bless.

Concrete Cathedral

So, there I was, early morning, wide awake, an itchy trigger finger and some film to use.

I'm not sure about your city or town, but mine is pretty much deserted - even the seagulls have pissed off and gone inland, and seeing as we have a population of Cannibalistic Seagulls urged on by their gluttony for the Lost Kebab Meat generated by large urban conurbations, that really says something.

So what do you do when you're wide awake at 5 on a Summer's morn . . well, you go photographing!

The Curly Car Park (or Doughnut depending on your age) is actually know as Bell Street Car Park. 

It's a bog standard 1960's Concrete Brutalist piece which I actually rather like. 

My father-in-law's car was stolen from here back in the 1990's, and I have never parked here myself.

Fashinating Capitain, you'll be saying. 

Well, yes and you know what is even more interesting than that . . .  

Woosh woosh woosh, wot's that sound?

Ah, it's the Sheephouseticon whizzing you back to the early 19th Century, for in 1834 (on the same site) was built The New Howff.

Now The Old Howff (or actually just Howff these days) is a slightly world famous, dead interesting (no pun intended) medieval (and onwards) cemetery in Dundee . . 

However it became rather full of bods, so you know what The New Howff is?

Yep . . a New one. 

Or at least IT WAS until (as was typical of Dundee at the time) it was destroyed by the Council's Planning Department with the building of an inner ring road and then the Curly Car Park was planted on top in 1962.

Incredibly, approximately 10,000 souls were interred on this patch of land until they stopped selling plots in 1882. Despite that, actual burials went on until the 1930's.

I actually had no idea of this until I started researching when the Curly was built.

This City is stranger than you could imagine . . f'rinstance I have a proper pint glass etched with the logo of a Temperance hotel . . . as they say in certain parts . . go figure.

Whilst most of post-war Britain underwent this destruction of a 'dirty' past (sound familiar?) Dundee seemed to suffer disproportionately. 

Had the central chunk of architecture (effectively still most of a medieval City) survived, then it could have been like a small Northern York . . what a lovely concept.

The history is still there in places, but you really have to scratch and dig.

Anyway, on with the old and the new. 

First lets set the scene: 

The New Howff In 1885

The Bounds Of The New Howff Circa 2020

What I find remarkable is that the destruction has largely kept the shape of the Necropolis. 

It is sad though isn't it - it would have been lovely had it survived.

When the cemetery was dismantled the bones were reinterred apparently in a common grave in either the Eastern Cemetery or Balgay Cemetery - there seems to be some conjecture about this. However, I'm sure you can imagine that they were bound to have missed at least some. I've always felt there was a weird air to the place and this has just cemented it in situ.

As a photographer all I can say is that the light in there is truly beautiful, open and cathedral-like - if only Frederick Evans still lived, he could have turned the space into photographs of true beauty.

FILM #66/70

Ilford HP5 EI 200

1. 1/60th f4 ZIII

2. 1/15th f8 ZIII

3. 1/15th f8 ZIII

4. 1/30th f8 ZIII

5. 1/30th f8 ZIII

6. 1/30th f5.6 ZIII Accident

7. 1/30th f8 ZIII

8. 1/30th f8 ZIII

9. 1/30th f8 ZIII

10. 1/15th f11 ZIII Rested on ledge

11. 1/30th f8 ZIII

12. 1/30th f4 ZIII

Need a thread adapter for the 500 as the TTT doesn't fit!

Had to handhold the lot   - go back with the SWCM - the space is amazing!

The camera was a Hasselblad 500 C/M with a 60mm Distagon. Metering was my old Gossen Lunasix 3S and film was HP5 at EI 200.

It was developed in Pyrocat-HD for 18 minutes - 14 of those with gentle agitation of 4 inversions every minute and then 4 minutes standing time.

I took the Leica Table Top Tripod, but forgot that it only has a small screw and the Hasselblad has a large insert, so they're all handheld.

I am sure I can be forgiven any converging verticals because of this - it really wasn't that easy. 

