Lith and the like

First lith print out of the darkroom yesterday.

I like it too. On Russian Slavich paper. Lovely stuff.

There I was, waking up breathing,,,

There I was, waking up breathing when I shot myself. [This was yesterday you understand. I hope I have the same today since it is my preferred state] Luckily I only  shot myself with a little camera I found lurking by the side of the bed. Proves I was awake anyway.

Don't!
It's not everyone that gets to see the bedroom scenes you know!

Anyway, moving on. I turned over and squinted out one eye out the window that sits in the wall. The sun thing was actually shining. Out there - and on the sea and all. It looked lovely.

In a trice I was thinking about getting up. Thinking about it.

We did get up in the end, once we'd painted my nails, had a cuppa and cereal [wit fresh fruit I'll have you know]. It was still not raining. See, proof positive.

Soon we were strolling one of the local beaches, sun warming our faces and the cool light breeze cooling them again.

See that hat? It is not black and white. Not sure if it's something to do with your eyes like That Dress or This Film. It is Eve though.

We walked, strolled really. Up there and then back past here.

And then this was there. Must be the gales that brings this stuff here.

Not sure the bed got here in the gales. Maybe by the Gaels.
Look, I'm telling you a story. Don't bother me with the quality of the snaps.
Ok, now you are going have to wait for the end of the story. If there is one.

This is Murray

Murray. Man of all trades but particularly carpentry. Let him loose on a pile of scrap wood and some nails and you'll have a chicken coop in no time - whether you want one or not.

Old plate camera repairs? Well, Murray made me a new base plate for the old FKD 5x7 when it cracked. Better than the original too.

Snapped him up the other as he was reinstalling the village polytunnels that had been wrecked - again - in the winter gales.

Here it is

Sorry, late today. Got up head hanging, toes curled and self elsewhere.

It is probably worth waiting for though, this snap from another day. From out westish, down southish here on the island. Well, almost this island. Another name, same island. That sort of thing.

If I can find the neg down the back of my filing system aka the settee, I shall shine a light through it onto old paper, throw it into Lith chemicals and see what happens. Once I have checked on The Crofter anwyay.

Playing with my 170sl around the village

It's the sort of thing I do when the energy levels are a bit low and the thought of lugging around a big camera is not in the forefront of my mind. I got this little thing for about 99p [that's less than £1 for you mathematically challenged folk - like me] filled it with Foma400 film rolled into a 100asa film canister and went out. The little camera  knew I'd wanted to expose the film at 100asa and since the sun was out - it was almost perfect.

The camera is surprisingly sophisticated with little plastic flaps inside that block out part of the already small neg. How good is that? It's like that in the bit you look through too so you know the sort of thing you are going to get. Now the neg is really small and long. Well, longer anyway. Sort of like the neg shape of the Hasselblad Xpan without the cost [circa £1500 v 99p], quality or neg size. Apart from that it does just the same sort of thing but with a zoom. But of course without panache and style. And with mushy snaps!

See, I went for a stroll on the edge of the village - down towards where the witches gather. Having said that I expect the windmill might be frightening them off these days - even though it's not working at present. Must be why there is no wind with that thing not fanning it along.

Went doon this road. This might be 'up' but all the same place.

Now this is definitely 'up'. Up from the water treatment plant - yes we have one of those. No peaty brown water for us!

That's a lump of peat out there on t'moor. Looking back towards the village hiding behind the lump. A nice lump though. Nicely positioned and everything.

Oh yes it's coming back to me know. At this point my ears were beginning to drop off. I had 'ice-cream head' too. So pointed the 170sl - does't that just trip off your tongue eh? I pointed it at this, 'it' posed and I snapped. I like it. Talking of which/what, it looked young  Murray had already been out and cut his peats! Only, I caught up with him later and he told me they were last years!

Anyway, I like the 170sl. Simple like me. But classy :-)

No Idea

Have no idea what this sculptural thing was nestled net to the place we stayed whilst visiting Madeira recently. I liked it though. Is is Damien Hurst?

Still here with me

Ah, there she is sat there minding her own business with a spire growing out of her head. As it does sometimes.

Eve is home again after a hard day earning crust so we can buy some more film so I can continue wasting it. A situation that I fully support. Mind you, I do have to occasionally work myself you know - driving here and there, smiling, chatting, wrestling miscreants to the ground - that sort of thing. Only not quite like that really. I do the smiling and chatting mind. Can you imagine?

