First Foot (Bring Yer Wellies)

Well, there I was again with time on my hands all early of an incredibly windy, atmospherically-void Summer's morn and a desperation to get out with a camera. 

So what did I do?

Yep - I plopped m'laddo at his work and drove off post-haste to somewhere I'd vowed to try and photograph before - the footings of the Tay Rail Bridge.

Remnants Of Original Rail Bridge

If you are really interested as to why there are two lots of footings, the disaster is writ long and well explained here:

http://taybridgedisaster.co.uk/

it is well worth reading, if only to find out that its echoes mean that (all bar a few circumstances) bridges are better designed these days.

So there I was - the tide was relatively low, and I was itching to go. 

Drove over the water, parked up, got set . . the excitement was mounting - Oh yes:

Hasselblad SWC/M ✔

Film ✔

Light Meter ✔

Wellies ✔

Notebook ✔

Trekking Pole (for assisting climb over seaweed and sewage slick rocks) ✔

Tripod ✔

Handwash Gel (for any ghastliness picked up on hands etc) ✔

Hasselblad QR plate 

Note to self - always make sure your Hasselblad QR platform is actually attached to your Arca Ballhead BEFORE you go somewhere . . .

I only went and forgot to pack the QR plate didn't I - if you've got an Arca ballhead, you'll know that it only operates with Arca style QR plates . . mine is attached to a very old Hasselblad QR system - it was a lot cheaper than buying a few plates, believe you me.

Anyway, forgot it - it was a moment of looking at the tripod, looking at the Gitzo carry case, looking at the tripod, looking at the case et al . . .

Och well I thought to myself - we'll have to be as handheld/tripod with no attachment point as we can be  . . and that wasn't too easy as it was blowing a gale.

Still I did manage to extract something, albeit not exactly at the apertures I was requiring . . but them's the breaks.

Please excuse the over-exposedness of these - since my two heavily underexposed films earlier on in the season I've been a bit paranoid about such things and have rather over-compensated just to be sure. 

It is a bad move though - some of those really dense negs are torture to print through - I must achieve a better balance methinks.

Film #66/59

17/8/19

FP4 EI 50 (! just in case)

1./ 1/2 f16 ZIV shadows tripod rest

2./ 1/2 f16 ZIV shadows tripod rest

3./ 1/8 f8 Z III Pear tripod rest

4./ 1/8 f8 Z III tripod rest

5./ 1/4 f11 Z III tripod rest

6./ 1/15 f8 Z III hand-held

7./ 1/15 f11 Z III hand-held

8./ 1/30 f11 Z III hand-held

9./ 1 sec f22 Z III tripod rest

10./ 1/30 f16 Z III hand-held

11./ 1/30 f8 Z III hand-held

12./ 1/125 f11 Z III hand-held

All difficult - wind buffeting no tripod plate so rested!

Mostly cable release, though some it was just easier with a finger!

PHD new 22 C - usual to 15 mins, stand to 17.

Great (if a little overexposed) results.

Where it says "tripod rest" it means I've just rested the Hasselblad on top of the Arca head without actually attaching it and tried not to move the camera - all things considered it was better than expected.

"Hand-held" means just that; no tripod was used.

'New' Rail Bridge Footings Seen From Slipway

Recent Graffitti On 'New' Bridge

Footings Of Both Bridges At Low Tide

Remnants Of Original Rail Bridge

And whilst that all looks lovely and relatively clean, what it hasn't got across was the hefty wind which was pushing me everywhere, nor the omnipresent slick layer of sewage strewn around the place - not that it stinks, but it certainly does make you go Gargh!

Anyway, that's the results - I actually intend to go back with the 5x4" as I feel that will do it justice - certainly being able to manipulate the verticals and the wider spread of everything should (hopefully) work. I've actually wondered about a 6x9 or 6x12 back for the Wista - that might well be the way to go for stuff like this - not that I am an architectural photographer or anything, but I do enjoy photographing large man-made structures - it's fun and usually a challenge.

The prints by the way were very quick and nasty jobbies on Ilford MGRC - I didn't have much time, but wanted to get something down before the urge passed me completely.

