Arnish Shetlands

More Polypan

I'm quite liking this film - which is good because I have a big roll of it, it was cheap and most other film is getting expensive now.

Just finished an hour or so turning out some prints from this stuff - and they look quite nice but not good enough, yet. It might have to do with the bits in the tap water round here which makes film developing rather tedious not to mention hit and miss.

I might add this is not a print but a neg scan. Prints will be coming along soon. Its a local walk to one of the beaches since you ask.

Off to see "Sex and drugs & rock & roll" tonight - the film that is. Its the Crofter's birthday soon so we are taking him to see this film about a former 'opera' singer. :-)

Frog

Was out on the road to nowhere and saw this little froggette making a home in one of the puddles - making loads of spawn in the process. Its a pity the puddle will be gone soon! At least the frog gets to enjoy the warm weather we are having at the moment.

Wringed

Two ex-chickens waiting to be 'sorted' on the croft down t'road. A print version on old Kodak Polyprint Rc and sepia toned. Eh? Snapped wif the Spotmatic and Polypan-f soaked in Rodinal 1:100 for two hours.

Now that's the sort of technical things I like :-)

Wooling or something

Doing something with the wool twirling thing. 1940? No 2010.

Eve, messing with Rambo's wool

Eve and I have been to a couple of classes at Brue Community Centre recently - messing around with sheeps wool and arranging into lines and then making into stuff. Great fun. Lovely people and all.

We did a bit of dry felting this time . Oh, and some tweezing, carding and spinning too. Choci biscuits with the tea ; What more can you want? Interesting though, most of the women there were off-comers; English, Mainland Scottish, American and Canadian [apologies are here as I suggested she was American too :-( ]

Used the oportunity to shoot some film - here old Agfa 400s @ 1600 soaked in Rodinal 1:100 for 2 hours.

Polypan-f

Been playing with some cheap 35mm film acquired a few weeks back. Apparently its rated at 50 but exposed at 100asa and soaked in rodinal 1:100 for 2 hours seems to bring this fine grained film up nicely. What do you think?

Vandyke on Bienfang

It's March already!!!!!

Before I have to give this interesting block of Bienfang paper back, I snook out one sheet - half a sheet actually - and coated it with some really dodgy Vandyke emulsion that seems to have separated out but works [nearly] when you shake it up a bit. Seems like this thin paper is quite nice and might have to lose the block or something. If you hung in front of some gold foil , it might look nice :-) On the other hand, gold foil in front of the print might look better.

I shot some well average Shanghai 5x7 in the gaffer/firewood FKD plate camera with the darkcloth-shutter, a standard-lamp pointing ceiling wards and a blanket for a backdrop - slowly being moved from side to side by my able assistant for the shoot - Eve.

Cooked in the winter sun as well since my home-concocted UV box is out on loan.

This is what you call a still-life. Not quite like the expired sheep you see on the beaches at the moment but proper still-life like the painter people do and all that. Only, I didn't quite manage to lose the ladder from the shoot. Ah well, in 50 years that'll be a talking point - if this print survives and anyone can be bothered looking at it.

Grinneas nan Eilean?

Lard update; The merging of The Featherstonehaughs and Egon Schiele caught on film .

He is the one, the one..... He's in there somewhere :-)

New blog to check out by Mr Windy. Isle of Rust. A Homage to Jonathan Meades

Ummm. Cyanotypes and all that

Called in to the Coelyns today for a mini-workshop with these good people and Toots came along too. Well, I must say they were very organised and in no time we had a few prints out after a quick suntanning in the living room. One 6x6 we left as it was [looked nice too] one we bleached which made it look even better and one I threw in some Yorkshire tea. Despite the teas' nomenclature, it worked reasonably well, changing the colour of the light to dark blue and pinking up the highlights.

I rather enjoyed myself although Mr Coelyne was rather non-plussed at my 'dash of this, slurp of that' techniques :-). "Its all about playing" I told him and he seemed satisfied with that although I suspect the measuring jug is going to get more use than it did today - as will the timer.