Some extra stability was provided by the Optech Pro Strap I use - it has enough flex (being neoprene) so that you can push down on the camera at the same time as supporting it in the normal Hasselblad manner. This brings your neck into the equation too (it being where the strap is!). 

It's a technique I've used for years with the Rollei and mostly it sort of works.

I started at the bottom, went to the top then came back down, but I have resequenced the prints as it works better.

Oh and I asked permission of the security guard too!

Also, because of the nuttiness of our times, there are currently no cars parked there . . worra bonus!

Concrete Cathedral 1

Concrete Cathedral 2

Concrete Cathedral 3

Concrete Cathedral 4

Concrete Cathedral 5

Concrete Cathedral 6

Concrete Cathedral 7

I don't know about you, but I think the light is astonishing - it was around 5.30 and the sun had been up for around 40 minutes.

There was almost something cathedral-like about it, from deep shadow to bright sun and a slight morning mist caught on the floors, slanting Jacob's Ladders, wells of extreme darkness . . the whole lot really, but in car park form. 

I took the photos quite quickly - can't have taken much more than 40 minutes - and was home and packing my third cup of tea before the house was roused. 

And that's it.

Maybe you've got something Concrete and Brutalist near you - go and photograph it - it could be rewarding.

Oh and I nearly forgot to add that these are all straight scans off of the original prints, which were on Ilford MGRC at Grade 3 - they were straight prints with a little burning, but on the whole no faffing at all. 

I don't know why (well I do, because I bought a bulk 250 sheet box) but it seems to be becoming my regular go to paper these days; though I really should get my finger out and use some fibre-based stuff. This being said, you do get a really decent print off of MGRC and it is so damn quick to print and process . . . well.

I suppose that just points the finger that I'm a lazy sod . . .

I also need to mention that after years of not using it, I am now also using the timer that came with the DeVere - it is a wonderful old thing - a DeVere Electronic Timer. It is all Tan metal, Chicken Head Knobs and Bulk. 

Up till now I have been counting elephants, but, like all elephants they were becoming unruly and wandering . . . so . . . it is also hard to fit one on an interplanetary craft.

Sheephouse to Earth, over and out!

Some Photographs Of The Same Thing

Well,  I'll not say it's boring, but it is quite a change for me.

I've rarely photographed (some might say slightly obsessively) the same thing twice - it's just not really in my remit.
Certainly I'll visit the same places and re-photograph them, but the same thing? 

Well no. 

But this thing was different.

Hasselblad SWC/M

It's quite unusual to find a large piece of deep water marine equipment just sitting on the ground, waiting for something to happen, but such was the case with this. 

You maybe saw it recently in the post about Frankenstein.

I've no idea quite what it is, but one thing is for certain - it's from some Brutalist Planet, where things are made tough and look the same too.

To my eye there's something that I find fascinating about it and I can't quite place it.

Is it because there's an air of Chris Foss about it?

If you're not aware of Foss, he's a SF book illustrator, whose amazing flights of the imagination made a deep impression upon the (slightly) young Sheephouse. 

Look him up  - there's plenty of examples around - and then tell me if you think our subject wouldn't be out of place in one of his paintings!

So yeah, maybe that's why it caught my eye - it's just a shame it has been fenced off.

It wouldn't look out of place in the foyer of the V&A as an example of Design and Functionality, but instead here it is, sitting by the gates of a scrapyard waiting for the end. 
I'll be sad to see it go.
When I was thinking about (and photographing) the Frankenstein piece, this, to me, became an allegory for The Modern Prometheus.
Something created by man, not 'beautiful' in the conventional sense, but BEAUTIFUL in its own right, yet now cast away.

Stupid I know, but I like to think that maybe Mary's spirit was governing things.