So that's it. If you are tempted to photograph it yourself, be my guest, just don't blame me if you come down with Hep-C or Dehli Belly - you really don't know what's in the water these days.

Take care and watch out for that sewage-slick roc . . . . !

See, I told you - now how are you going to explain to your Mum why you've got a massive shite-splat down the back of your shirt . . . ?

Tunnel Vision

Well folks, a mercifully short one today!

Y'know, there I was farting around with digital colour stuff recently, and I would enthusiastically go out and make a few photos and come home and view them on screen and they looked nice and that was that.
None of them have ever been printed.
Same with holiday things too - see my recent posts about holiday cameras for all the boring detail . . .
You know, since acquiring a 'digital holiday compact' about 11 years ago we've only printed ONE set of photos whereas when we used to send the film off, despite the groans, we always had something to file away!

Anyway at the same time I was thinking about upgrading digitally, I was also reading a book by William Boyd called 'Sweet Caress', whose main character, Amory Clay, is a female photographer (! I know, who'd a thunk it !) . . and there was one bit in it, that hit me like an ice-pick between the eyebrows . . 

She said (semi-retired and photographing her growing family) that when colour processing and colour film started to become more readily available and cheaper to use, she couldn't see things in colour, only black and white.

"Amongst the few pictures I did take some were in colour - Kodachrome slides, expensive but becoming the norm. However even as I could see my pictures reflected the world as it was I somehow wanted the world as it wasn't - in monochrome. That was my medium, I knew, and in fact I came to feel it so strongly I wondered if, as the world turned to colour photography, something vital was being lost. The black and white image was, in some essential way, photography's defining feature - that was where its power lay and colour diminished its artfulness: paradoxically, monochrome - because it was so evidently unnatural - was what made a photograph work best.
  I would carefully rewrap my cameras    - my Leica, my Rollei, my Voigtlander - and place them back on their shelf in the cupboard and, as I locked the door on them, I wondered if I'd ever be a proper photographer again."

© William Boyd, Sweet Caress, Pub. Bloomsbury, 2015

And like a seagull coming down and crapping all over your bag of chips, there it was . . ME DEFINED.

I am a monochrome photographer.

Suddenly the fartiness and cobwebs blew away and I thought, what on earth was the point in chasing a digital dream in colour, when I only, truly, dream like early Ai - they were making them back in the 1960's y'know - that is comprehensively and completely in BLACK AND WHITE.

Boyd (not a photographer, though he'll often jemmie in a Leica or Nikon into his books) has somehow managed to nail something so firmly and perfectly that I (as someone who takes a fair number of photographs) has had to stand back and think.

Thank you William.

I've enjoyed the majority of his writing over the years since discovering Armadillo back in the 1990's,  but since Lorimer Black (of Armadillo fame) I've never empathised with a character of his like I did with Amory Clay - even though we are of different sexes (well, we were last time I looked) . .

It's funny recommending books - does anyone actually read any more???

All I can say, is if you don't mind a bit of swearing and sauciness, and enjoy the living of other lives that good writing can bring, give it a shot.

Chinese Gentleman Plays Tale Of Tale's Game "The Graveyard"
V&A Dundee, June 2019
Leica M2, 35mm f3.5 Summaron, Ilford FP4+

The above was shot on FP4 at f3.5 on the Leica. I think I was braced against a wall - exposure was about a half a second. It was pretty much dark darkness, and I thought:

Bollocks, I'll have a go with the Summaron wide open and see what comes out. 

It was one of those Noctilux moments with not a £3000+ piece of glass in sight!

There's a lovely quality to the f3.5 Summaron that isn't as contrasty as the f2.8 version - it somehow lets light breath.

It was processed in my new mix of Pyrocat from Wet Plate Supplies. I am standardising down a few minutes from my usual, so now I agitate everything to 14 mins (Constant first 30 secs, then 4 gentle inversions every minute) then let it stand to 17 mins. Seems to work fine.