Anyway, here's one I did some time ago; a 6x6 neg; Kate's Cabbage

Ginty

Look here Mrs Bac Pharmacy lady; that horse [Ginty] is big I'm told and you aren't. Now your little wrist is broked and we are all sad. Except Glenn - who didn't seemed to mind at all this morning - running hither and thither on the beach with Ghriet and Sam and giving me the dirtiest of looks when I threw the ball-thing past him and Sam got it first. I mean, if looks could kill........!

So, get better soon Mrs Carolyn. Your staff in the shoppe are brill but its just not the same whinging at them about my ailments.

Snap; Ullapool

falling..........

I don't know why but I'm feeling a tad low this evening. That despite a nice evenings work with Mr Alec, a lovely meal with Eve at home, two dogs prowling the house menacingly [Ghriet and Sam are having a sleep-over] and listening to Late Junction on BBC Iplayer. Must be the weather or something. Or the imminent departure of Just William to the mainland for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, snap is from a visit to Bath Spa recently.

Lard

This is Lard. Otherwise known as Jake Ingram-Dodd and my nephew. As it happens, he is a dancer - although i must admit he doesn't look particularly graceful here. Having said that, he made a lovely move with his left foot shutting a door whilst we were carrying the bench to be painted through the house. That's what dancers do. I'm told. At the moment Jake is working with the Featherstonehaughs [say 'Fanshaws'] which is a fantastic dance company directed by the great Lea Anderson. This is my nephew we are talking about here. Eh! And such a lovely man too.

Do a google of him and you can find some stuff ... including this vid and this one too when he was working with Maresa von Stockert. Fantastic eh? Oh yes, and he is in the new and lovely 'glass' magazine - a sort of artsy Vogue / Dandy. I've seen a pre publication copy and its is fantastic - even got Sarah Moon's images in.

He's not bad at painting benches either :-)

A new Bridge snap

Since I've got a few moments to look at this film from the Kowa, I'll post this snap from a previous walk over on Great Bernera.

So, I'm home again

....after a nice few days with mater in Somerset and small visits to my home town of Bath Spa, a look at Burnham-on-Sea, Bridgwater and snowdrop valley on Exmoor. And yes, I took a snap or three.

Here's a snap of Burnham-on-Sea some years back :-)

It rained

Toots Wilson in full[ish] flow

The Bridge

Look, it may be less than ideal weather at the moment, I may have a dodgy chest infection but I cannot stay in all day and evening waiting for things to improve. So, armed with an old Kodak Retinette camera, Eve and I dragged Toots out of his slumbers [where, I might add, he was dreaming of going into his darkroom - again] and took off to Great Bernera where we set of in watery sunshine along the path to Tobson.

It is such a wonderful spot and well worth the effort to get along there - whatever the weather. To start the walk one crosses this lovely little bridge, passes a couple of cottages and walk over towards the derelict one. At this point the sun was still shining and we set off along the coast towards the lobster ponds. No sooner had we crossed a few bogs, climbed a stile or two and gazed across the bay than the rain started lash down. Toots was soon pining for his fire and cosy chair - and I wasn't keen on going on either - so we set off home again.

Actually, looking back at the day from the comfort of a dry home and the film from the Retinette developing, I rather enjoyed the walk. Especially since the film CMS20 developed for about two and half hours in Rodinal 1;200 ish turned out quite nicely

Texture

Our Bus Stop in the recent weather

The Dairy has Gone.

I took this snap with the old Voigtlander 6x9 rangefinder on some Perutz film I still have a few rolls off. The film has had it really - hence the texture. However, I do like this image. And the first- the one of the bus stop.

What's going on?

Gosh, for the last few days the weather up here on our island has been just wonderful. Warm sunshine, lovely warmth and hardly any breeze at all. Ghriet the doggie has enjoyed a fine stroll on the Traigh Mhor beach this morning, running all over the place, in and out of the sea and generally getting quite tired.

I've been down to The Crofter some days too - what with the North Tolsta Rodeo an all. Since the croft in question is on the edge of the world near enough, one does really get distracted. We were down doing a spot of ditching with the digger thing when I looked to my left and took in the view of Donald Four Tractors' sheeps and No. 1 North Tolsta. And the Minch.

What a great privilege it is to live in this place.