Anyway, enough of my musings, without further ado, here are:

 Some Photographs Of The Same Thing

Rolleiflex T

First up is the one I posted before. 
This was taken with my Rolleiflex T - a camera that seems to (strangely) get a fair amount of stick, and yet, what's not to like: it has a single-coated Zeiss Tessar, optimised for f11 and the typical Rollei practicality, where everything has been thought through incrediblty well. 
That it sat in their line-up inbetween the Planar/Xenotar configured top of the range boys and the lowly Rolleicord, seems to be largely ignored these days. 
A lot of vendors sell Rolleicord Vbs for a heavier premium (because they're 'newer') and yet, optically many would argue the Tessar has an edge over a Xenar.

Don'tcha just love old optical terms!

As with most (well, in my experience) TLRs (apart from the likes of the 3.5/2.8 E's and F's) the lens works best in the happy smiley people range - i.e. from about 3 feet to about 15 feet. 
It's not really a landscape camera though it DOES produce excellent results used as such. 
Actually, for all that, the majority of landscapes I've taken have used a TLR and I've never really complained about the results.

However, when I invested in my Hasselblad system I truly realised what I had been missing!

Still, this being said, I've no complaints with the T. 

It has been a good friend for years.
What the shot clearly shows is that it is entirely easy to operate a Rollei handheld in low-light situations - this was just about sunrise on a Winter's dawn and 1/30th at f5.6

Hasselblad 500 C/M, 60mm Distagon

I was so enamoured with it, that I went back the following week, this time with the 500C/M and the 60mm Distagon affixed.

I love the 60mm Distagon - it's an incredibly sharp lens with virtually no distortion.

Here's what Zeiss say in their literature:

Distagon T* 60 mm f/3.5 CB

The Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 60 mm f/3.5 CB is versatile wide angle lensto be used with all current Hasselblad cameras. The stunning optical performance recommends this lens for a wealth of demanding tasks in commercial, advertising, and industrial photography, to name just a few.

Detailed interiors with people,groups in particular are a hallmark of this lens. In candid wedding photography the Distagon T* 60 mm f/3.5CB is an indispensable tool that can be used wide open whenever ambient lighting conditions ask for it.

I found it rather telling that in a visit to the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, alongside his trusty Rollei, there was also a 500C/M with a 60mm C Distagon attached.

Nuff said. 

It doesn't seem to be a too popular lens in the Hasselblad V line-up - no idea why.
The film was HP5 at EI 200 and exposure was definitely happening - it was bleedin' BALTIC . . . nah, 1/30th at f4.

Hasselblad 500 C/M, 150mm Sonnar

Still thinking about it, I went back AGAIN the following week.
What with everything being fenced off and all that, I felt I needed something longer. 
And what did I have? 
Yep, the 150mm Sonnar.
I've detailed it many times before - it's a bargain of a lens for a Hasselblad - sharp as a tack, creamy out of focus and relatively useable at f4.5 maximum aperture. 
The beauty with all the Zeiss Hasselblad lenses is that you really can shoot them wide open and get very useable and distinctive results, so even though I was shooting unfiltered Ilford SFX at EI 100 and was operating pre-sunrise (the exposure was 1/125th at f4!) I was still confident in my ability to photograph things relatively wide open
. . . and that was just my trousers . . .  nah, just joking.

Hasselblad SWC/M

I had a break of a week or so, but I found it was still on my mind; so, not wishing to leave things out, I headed back yet again. 
This time I was toting the SWC/M with that luscious 38mm Biogon. 
It is a lens that can really do wonderful things to light, and I'm not sure what it is - it just seems to be a great translator. 
Suffice to say I love it - it may not be the ideal lens for everyone, but I find if you get yourself into the Super Wide Zone mentally, it is all you could wish and a whole lot more.
The film I took with it, was FP4+ as it is all I had left - not exactly ideal for the light levels I was encountering.. 
I tried to approach each frame like I was making a sequence of photographs - I'll let you see the rest next time, but in the meantime, the pictures of the Marine Monster will have to suffice.

Hasselblad SWC/M

And that was the last of them - should I go back with every other camera and lens I own or would that be over-egging the pudding? 
The latter methinks.