It was printed on some really really old Kentmere fibre - I'll tell you how old it is, it was made in Cumbria before Ilford took them over!
The paper is fine and still fast and gives super blacks - the print will outlast me and somewhere down the road if it doesn't get skipped someone will wonder what on earth was going on in 2019 (I always write printing details and dates on the back of my prints in 2B pencil).

Were I of a different bent I'd have said:

"Well the camera was stopping me taking the picture because it thought I was wrong, but I hunted through a few menus and managed to over-ride it. What you are seeing is a RAW file on a screen. The bloody lens was hunting all over the place though and the Chinese man, concentrating on leading the old lady around the graveyard, started to get really annoyed when my focus assist light kept going off."

And where's the charm in that?

Anyway, trousers firmly nailed to the flagpole.
Never say die.
Black and White tattooed on my bum.
That's me.

Pastures Unknown

A weird title today and no wonder - I have gone where few humans have trod . . .well, at least that was how it seemed to me . . .

It isn't often one goes somewhere and can put hand on heart and say that as far as you can see, few (if any) people have ever been there, and probably not in recent years/decades.

OK - that's quite a blanket statement, but after many years of country sitting, watching, walking, reading signs and so on I can pretty much be clear in my head and say that was the case. Call it experience, or my inner Injun Joe** coming out, because y'see, the thing with people is they leave stuff.

**  (I was never a cowboy)

It might not be obvious, but the markers are there all the same: from heavily gouged Vibram paths, to the remnants of stupidly placed camp fires and hacked lumber; depressed tyre tracks across wet moor; footprints in mud; broken vegetation; stones tumbled from ancient resting places. Basically all sorts of stuff equivalent to a herd of elephants blundering through a place.

Another Lost Burn
Glen Doll
April 2019

Anyway, the place, Sheepy, worraboottheplacemon?

Well, yes, it's somewhere I've meant to visit, and indeed tried to visit, for a very long time.

Back in 1959 it was the scene of a terrible disaster for a party of walkers caught in a great storm. It was so awful that to this day there's a shelter place dedicated to the safety of other walkers who might find themselves in similar situations. 

If you can find a copy, The Black Cloud, by Ian Thompson details it in full.

Where I was, was near to that, but separated by nigh on 600 feet of sheer rocky appalingness, down which a few of them fell, and indeed, for the disaster happening on New Year's Day, it wasn't until the end of May that the last body was found - that gives you an idea of just how remote and inaccessible the place is (and more so in the Winter).

What would I find when I got there - that was a thought that had always intrigued me. It wasn't morbidity or ambulance chasing or anything, but I thought I'd chance on a feeling.

In truth, there initially seemed to be nothing, just the rummel of water and rock and nature at work, yet I think I found something.

Something undocumented as being of interest on any map, but which I believe could be an ancient marker stone.
It's a large stone placed perfectly vertically in a crack in a flat body of stone looking back the ways along the Glen - for nature to have deposited it so carefully and exactly does (to my eyes) seem very coincidental.
If indeed it has any significance, I know not; but the feeling of timelessness was there and I supped at it with my soul as a hungry dog will lick marrow from a bone - but could I capture it photographically - no I could not.

I actually felt like one of those early American Pioneers when they were taking photos of Indigenous Peoples - like I was taking a part of its soul and as such this un-nerved me and I could not do it justice.

It was kind of like we were checking each other out though . . maybe next time

Anyway, here's a couple of pics and things of the place - we'll get onto the photographic meat and potatoes in a minute . . .

Hasselblad and 150mm Sonnar Ready For Action

Pig's Eye View
If You Were Feeling Really Brave,
You Could Have A Go
At the Rough Country Ahead

                                                                            

                                                         

Well, that was, yawwwn, really, yaaawwwwwwnnnnnn, very intere . . yawwwwn . . sting wasn't it.

Oh yes, you can't fool me - you were on the edge of your seat!

Anyway, cameras for this trip were both Hasselblads - the 500 C/M and the SWC/M - it might seem a bit bonkers when you can do it all from one camera, but I find they compliment each other well, and seeing as I can't get the 38mm Biogon in standard stand-alone V-mount, then two cameras it is.