Biker Crofter

You lot think I make most of this up don't you? You can't make this sort of thing up.

I was over at The Crofter a few days past, passing the time of day, pulling my foot out of a cow-pat and avoiding having to help feed the pigs when Dad Crofter comes out with the fact he used to be a biker. I wrote about this phenomena on Island Crofters blog - an everyday tale of Crofter folk - without Jazzer but with cows and pigs. And now I have the proof. Well, I have the proof that Mum Crofter was a Biker's Moll [a motorbike rider's lady companion for all you Aussie readers so you don't get the wrong idea], here in the snap on the right seen on the left and looking far all the world like the snap was taken yesterday. The chap by her side was Jon - and we don't talk about Jon do we? No.

Dad Crofter, I'm told is the one with the Skull and Crossbones on his designer jacket - because he wus dubble 'ard an all.

The snap of the motorbike was Biker Crofter's Triumph Trophy - "The American model don't forget" I was told. I haven't forgotten eh?

Nice snaps too - proper development issues an all. Must be authentic :-)

Death by P.S.

I have been re visioning a neg of mine. Taken with the Hasselblad in one of my favourite home village spots and re-worked here in front of t'fire using a pooter program - the lazy way. However, it is something I do from time to time - when I can't be bothered to go into the darkroom, I have not got enough B&W paper or, like this time, when I want to spend time in the same space as my dear Eve whilst doing something constructive/destructive.

I am rather taken by the work of Titarenko, not only in his use of movement but also in his darkroom re-visioning of negs. Like Titarenko, I like to imagine that the neg is merely a starting point of the final image. Unlike Titarenko, I have little of no imagination of what I'm trying to achieve. I just hope I recognise it when I see it! Here, I rather like this Titarenko-esque effect whch would be rather easy to do the proper way. And, if I can find the neg, might well do that.

And yes, I like it dark and part-toned sine you ask Coelyne :-)

Yup; snow

The Stornoway Gazette Snapper walks to work [Seamus McDean ?]

Snowing.

Not snowing at the moment I might - quickly. The sun is out - somewhere behind the big bank of dark clouds that are lurking overhead and causing me to have to have the light on in the middle of the day and everything.

But it does seemed to have snowed inordinately this winter. The animals have been having a rough time of it and the snow underfoot does not 'help getting the pigs in' [an obscure Archers reference here for Mick who's bobbing around the high seas somewhere out west in his boat Hannah with Bee and the moggie. Well worth checking out their website as it happens - nice pics an all. The Archers are always worth checking out of course. Jazzer being particularly wonderful at the moment and I feel that Phallon is giving him a terrible time. So unfair. And Helen is off her head.]

Anyway, took these snaps a few days ago in The Big Town with the Kiev rangefinder camera and HP5 rated at 1600 and sloshed in Rodinal 1:100 for 2 hours - which can't be done apparently.

Proper stuff

I have been known to been on the end of some doubt from time to time. Doubt in the main at the direction of my images. Not surprising since I am rather prone to veer off from the norm and produce disasters masquerading as 'art' - whatever that is. Take this image; please . [tis the first image of this collaboration] . I lost it really. My mind was elsewhere when I put that together using an old Soviet 13x18 plate camera, x-ray film and cyanotype print, toned and then sloshed with watercolour paint. What was I thinking of? I can't imagine but I blame it on tension at work.

In the meantime I went along to an interesting information packed Islands Book Trust lecture about Greenland by photo-lecturer Iain Roy. Afterwards I had a quick chatette with the man but, he was all full of words, the lecture and was rather preoccupied with signing books and getting out of the theatre before they turned the lights off. I mentioned another tographer who had taken some rather special snaps of Greenland but I didn't think it had been the right time to bring it up as it happens. I mean, Mr Roy still smiled at me, talked to me like I was intelligent but I could see in the back of his eyes that, it was not the right time. So I left.

However, in a flash of inspiration that comes to me from time to time, I emailed Mr Roy about Ragnar Axelsson and his work and to my pleasant surprise I received a lovely long and most interestinating reply detailing Mr Roy's delight in such imagary and a great deal besides. It's very pleasing that Mr Axelsson still uses film for his work - which I might add I love - and Mr Roy's used to use film too - 35mm, Medium Format and LF. Having said that Mr Roy has now gone over to the dark side and I am rather afraid I'm not so keen on the rather saturated colour and sharpened pictures that seem to be the result. I do like the man though and his B&W work.