Another sheeps; posing in my Homage to Atget snap

Please, don't berate me for dissing a great name - that of Eugence Atget. Mr Toots is sure to reprimand me for that. No, it just I snapped this sheeps up with the Holga whilst out on a short strollatery and this here pole stepped in the way just asking to star. Just like Mr Atget had in his lovely snaps a few years back.

It's a homage to Mr Atget. That's what it is. A homage.

Breaking out the Holga again

Went strolling round the village in the thankfully light rain this morning with this Plastic Fantastic 'camera' in hand. Seemed to have caught this place in the lens. And the place next door. Sorry and all that. I won't do it again.

Tweed

Anyone know about Tweed? I know a bit. We are surrounded by the stuff up here. Weavers all over the place including here in the village. Yes, we live on Lewis and the tweed up here is called Harris Tweed. Virtually all the weavers for Harris Tweed are on Lewis - makes sense doesn't it!

Even Keith The Viking weaver is on Lewis. The mills are on Lewis too. That's where the cloth is finished. Woven in the weavers at home and finished in the factory then sold to the world.

There's a posh tweed shoppe in the toon - Stornoway that is - but I can't afford to look in there. But there's hope as there is the Lewis tweed centre [or something like that] on Bayhead located up a ginnel in an old decrepit building. It's great inside though. Mr Man is very interesting, the place is full of 'stuff' tweed. So took the girl Olivia Lucrecia Flynn Hunter to see him with her handler Dad Hunter.

This was then.

I'll think of another title - soon

See that? We don't live there but it is on 'our' island. Nearly anyway. Harris rather than Lewis and near Scalpay to boot. But isn't Harris and Lewis all the same place? I THINK NOT! Or some people think not.

Nice though isn't it? Yes is the answer. I like it - a lot.

Please don't come here. Not in the summer - too many camper vans blotting the landscape. Come in the winter when you get to appreciate the horizontal rain, the howling winds and the few hours of what is laughingly called daylight.

Happy Birthday dearest Eve

Not today but yesterday and no, I did not forget. Card, little pressie and, and here's the wrap, a lovely meal AND a trip to watch a documentary which I for one loved.

The meal was a Thai curry - at the excellent Bridge Centre Cafe [no expense spared] and the documentary was about a bear called Paddington. You may have heard about him. There were a few scary moments when I had to hide behind the cinema seats while the yoof around me laughed. How could they? Have they no heart?

Anyway, comes highly recommended.

BSE

Saw some BSE wine in a nice looking bottle cooling in the refrigerator. It did not tempt me to try it, whatever it was.

The cafe was nice-ish though. Had a cup of tea here. That lady didn't turn round and look at us once! Doesn't she know who we are? All the same, we had a salad on a plate here too.

Yes, it was in that abroad place which turned out to be Madeira. Nice, quite nice actually although I wouldn't go again! Too many people!

Snap, snippitdy snap. Chimp

The Abroad place again. So long ago I'm finding it difficult to remember where it was. Four hour flight from Scotland - after a one hour flight from the island here. Far enough. Too far actually.

Anyway, caught this one holding her book thing at the sun. Presumably to make is shine stronger. What's that all about then? On the bored walk too :-)

This one tried it too in Saga gardens or wherever it was. Someone else had already eaten all the pies - obviously.

Oh well, at least we got too see a lovely Saree at last. I took a snap too.

Was too much to miss here. Everyone was at 'it'. Here, abroad, in Saga gardens or wherever it was.

I knew I was in trouble being old enough for Saga Gardens, having a snippitdy snap thing in my hands [and another in my bag]. I tried being younger. Thought about being younger a lot. It didn't work. I came home even older than before.

Been living

See that? It's a nice wall that surrounds an old 19th C burial ground out near Ranish. Actually, now I look it up it has moved into Crossbost. No idea how that happened.

I woke that morning with my head firmly implanted up my derrière - no wonder I have such a bad tummy. Still, since the sun decided to show itself I took our little noddy car down the road a mile or three to have a walk on the slightly wild side. By the sea - which isn't all that difficult when you live on an island like this.

You see, sometimes I have days like this when I cannot face people - myself included.

A bigger camera came with me loaded with some Foma400 so would have less focussing issues with the 50mm lens and strolled up to this place.  We have been here before and it hasn't changed that much. No coows there at present to haunt me just few sheeps in the next field.  I pointed the BC and snapped it all up. It looked a bit like this snap above.

The man who cornered the market in black hair dye in the far flung isle.

