Boxes & Bellows

Lomo

2009-11-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

The whole Lomography thing that seem to have taken off annoys me. Its a marketing ploy pure and simple. I suppose at least they are getting people to use film rather than digital through making the whole thing 'cool'.
This snap was taken on a Lubitel 166 loaned to me by Toots Wilson.

A final place

2009-11-14T09:06:00.001-08:00

There is a fine churchyard in Inverness full of old headstones and trees. Eve and I spent a while mooching about in the sunshine - until I noticed I seemed to have been followed by a man in a top-hat - except there was no-one there. We moved on soon after that.

Cromarty

2009-11-12T03:19:00.001-08:00

While Eve & I were on the mainland we took a bus ride out to Cromarty - where it poured with rain. Still, I visited this place that I had seen in an image by Rob Archer over on FADU forum. Its about the only place in this wonderful village where you cannot see the oil rigs out in the bay. Apart from the pub that is - where we waited for an hour and half for soup! Still, we were entertained by the students on a field trip in there getting their din dins.

Another pinhole shot on the ferry. I took it, you see it!

Crofter

2009-11-09T08:26:00.000-08:00

I'm still posting here but also here . Do take a look from time to time. Its all about Paul the crofter.

Land boats

2009-11-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

I have become ever more aware that there seems to be a plethora of boats that sit in gardens and yards awaiting a fate that may or may not involve water! Here's a couple from a trip to Cromarty recently. Some of these boats may be out of the water for winter but some I fear are out of the water for ever.

Inverness through a small hole

2009-11-06T14:39:00.001-08:00

Inverness

2009-11-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

No, I have no Inverness images yet. They nestle mysteriously in-camera waiting for some time to be delicately caressed by essence of rodinal and possibly, just perhaps see the light of day. But, I did make a snap on the way over as one does. As I do anyway. Traditional innit?

Been away

2009-11-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Been living it up on the mainland for a few days - the rain followed us but, today when we were coming home the sun shone all day.

The lovely thing was that on the way over we saw a school of dolphins scooting across the bow of the ferry mid-Minch. What a superb sight that fair lifted my heart.

Be back with some snaps soon.

Working with paper negatives

2009-11-01T12:10:00.001-08:00

If you click on here it will take you back to a paper negative made print I made earlier his year. I thought I might write a few wordettes about about a way to do them. Its not THE way to do them, it my way.

Select you camera and find some un-exposed B&W printing paper to use. [There is a chap here who uses colour paper but that's for the future :-) ]. You can use graded or multi-contrast - it really doesn't seem to matter - I usually use RC as its cheaper, usually thinner and doesn't show too much texture when contact printed. Neither does it matter if the paper is old and little fogged. It fact it may well help since you next step would be to pre-flash the paper. I do this under an enlarger with a 00 filter in place, the lens stopped down and the head cranked right up. I usually flash for about 1-2 secs - but you may need to experiment. the idea is to lower the contrast of the neg a little.

To aid keeping a lower contrast, I find it is much better to shoot in soft light - but then, up here we get a lot of that anyway. Most of my paper negs are shot indoors with either a 5x7 held together with gaffer tape and elastic bands or a fine Agfa 8x10 I currently have on loan and covet terribly. I also shoot using lens' without shutters just using the dark-cloth to cover and then expose the lens to the subject and since the light is lowish, the asa of the paper low too, this works just fine. Mostly.

Now comes development. Mix a very dilute developer and put in developing tray. Have another tray with water and yet another with fix. As long as the liquid is not frozen solid the temp of the stuff will not matter a jot! Although, having said that, if its too hot the development will be a bit fast.

1. Put neg into dilute developer and slowly develop the image till you get a soft image. I don't let much if any of the proper blacks develop as I don't really like white in my prints.

2. If the print has areas that need more developing, pop the print firstly into the water to stop overall development or at least slow it, then dip the portion of the neg you need more development into the dev and wait til something comes up. You'll need to move the thing about a bit as otherwise you might get a line appearing. You could also rub the developer onto the neg with some rag or whatever.

3. Re-wash in water then fix.
Sorted.

Now, you can either stick the dried print on the scanner and invert the image or, do the job properly and contact print the neg.

To contact print the paper neg, I dry the neg properly. Some people say contact print wet neg to wet print but its messy and seems to have no benefit whatsoever.
Put the paper neg face to face with your paper for the final print making sure the neg is on the top! Place some plate glass over it and do some test exposures as you would do for a normal print. This can be done under a light bulb but an enlarger or similar is easier to use filters.

I often split-contrast print the paper negs but you can do them with a single filter if you prefer. Develop as per a normal print and tone as required.

It is possible to pencil on the back of the paper neg to change to change the tones and shading but I have not got the skill. If you want to see a Master of this technique see Andrew Sanderson's work here and here . Brilliant work! Great workshops too.

Anyway, have fun. The Paper neg, contact printed snap here was not a total success but I like it!