Anyway, here's a proper snap from me; taken at Gress - just up the road - with the Kowa 6x6 and printed by own fair hand on Foma Varient. Which reminds me; I have a film fixing [hopefully] in hypo after development in Coffee/Soda crystals/Acetic acid mix.

And before I forget, one of the villagers reminded me of the TV programme 'Off Kilter' about the Isle of Lewis [Isle of Rust] is on Iplayer on the pooter at the moment. Brilliant stuff and well worth a look.

Multiplication

It just happens

The dairy is gone

Next door at one time was a chap who started a dairy in the village. It was built just down the road on a croft - at a time when there were less fences around the place - and more cows. The cows were kept in various 'parks' around the village, my informant tells me. Anyway, now the dairy is gone. Gone, lorst and gone, making room for another house to built to house a lovely family.

Sad though. Clocks used to work with the cows and latterly kept pigs there. So, here it is just prior to being demolished with Biker Crofter making his way to give the eye to builders to let him salvage some useful stuff.

Tealair stroll

My fav Tolsta View taken with Paxette - before the snow!

The moon is at its fullest, the tides are massive and so, today at low tide - or just before, Eve and I took off for a stroll down North Tolsta's cemetery road towards Traigh Mhor [Big Beach]. In between snow showers and bright sunshine, we took off to Tealair, a little bay only accessible at low tides. Here there are some fine caves at the bottom of sheer cliffs.

What a fantastic place and what a strange day. The wind was very keen and twas a good that we were both wrapped up well. The snow came over from the north in heavy flurries, foam from the sea was being blown all over the place.

I had taken a tiny and old camera with me - a Braun Paxette 1 - with a lens scratched it produces images with loads of flare and they look rather like images from a hundred years ago. The snap is of Eve on the way home just below cemetery road.

Toots did not come with us!

"Do you want a dog?"

Ben; I'm a terrier not a terrorist

The Crofter and Clocks [right]

Clocks asks me this on a regular basis. He asks Eve and The Crofter and no doubt anyone else he comes across whilst strolling with his beloved Ben down the village to feed the Highland Cows he looks after. Ben, the terrier, has a mind of his own and cannot be given to anyone.

Fine characters both and I love to see them both.

Meditation and Regression

Meditation

Regression

Look, the Grinneas nan Eilean is coming up and I have not got anything outrageous to show. Basically, the Grinneas is an art show at An Lanntair art centre in Stornoway where everyone can put 'art' pieces in for display and sale. There's usually some great proper artists showing like Willie Fulton and then you get people like me. And I don't do 'art', I do stuff.

However, I do make images and I do often use cameras but, I'm often tempted to 'do' something different. Different from the endless beach shots, standing stones and over saturated coloured images that frequent the photos in this show. Last year, one of my photographs, properly printed on Silver Gelatin but taken with a pinhole camera using very old film made it into the 'art'/painting section. :-). I also made an image entitled 'midge in formaldehyde' but now I think of it, that didn't pass muster - apart from the title so didn't put that one in.

Anyway, this year, I have been inspired. I'm working on some images because I found some old enlarging paper that has a lovely texture and used as a neg in-camera [an old folder in this case] then enlarged onto more paper makes some great results. I think so anyway and that's what counts. So, these are the first two - and there will be more .

I might even have another go at Midge in Formaldehyde too.

Prostrate with dismal

Oh please! Someone tell me the point of this little trip down to the beach. One suspects it's more like " I have a 4x4 and can't be arsed to walk!". It wasn't for taking a boat down since there were no trailor tyre tracks. And I suspect the last boat to come onto this beach was when Sammy the Seal misled the Stornoway Canoe Club and brought them here to show them the delights of the obsolete pier. I wonder; has the pier ever been used other than to fish or fall off of?

To Wŏnssu for the day

From Ullapool - today [Saturday actually]

Wŏnssu - from the archives.