In truth, the SW weighs next to nothing for it's quality, so I don't mind.

It is certainly easier hauling two Blads than it was when I used to have to carry a LF camera, wearing my old Meindl boots - you've surely heard the adage "a pound on your feet is equivalent to ten on your back"?

If that is the case then hauling those old anchors around on my plates of meat (1275 gm each . . . thus 2.75lb, and in back terms 55lb on my back . . .) JEEZ, no wonder they nearly killed me!

I travel much lighter these days - Altberg Defenders - made in the UK and the issue boot of choice to a lot of our army lads - they're high leg, lightweight and do a superb job in all terrains - you can actually cross moderate burns in them and not get any water ingress. 

Money well spent is what I'd say.
Anyway, that's enough boot talk - you'll think I am mad.

So, in common with all FB's this year, steady . . . keep yourself in check . . . here's the contact prints:

                                       Film # 66/56

#66/56, HP5+ EI 200, 13/4/19 - 150mm Sonnar

1./ 1/30, f22, ZIII Big Rock

2./ 1/60, f22, ZIII Strath

3./ 1/8 F22 ZIII Pool - Waited (or wasted!) 10 Minutes

4./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Water

5./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Strath/Trees

6./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Falls

7./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Falls

8./ 1/8 F22 ZIV Wall? Comp For Dull

9./ 1/4, f22, ZIII Rocks

10./ 1/4, f22, ZIII Big Rock

11./ 1/4, f22, ZIII Rock Orifice

12./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Marker

All tripod.

21 mins PHD  22℃  usual 17-21.

Better metered?

Not sure, but they're fine.

THIS WAS THE LAST OF MY ORIGINAL PYROCAT - I STILL THINK I MUCKED UP THE MIX, BUT IT DID FINE!

Film # 66/55

#66/55, HP5+ EI 200, 13/4/19 - SWC

1./ 4 Sec - - -> 7 Sec, f16 ZIII 

2./ 1/15, f11, ZVI Stone

3./ 1/4 F22 ZIII Rocks/Sky

4./ 1/60 f22 ZIII Strath

5./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Trees

6./ 1/15 f22 ZIII Trees

7./ 1/30 f22 ZIII Falls handheld + rest

8./ 1/8 F16 ZIV Bridge  - handheld

9./ 1/8 F16 ZIV Bridge  - handheld

10./ 1/60 f22 ZIII Pool - handheld

11./ 1/60 f22 ZIII Self - handheld

12./ 1/60 f22 ZIII Pool - tripod

21 mins PHD  22℃  Stand from 17 mins.

Well, there's a lot of underexposure on this - not sure why - it is disappointing though - must pay more attention to readings.

Now I know they're pretty awful - the first one is the Sonnar, the second the SW and as you can see, there's heavy duty underexposure going on. Yeah, I know - who'd-a-thunk-it.
No idea why this is happening - but I'll put it down to meter operating error - certainly in recent weeks I have used the SW again a couple of times and the films (FP4 . . rated at, gulp, EI 50) have been fine.

Anyway, I know you've got things to do, so here's some prints, albeit not very good ones on some old and expired Ilford MGRC. All developed in Kodak Polymax.
I shall return when the Winter comes in more and I have more enforced darkroom time and print them better - there's also a few frames on the contacts that really could be doing with printing - we shall see.
Time is the most precious thing we don't own.

Another Lost Burn
Glen Doll
April 2019

Boulderfield

The Dreaming Place

Boulderfield and Scots Pine

Forestry Commission Concrete Bridge

This gloomy latter print, all  horribly underexposed, scanned up hairier than a gorilla's trousers, so I had to tweak it slightly - it is still my favourite picture of the day.

When you start looking, these really supremely ugly (yet practical) concrete Forestry Commission bridges are all over Scotland.

Maybe someone has detailed them somewhere (there must be tens of thousands).

Hey maybe someone has started a Facebook group! 

Concrete bridge nuts unite!! 

Vote for your favourite monstrosity!!!

And that's it folks - remember you can't use that zimmer down at the gym any more - I had a lot of complaints last time about the holes in the mats.