So, job done. 
Hope you like the photographs . . . and if you don't, well I can dig it (as they used to say). 
They're all 800dpi scans off of prints as usual - Ilford MGRC for speed and convenience. 
However I will say that as scans of prints I think they're fairly ghastly. 
Certainly in the SWC/M shots the slight vignetting from the lens (the weather was so terrible and I was getting 1/15th of a second at f5.6!!) has been heavily over-emphasised. 
The prints whilst not brilliant - more works in progress - look considerably better than the scans - but then again isn't that always the case. 

Anyway, 'nuff excuses - over and oot the noo!

TTFN and don't forget to post those letters. 

Last Film Of The Decade

Fol-de-role! And a Jolly Green Giant of a New Years Greeting to you from the home of New Year . . Auld Scotia!

Well a new decade is upon us - in the forthcoming one, we'll achieve world peace, harmony, have turned around about the environment, be on a Universal Income and all in all everything will be tip top and super.

I'll be either dead, alive but nearly dead, alive and surviving, alive and independently-limbed, alive and non-independently-limbed, or in a concerned, bewildered and horrified torpor which sees me drifting around from environmental to humanitarian disaster, trying to do stuff.
I might well not be living in the country (a dream I have had my whole life) . . but hey-ho! I'm not discounting it - who knows (where the wind blows)?

What is likely is that I won't be working any more - having achieved state retirement age - unless the bastards have put it up exponentially - in which case, my old adage of:

It used to be WORK and DIE. Now it's WORK, INSERT YOUR OWN CATHETER and DIE

will be true.

Will Alec Turnips (son and all-round good egg) have spawned any sprogs before I am too old to pick the blighters up? Who Knows??

Will we still be able to buy film? Will you have to auction your kidneys to buy a roll of Tri-X in the UK? Oh, sorry foreign readers . . IT IS LIKE THAT NOW!
Ah, that's a good question though isn't it.
It leads to the thought, what would you do if you couldn't?
For myself, I'd stop photographing entirely. I totally cannot be arsed with digital and prefer the process that traditional picture taking brings to the table.

Which rather brings me to the whole point of this first FB of a new decade . . . the last film taken in the 2010's. I had to mark it somehow, so we'll get to that further down the page, though I couldn't resist chucking this photograph in.

Quiet, Haunted Lane

Anyway, if you can't be bothered reading and just like looking at the pictures, please feel free to scroll downwards.
And if you're from 2030:

Careful with your Cormthrusters . . you don't want them getting caught on your Space Suit.

Well, here we go - looking back to the start of 2010, I was writing in my journals long and lustily about the weight of my Sinar!

"8/2/2010

I weighed myself with all the big gear - it worked out I was hauling 4.6kg (nearly 11lb) of tripod and head, which probably explains why it took me nearly 3 hours to reach the top of the Shank (of Drumfollow). I weighed 15 stone 9.25 lb with all my stuff AND NO BOOTS! 26lb of extra weight. So after much deliberation I decided to buy another tripod"

Not only did I buy another tripod ( a Gitzo Series G224 Reporter and G24 head - which stood me in good stead for 8 years and I still have) I also bought a Wista DX from a chap called Mike Pirrie for the grand sum of £300. It was in boss condition, and had started out in the States by all accounts until Mike had bought it. The Wista is a superb camera - a true triumph of form and function. I used it a hell of a lot.
My last quote from the end of February 2010 reads:

"Had to take my new set up for a field test, so went to the Western.
It's quite a different camera to use - the GG is VERY bright. You have to be more aware of the standards and everything being parallel (compared to the Sinar, which is like a brick shithouse). . . . But at last I am relatively free from the tyranny of weight and bulk!"

Here's a photo taken with that setup:

Grave Detail With Light Frost - Western Cemetery, Dundee

It was with the Wista, the old Kodak 203mm Ektar with the Bumblebee Prontor shutter and Foma 100 sheet film at EI 50. It was developed in Barry Thornton 2 bath. The stonework was placed on Z VI and the reading was 15 secs at f45.
With reciprocity that was up to 60 seconds!
And that's the beauty and importance of keeping exposure notebooks!