With the weather having been so good in the forecast for the weekend, my partner Eve suggested a little trippette to the mainland was in order. So, armed with a camera, lightmeter, some sandwiches and a map we boarded the ferry at some unearthly hour of the morning in Stornoway. The sea was so calm crossing the notoriously rough Minch that we could have been on the Serpentine. The sun rose and a bright day dawned.

The point of this crossing was to make a stroll around the environs of Ullapool, a pretty little village nestling – as villages do – on the north bank of Loch Broom. Having said that, Ullapool was not always in Loch Broom. Apparently, the whole Ullapool area was previously located in the Orkneys. The warrior inhabitants of Wŏnssu State Collective as it was called at that time had a desire for independence from the other Orkney islands but rather than fighting it out, the two parties sat down over a bottle of Highland Park [and or Vodka – the records a re a little unclear on this] and played a game of cards to decide which sides ideas would prevail. The Wŏnssunians lost. This resulted in the other island’s men, getting into their long-boats – some 200 of them -and literally towing Wŏnssu away from Orkney and down towards the Minch. At this point there was no final destination but the Western Isles were rejected since they didn’t fancy crossing that particular piece of sea.

In the end Loch Broom loomed out of the mist and they proceeded down the loch and wedged Wŏnssu up against the Staffa peninsula. Still, to this day, if you look carefully you can see where the rocks have a faunal discontinuity indicating the differences in their original locations.

And to this day, there is still a totalitarian influence in the village, now re-named Ullapool after a particularly lovely part of North Korea. At the back of the village there is a Soviet style hotel – now sadly un-used but hopefully soon to be renovated by the Russians. Further towards the harbour is a neo-North Korean style block in the Jong-il McMansion mode, housing a fine Gallery/café and below an outdoor equipment shop.

Anyway, we had a lovely walk over the hills, fine coffee in a harbour side bistro and a nice sandwich in the gallery café.

Then we went home.

Wŏnssu is a lovely place and well worth an hour or two of your time to have a look round.

Me 'ed's mince

We have friends

Yes, yes its not North Tolsta in the snap. It's not even Scotland. But these are friends - English/Polish/Metropolisian friends or something. And they don't always look like this - as they're often found chasing Sir Chris Hoy [or more probably Princess Victoria Pendleton ]around the Manchester Velodrome - or, in the case of the chap in the middle [Superman 1] doing a mean Elvis impersonation in Krakow.

The lovely thing about living up here on Lewis is that its so easy to make friends and good lovely nice people friends too. Take yesterday, I took a few moments out of my suffering with this hangover from Christmas flu to pop up to Bac and Carolyn in the Pharmacy to pick up my prescription. Now, it's lovely going to The Bac Pharmacy because the staff are really friendly and even listen politely when I whinge - as I do. Having said that, sporty Paul had not arrived back from running to Ness and back [I think] so the prescription wasn't ready. Not to worry as Back stores is nearby where I can purchase a dark chocolate bar to up my blood sugar levels a tad. As it happens in there I meet Donald-four-tractors from North Tolsta. Lovely chap who, for the last two years has help bring the peats in with one of his collection of MF/Ford tractors. And the nice thing is no-one seems to mind if you hang around passing the time of day in the shop, chewing over the latest news to filter out from The Grazings Committee onto which The Crofter is now been elected [the first English on-comer in the whole history of the world of North Tolsta to have such an honour bestowed upon him]. Now that's the sort of high-powered life I lead now.

Time hangs

I'm getting myself better - hopefully. What with countless lemon and honey hot drinks and a visit to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription, I'm staying close to the fire to keep warm.

Amusing myself by looking at some negs I took the other day with a Fujica SLR loaned to me by the great Coelyns - the negs exposed on a local beach - I forget which one - a few weeks ago before the snow came. Probably.

Under the weather - redux

Apologies for the lack of recent postings but the old flu that laid me low over Yuletide has come back to haunt me leaving me with a hacking cough, sore throat and shouting at Lord Wiesmier - my stuffed rabbit friend - when he won't get up and get me a cup of hot lemon and honey!