Lets go to the moor

2009-11-01T03:49:00.000-08:00

The moors here are just sublime and you are unlikely to see a soul. Wonderful old peat roads leading to peat banks, and if you are lucky a lovely light across the hills. It always lifts my spirits up here.

Slide show

2009-11-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

Mmm, went to a slide show last night at An Lanntair. Still mulling it over. The slides were lovely from all around the globe - especially the polar regions. The audio-visuals I did not like. This was all by Mr J Beaty and it was quite an enjoyable evening - an evening which finished off with some snaps he took with the Guga hunters of Ness.
Click this link for some other interesting pictures of the Guga hunt by Donald Morrison.

Island Crofters

2009-10-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

I have commenced a longer photographic project that hopefully documents the lives of a crofter in my village here on the Isle of Lewis. I will just be using B&W film and in the main 35mm cameras.
The crofter Paul is an in/offcomer and supplements his income as a dental technician and his family live in the village too - helping him run the busy croft. The project will be put on the blog Island Crofters. Hope you visit from time to time.

Colour again

2009-10-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

Another snap or three from the slide film I ran through the Lubitel loaned to me by Toots imself. The Fuji400 film was uprated to 800 due to low light - and it could have been 1600 but thought that might have been pushing the boat out a bit.
From the same day at Caste in Stornoway.

Tea with Junior

2009-10-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Junior was creating havoc on the croft as usual, muddying up the place and giving me the evil eye as I strolled down the village. Well, now, sadly he has gone to meet his butcher - who just happened to be his owner - via the slaughterhouse .

The butcher is learning his trade on the kitchen table and Mum looks on approvingly.

My Human walker

2009-10-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Here's Ghriet waiting or me to catch up and stop looking at the sea or meditating or whatever humans do. The snap is interesting in that the film was rather over-developed and scanned so it looked a bit like IR film. Still, I like it.

Sea Level rise

2009-10-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

A piece on t'radio [ you know, the box with sound and not moving pictures] today got me thinking again about climate change and associated expected sea level rises and how that might affect the Western isles. I did a bit of digging around and found this mash-up of Google maps and NASA data that illustrates the effect of sea level rise. We are already expecting 1m sea level rise and if the greenland Ice shelf and the Antartic ice melts completely - that could ride to at least 25m
Anyway, see here for 1m rise in the Western Isles, here for 5m rise then turn down your central heating. Please.

Thanks to Bob Kingsley for the link.

Ghriet [the doggie]

2009-10-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Hardly Mike. [While Muriel keeps order]

2009-10-20T06:51:00.001-07:00

Here it is; the coolest bike on the island:-) With the best dressed technician on-board.

Tapadh leibh

2009-10-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Birthday Chef - looking well fed-up!

A great w/e - snapping up, plotting the downfall of the Isle of Jura and gassing bout snaps. What more can one want. And The Warming Room [fka; The Scullery] is brill.
Took off to see Aonghas at the Anchorage restaurant in Leverburgh - famed for its fine food and great hospitality [and light area which was great for snapping up wif the 8x10 and paper negs]. Chef had his burfday so snapped him up [¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí! , ¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí! , ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ......! ,¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí! etc].

Also snapped up with the Kiev 60 [or it the 6c ? - who cares?] loaded with slide film which I developed in B&W print developer - as you do. Or, as I do! And Toots' Lubitel wif Panf in Rodinal not 5 mns from home at The Bridge to Nowhere.
Fun Eh???

Winters Tail

2009-10-16T08:42:00.001-07:00

Sea 2

2009-10-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Time for the Hassie down at Garry beach on a small headland watching the waves roll in and out - a sort of mediation for me.

The Sea

2009-10-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

Captured with love by a box with two lens' made in Russia on old German film developed in print developer and printed on Czech paper.

Winter Parlour

2009-10-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Eve & I decided that the time had come to bring in Rowston & Rowlston to knock the partition wall between the winter parlour and the kitchen down and today the deed was done. Now we have a big Winter Kitchen! Here captured on old Perutz film developed in print developer exposed in the Toots Lubitel which has a surprisingly sharp lens thing. Eh? Russians, who'ed av em :-)

As you can see we have gone rather up-market.

BTW: I notice Mr Windy has been a commenting. Av a look at his blog here

2009-10-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

We had a visitation today. Totally unexpected but very pleasant all the same. Not long after returning from walking Ghriet on the road t'nowhere and previously, a fine 'brunch' [do we do brunch here???] wif the Smits, Toots Wilson and the Coelyns arrived. Great excuse for tea and biscuits and a chatette.

This was the second rather unexpected meeting this week since the local MP got to meet me whislt on my morning sunshine-bathed stroll in the week. Nice chap too - and he didn't do too bad at the difficult questions I asked him either. More of that another time - although I'm awaiting to hear his comments on the paper about Sustainable Economics I sent him.

Anyway, the snap shows Toots planning his next gig in the cafe at An Lanntair

Here we go.....

2009-10-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Loaded some out of date Agfa CHROME into the old KIEV 60, shot the whole roll within an hour in Stornoway on Sea, developed it in Print developer for 2 mins30 then printed as Lith on Foma Varient RC.