I quite like it.
The old Kodak Ektars, whilst 'press' lenses, are really fine art marvels - mine is the British version which fits a Copal 0 shutter too, should the Bumblebee ever decide to fly away.
Anyway that was a photograph from a batch of 4 from how I started the decade.

And here's the last 5x4 I took - we have to rewind back to 2016 - May.
Bloody hell - it only seems like 2 months ago - I am far older and uglier nowadays.

Who Are You And Why Are You Taking My Picture?

This was the Wista again but with the 90mm Super Angulon. I'd got lucky with that lens and got a boxed, late-made one with a filter for a relatively paltry amount - it's a cracking lens.
Seeing these again has cemented an idea for this year - I'm going to start using LF again, but will be more selective and also use a different developer to Pyrocat - the thought of waiting around in the dark for something to emerge is almost too much for a sane brain to contemplate. Maybe Microphen might do the trick - thanks for the tip Bruce.

Anyway, in between LF in 2010 and my last film something dramatic occured, and that was the acquiring of what I really think is one of the very finest cameras made - a Hasselblad.
It changed me photographically.
I realised that FOR ME and MY PURPOSES it was pointless farting about with so-so cameras and 'extinct' systems - if you are serious about taking pictures, please consider this - the lens is the most important element, followed by the camera system to back it up and a plentiful supply of stuff to help you with your choice and to my mind, the V System was a no-brainer.
Finally being able to afford one was probably the most exciting thing ever, photographically speaking, for me.
Actually taking it out and getting used to it was a thrill that is still with me.
I love it.

So, on the last day of the decade, I knew I was going to take the 500 C/M and the 60mm Distagon (which I haven't used in a while) out for a wander.
I initially thought I'd get a lift from my wife on her way to work, but the sun doesn't rise till 8.46AM around these parts at this time of year and the realisation that I'd have to be making really long exposures in really cold (sub-zero) weather in an unknown part of town, made me think twice.
So I hunkered down and waited for the sun and headed off to my old stomping ground of the back of the Art College.
The sun was really low, but very beautiful and making images that thrilled me was a breeze.
It put a real spring in my step and, having examined the negs I can honestly say that I'll probably print every image on the roll - an all time first!

Film 66/63

Dundee, 31/12/2019

Ilford HP5+ - EI 200

1./ 1/125th f8 ZIII - Shed Bike

2./ 1/60th f8 ZIV - Bike

3./ 1/60th f4 ZIII - Prejudice

4./ 1/15th f8 ZIII - 180 Degrees From Prejudice - House

5./ 1/30th f4 ZIII - Bath

6./ 1/60th - 1/125th f8 ZIII - Liberty Tree

7./ 1/30th f8 ZIII- Me

8./ 1/250th f5.6 ZIII - Girl

9./ 1/60th f11 ZIII - Palms

10./ 1/30th f8 ZIII - Dark Wullie

11./ 1/60th f5.6 ZIIII - Wrestle

12./ 1/15th f4 ZIII - Spex Pistols

PHD  - 5+5+500 22℃

Usual to 14 mins then stand to 17 mins.

Really Happy With This -They Looked So Exciting Through The VF. 

Hasselblad 500 C/M + 60mm Distagon.

ALL Handheld

Sorry, but I started showing the contact prints for every film last year and I am going to go on, hence the above.

Anyway, buoyed up with how the negatives looked, I had a decent few hours printing on the 2nd of January, and here's the results.
They are all scans at 800dpi off of the prints which were printed on Ilford MGRC at Grade 3.
The weird thing is, that the contact is actually printed at Grade 2, but to get the same sparkle, I nearly always have to print at Grade 3.
It's probably something to do with the staining effect of the Pyrocat in contact printing as opposed to projection printing.
Anyway, here goes the prints - and with added descriptions too.