As it happens, I hear The Crofter, who was also laid low at xmas is having similar issues at the moment leaving Pig and Piggy somewhat worried. Again.

Needless to say I have not seen the inside of the darkroom for a few days or hardly handled a camera.

Another snap from the post Yuletide period. A ram. In snow.

Haiti

I know there already a lot of stuff on the internet about Haiti, but it does seem to be a terrible situation and they require our thoughts and efforts to help them - ASAP.

I recommend Medecins sans Frontier as this is an organisation who are there on the ground already doing great work. Many apologies, but can I urge you all to support Haiti in anyway possible.

Snap; Which seems so pathetic in the bigger scheme of things. Another from the Snow walk.

"Me 'Ed's in tickets"

Such was the cry of the finance person at my old workplace many years ago when I worked for a sane lot. This finance person was prone to such lovely sayings and translated from Manc. it meant "I can't do two things at once" sort of thing. Tickets for an event at the Manchester Velodrome being the thing she was doing - apart from kippering her lungs that is - and the thing I was asking about being the other. Why am I saying this? Answers on a postcard please because it has slipped my mind at present.

In the meantime while I await the plethora of postcards to pop onto the doormat by nice postman, I talk about something else.

Mmm.

Ok, it has come to me.

Oh, gone again.

Flippin heck, getting older is just a pain, but so much a pain as the trouble I seem to be having with the water hereabouts. Last year the local water company covered the road with mud just outside the village, dug up more of the moor and built a rather natty water treatment plant. This building fits in nicely with the new houses being built round here in that it totally lacks any character or interesting shape and is generally grey. Ever since they built that the water quality has been terrible and its effecting my negs. A lot. I already use a Paterson type filter in the water hose but I'm either going to have to get a proper water filter or else only use bought ionised water. Every neg I get out if the developer/fix - even with the new temperature gauge seems to be coated in the remnants of The Crofters duck's breakfast - or something rather similar. This makes the negs very difficult to print in the darkroom without spending the majority of my days spotting the faults out.

Argh!

Snap of the day; Kowa /HP5/LC29 neg scan with spots removed. From the beginning of the snow walk at the weekend.

Singing in the shower

After another sleepless night plotting and fretting about work issues, issues that are causing my head to teeter on the edge of falling off and my little bod to commence falling apart, I awake to the most wonderful thing I have heard on the radio for quite a while.

On the Radio4 Today programme - yes, I am THAT sort of person - Mr Robert Wyatt formerly of Soft Machine and music of true wonderfulness fame now sees the result of his request to listeners to send in mp3s of their choirs around the UK. Now there is an interactive map of all things, with loads of brilliant choirs to listen to. Go over and take a look/listen, its well worth a hour of your time. And mine. Good old BBC - worth every penny of the licence fee. Only we don't pay for one. We have no TV in case you were just about to make a phone call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I so wish I could sing. I dream about such things - when I am not worrying about work. Anyway, my sister sings in a choir in Somerset - my mother does too sometimes but I've only heard the lovely Laxey Women's choir up here and I could never sing as well as that! Ah well, its back to singing in the shower - only we just have a bath and that doesn't feel the same at all.

The snap; another from our great snow walk up Bowglass last Saturday.

BTW; update on yesterday; I have now managed to scrounge a good thermometer from Toots Wilson so its all go on the film developing front. Once I have sorted work out.

Apologies

Snap from a recent walk with Eve up the Bowglass path

I must take this chance to apologise the terrible state of my snaps on this and The Crofter blog of late. In the main I put it down to the decline and then demise of my developing thermometer. I have been having problems keeping the developer at the correct temp these last few weeks. Seeing we have been having less than balmy conditions here of late and, the darkroom central heating [ portable heater in the centre of the darkroom ] being about as effecient as The Muirneag ferry on a breezy night in the Minch, it couldn't surely have an issue with over-warm developer one would think. But since the negs were about as perfectly developed as David Cameron's marriage tax policies, and dense in the extreme [do I sense a theme here? ], I figured it must be too hot a developer or the wrong developer, the wrong amount of developer, too much agitation or too long developing.