There he was holding his fish scythe, hovering over a decapitated tuna trying to cut bits to get into a tin no doubt. But I couldn't keep my eyes off his hair - his jet black hair. Not a hair out of place, not a grey hair at all. Very,,, something.

Yes the picture is a bit thin. A bit lacking in the focus department and all the rest but I only had an XA2 and Polypan-f film rated at 60asa.

William - again

Taking tea. With me.
Only William had a plate of this and that. With prawns
I squeezed it all through a hole.
I'll wipe it down when I get home.

Oh please!

Look what them abroad peeps did. Eh? What's that all about then?

Apologies, I could get excommunicated for less here. If I was communicated. IF.

I see photos. Lots of them. But most not like this

It wasn't working at the time. The place in an abroad place just next to the sea and everything. These were tourists. I was a visitor. That's the difference.

See that? Through a little hole

I decided to take the pinhole out for a walk - attached to suitable box and a film between the two. The sun was shining - and that bemused me.

It works still. The cardboard shutter was accurate. And it points in a suitable direction. I think.

Signs of the time

We followed this sign and it provided us with refreshment. Tea I think.

We didn't go up there.

But we did go there. In an abroad place

Portrait of a place elsewhere

We went there. And elsewhere. It was that sort of place.
The little camera enjoyed the trip I think.

I don't know why I don't take it on holiday some more.

I never take colour

Except when I do of course although it is never worth it let me tell you. It was a mistake I tell you. The cassette of the colour film that somehow snook into my everso up-market shoulder bag [as you might expect someone from Bath Spa to have ] was very similar in colour and design to the Kodak Tmax400 B&W I was using at the time. Hence the colour. I don't like it.

Do I 'do' colour? I don't really think so.

The glow

See, what a glow!
How does one get that? Use Leica lens'? No.
Use Polypan-f film that has no anti-halation layer.

Yes, it's that abroad place again. Wherever it was. Seems so long ago now.
Do you know where it is?

As you well know, I don't 'do' landscapes

This just happened. I think I might have got over enthusiastic in enthusing Ms Hunter to get the landscape done. I pointed the camera out of the window of the car just to show how it is done and it inadvertently went off. Sorry and all that.

Now that's better. Proper portrait of a Viking in a place with added sheeps. And snow. Very impressive bit of sheeps leading I have to tell you. Keith the Viking sure has a way with his beasts. Perhaps it was the food in his hands. Mmm, possibly.

With Eve

I went to that abroad place, the one over the sea nearer the sun than here with Eve, my dearest partner.

Here she is all loaded down in the sunshine with sixteen layers. You get used to preparing for 'weather' [like the current snow here] and when that glow of something in the sky appears and the temperature rises out of single figures, you resort to lugging the lot around. This was there.

This probably was looking for there. Tis a map. Possibly a map of the abroad place but there are so many flaws on the neg it's hard to tell. It is Eve though, I am sure of that. Pretty sure anyway.

We found this little canal lurking just before it leapt into a tunnel where we ventured not. We might have had we known it came out again but we couldn't be sure. We waited for ages to see a canal boat but nothing came, so we we went back.

+

From a place abroad.
I stumbled on this as it slowly but surely crumbled. I snapped it with the XA2 before it disappeared altogether. That place there, abroad.

This was in an abroad place too. Snuck under a bridge somewhere to inform the natives - whoever they were. They were there somewhere. It was they who built this wall. Rubberised and that.

Harrrrrr! and all that sort of thing

How is that for a view to while away your working day. If you have any energy left after pedalling a metre or two of Tweed, feeding the sheeps and cooking the tea. Eh? It's down Lemreway way.

"HARRRR!"
Oh yes, it's where the Viking and his lovely wife work, keep Icelandic sheeps and smile a lot. And why shouldn't they? I took Ms Lucrecia Olivia Flynn Hunter, a fashion / editorial photographer down there to see them. That's the sort of thing I'm known to do. I mean, The Croation Man from Croatia visited there after all.

Ms photographer got distracted though. Wanted to feed the sheeps. Tickle their noses and smile at the Viking. Keith the Viking. Did I not tell you he was a Keith?

This is Keith The Viking with Mr Hunter, Lucrecia Olivia Flynn Hunter's assistant/driver/funder. I would show you a snap of Ms L-O-F-Hunter but she'd probably take a contract out on me, so I won't.

We had a fine time all the same. Many thanks to Viking Keith and Liz.
And William and Gemma too who made us most welcome.