Quiet, Haunted Lane

When I finish my compendium of ghost stories, the above is going to be the cover - it has that feel to me. I'd taken the Prejudice picture and was quite happy with it, but then decided to turn around 180 Degrees and voila - the sun was shining up the lane just right and the house was veiled by flare from the backlighting.
It looked tremendously exciting in the viewfinder.

Ghost Of Bathing Student Wonders What Is Going On

Ah, those jolly students! The bath had been a part of someone's 'installation' for their graduate exhibition. It has now been moved off its display plinth and is being used as a saw horse.

The veiling flare from the strong sun coming through the roof bits made the wall face look like it was rising in steam off the bath - I know, I DO have a weird mind.

The print isn't too successful though - I think it looks better on the contact - that's one for a future session.

Sheephouse, International Man Of Mystery

This is the architectural building of Duncan Of Jordanstone - were it not for the fecking double glazing it would be an almost perfect reflection shot from my point of view. 

Double glazing really mucks up reflection photographs - I don't like it that much.

The light though has something almost sepulchural about it and my shadow gives it a certain air of mystery don'tcha think?

I am happy with the print on this - by the way, despite what people say the majority of the prints from this sessions were made at approximately the same exposure time of 32 seconds at f22. The enlarging lens was my Vivitar (Schneider) 100mm - a truly great lens.

I find once you get an idea of what the base exposure time is you can easily judge things from there. No Faffin'!

Palms - GTA-style

Yes I know, this IS Scotland . . but you see, some 10+ years back some brainbox decided to augment the delightfully quaint formal gardens opposite the Uni with a planting of palms. 

They also put some Lemmings on a wall in celebration of the coding of the game Lemmings:

Madly Addictive But Extinct

. . . and I now realise, the palms are maybe there to celebrate the coding of the game Grand Theft Auto. 

I'm just waiting for the Minecraft memorial in the Western Cemetery . . . 

The photograph shows what an incredible lens a Distagon is (IMHO) - coupled with the harsh light it's given it a weirdly off-kilter tonality I really like.

Dark Wullie Is Watchin'

And who doesn't love Oor Wullie? What d'ye mean you've NEVER heard of him?

He's a cartoon character created by Mr. Dudley D. Watkins, who also created Desperate Dan, Lord Snooty and The Broons. Printed by the mighty Dundee Institution D.C Thompson.

Anyway, this year we had about a billion cast sculptures of Wullie on what was called The Bucket Trail - look it up. 

They were auctioned at the end of the Summer and if you look closely there's one of the horrible little feckers staring right at you. 

Why horrible? 

The modernised Bucket Trail Wullie had no charm - you can read a brief history of Wullie on this link

Hello!

This was taken through the old revolving doors of Duncan Of Jordanstone - the girl looked quietly optimistic . . give her a 4 year degree course and we'll see then.

This being said it has no doubt changed a deal since I was there in the 80's. Then, it was like a mincer trying to produce artistic sausages. A lot of my compadres went on to become really well-known artistes  - och well, them's the breaks - insert words if you so wish.

This being said, if the stuff that makes up the current Seized By The Left Hand exhibition at the DCA passes for the state of modern art, then art is in a place I neither understand nor wish to understand.

The New Liberty Tree

This is the NEW Liberty Tree - why new? Well in an act of road widening back in the 1930's the Council cut it down.

The original Ash had the most fascinating history recounted on this link

At least someone has had the grace to reinstate one in memoriam.

I've been a little heavy-handed in printing this, but I rather like the stark contrasts. In hindsight I'd have moved in closer, cropped it a bit more and made the difference even more obviouser . . . obviously.

Anyway, that's it - my last film of the 2010's and I am pleased with it!

Who knows what the next 10 years will bring, or even whether I'll still be writing this, or whether any of us will still be around to sound a "Hail Fellow And Well Met" to each other.

No matter what it brings, I wish you peace, harmony, positivity and good fortune.

As a recent fortune cookie message said to me:

Your smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.

I can't really add any more than that.

Till the next time, TTFN, and remember to brush your teeth or else they'll run away to join the circus . .