Look, I may be old but I did read the times for developing correctly, my stopwatch is still working despite a trip into water from time to time. I have only 3 developers and each had been giving me issues. Similarly, the liquid measuring implement had not changed proportions since last year and I generally agitate the developing tank about the same for everything I use - except of course for when I don't. Obviously.

However, on close inspection of the thermometer I had been looking at for the last few years, I notice the alchohol in it seemed to have had argument with itself with part of it deciding to stay up in the high notes and the majority of it returning to base. Now, it didn't take me long to work out that something like this may have an effect on the correct temp to the tune of around 5C. Doh!

Later in the day while passing through the shop in town I meet Mr & Mrs Windy. Mr Windy is not only a fellow film fotographer but also a lab manager so I figured this might be the man to ask for advice. " Heat the thermometer up slowly till the two parts merge then cool it down again" came the informed reply. I tried this and at the first attempt had merged 99% of the alcohol.

Brilliant, I thought. Do it again and all will be sorted. I think I might have overdone it a tad because the whole thing exploded. ARGH!!!!!!

Mr Windy has left the island for a few days.!!!!!!!!

4x4

I'm not one for 4x4 cars and the like. But I make an exception for Alec who has been driving me safely and expertly round the place as we go from place to place doing our little job in the dark. And since its been a tad chilly of late with the roads hereabouts extremely icy, I have been grateful for the relative security of Alec's Freelander - as I'm told it is.

Here's a snap at 9pm or thereabouts in Stornoway in the falling snow with a job on the other side of the island to do. Alec looking raring to go as usual.

Guessed exposure on Kiev rangefinder camera. Legacy400 film rated at 1600. Rodinal stand development because I broke my thermometer!

The Blast furnace

Actually, we don't really have one but yesterday I came down to the Raeburn roaring away for no apparent reason and the oven hot. I mean really hot. Hot enough for me to wonder about getting too close in case there was terminal melt-down or something. Since the air tempertature up here is a tad chilly at the moment I basked in the heat of the Warming Room, cooked porridge on the stove in about 10 secs flat then spent the next hour cleaning off the burnt bits from the saucepan. Ah well.

At the other end of the day, after I had carried a full inspection of my work kit, cleaning and polishing all the bits and logging all the important details I settled down into the Summer Parlour to light the stove there and enjoy a quiet evening with my Eve. Only the flippin chimney must have got cold so the room just filled with smoke. It just did not want to go up the chimney. I was wondering if the crow sat atop the chimney pot was frantically flapping its wings and pushing the smoke down again so I'd heat the thing up more. I think it was a crow anyway. It might have been a seagull - a sooty one.

Anyway, I had to get the stove hot to get the smoke to go up the chimney - and that was a strain since the air was now still, the chimney for this fire is at the other end of or little house from the Raeburn and it didn't want to 'go' as it were. I'm told it's the air pressure as well as the way the air is going - oh, or the phases of the moon and the state of the economy. so it had little chance. However, it did get nice and hot in the end - just as it was time for bed. Life eh?

The snap I carefully selected to show you sheep. White ones. Not proper Hebridean ones but ones that are the most popular type hereabouts. And a fishing boat in the bay - possibly fishing although I'm reliably told they shouldn't be as it is banned there at the moment. Perhaps they were just having a rest!

Ah Ha!

Look, I'm been doing 'things' and what have you. Work has been interfering with life rather more than I would like and someone there is giving me grief I could do without! Otherwise all is fine and we have been 'enjoying' the best weather in the UK - again. Yes we had some snow and yes it is flippin cold but at least we can get along some roads and look out over The blue Minchy to see the snow-capped mountains on the mainland [from my bed I get a great view]. But the darkroom is dangerously cold and I have not been inclined to venture in there more than the time it takes to wrap a blanket over my slot developing tank so the water in the water-jacket does not freeze. Even sat here in the Summer Parlour its a tad chilly after the warmth of our Warming Room where I just had the loveliest of dinners with my dear Eve.

Now, here's a nice snap wot I did the other day with the old Kodak Retinette 1a. Them's sheep and in the background are some big white ugly duck-like creatures called swans. Obviously, seeing the swans belong to Mrs Queenie, I have them out of focus so she doesn't see them and come up and tell the villagers off or something.