Oh dear, somehow it wasn't meant to be

It might be raining.....

Of course I meant it this way! How dare you suggest otherwise. Ok the rain wasn't meant to be there - or the scratches but I love those now. All wabi sabi and what have you.

At least I finished the film and got it developed!

Yes, yes, Mr & Mrs Toots are happy !

Toots Wilson

Anne Wilson

Yes, they are happy - as well they should be!

The Wedding of Mr & Mrs Toots

Yes, it went well. The snow started in the morning then the sun came out. Anne and Toots were married, the band played as they left the registrars office and we went off to a lovely hotel meal for the most intimate and lovely wedding I have ever been too.

The couple are lovely - of course they are. Anne looked wonderful, Mr Toots was terrifically elegant in his kilted outfit, everyone smiled, cried and were happy. We all talked, we admired Sophie the flower girl and then we all went home satisfied the day was great.

The lovely Mr & Mrs Toots Wilson

Mr & Mrs Toots have now gone off to an exotic island for a well-deserved honeymoon. We wish them all the luck and love in the world.

It's here, The Wedding Day

There will be no going back at 4pm today at Stornoway Registry Office when Mr & Mrs Toots-to-be do the decent thing and get married. We shall be there cameras at the ready, best frocks and all - despite the cold and windy weather that seems to have arrived!. Best of luck you two!

Since I may have overdone the Toots' images, here some from strolls on the island with krappy cameras !

Louder than a saxophone!

 Untidier than the office

 "Oh no, what have you done!"

Peace and tranquillity

The day before the wedding...

Is it Roy or is it Clint?

... and all is well. Clothes are all ready, cake finished, cameras primed. The weather. Mmmm, best not say that - yet! Remember, 4pm, Stornoway Registry Office. Be there! [if you can!]

I visited my pal Royston yesterday -or was it the day before - and he showed me this image from a book he'd acquired from the charity shop. The other image is of Royston in his younger days. Which is which? I can't remember :-) And I can't see very well since I shot this with the Recesky diy TLR in low light. I like it though do you?

Under two days now......

.. and the finishing touches are being made for the kake - for the Toots' wedding on Friday @ 4pm.

Eve, the kake artiste

It's only a day or two...

....till the Toots' wedding.

Friday at the registry office @ 4pm.

I'll be there :-) Will you?

Warmth

The dog 

Nice innit?

The dog and I thought so. That''s why we went for a slight strollation on the road to nowhere today - enjoying the fine weather. Twas really quite warmish so we stopped and looked at the sea for a bit before I took the dog to her home and came back to ours. There was rubbish over the road as the dustbin operatives seem to have decided to throw our bin around a bit before getting to the truck. Had a nice five minutes picking it all up :-( Such is life.

Walked past here too. Twice.

Lovely

Sheeps; homage to Jack Spencer

Yes, the sun is still shining here while the rest of the UK seems to be disappearing under floods and deluges. The doors are open, the windows too. Pushkin is out enjoying himself somewhere and I'm going out for a stroll in the [relative] warmth. Too nice to spend time in the darkroom so you'll have to make do with this till the clouds come over and I feel I want to shut myself up in a dark-room again.

A good marriage

Pinhole for WWPD

I am extremely lucky. I have a wonderful 'marriage' - civil partnership that is - to my dear Eve and we have been together for ten years so far. How pleased I was to see a sign in the local shop extolling people to stand up for marriage. I'm all for that - marriage for everyone who wants it, that is.

The village where I live has some wonderful, kind, generous and intelligent people living here and I think I may join them at this meeting to speak against this proposal to stop all enjoying the pleasures of marriage. I cannot imagine the villagers thinking anything else!

Image is taken with my pinhole camera for Worldwide Pinhole Day!
.

A pinhole for all that

In the morning it will be World Pinhole Day. Did you know that? Imagine, a whole day devoted to a little hole. Nice isn't it?

See? That's me.

I shall be out with the Fruit Pastille shuttered FrankaPin as it seems the weather looks like it might be rather good. Good for here anyway. Been out practising shooting the thing ready for the morning. Might use it at next Friday's wedding too :-)

Talking of which, here's Herself, The Mrs Toots to be in a recent portrait session - the only one I managed to get in despite constant pleading !! Notice the Tunnocks. Not many are there-  at this point of proceedings. Eh?

Pirating

Pirate Vic and Eve racing the tandem

Yes, I had a modicum of doubt last night after returning from work. My esteemed colleague Jonathan set me wondering if I had given young  Connor some wrong information. You see, when young Connor grows up, he tells me he want's to be a Pirate. Fair enough you might say. Fair enough although certain personages who reside in war-torn Somalia have rather given the profession a bad name. I suggested young Conor check out the exploits of of Capt'n Pugwash who, I seemed to remember was a good Pirate.

Now, I have the utmost faith in Jonathan's judgement. He's a fine workmate who keeps me on track as we trail around the island late at night. So, when he suggested that Capt'n Pugwash wasn't a Pirate it set me a wondering. This morning, I set about a little research and if you follow the link above and below you can see he was a Pirate - just not a very good one. Or perhaps a 'good' one in that he did little Pirating. Unlike Cut Throat Jake who was a real bad-un. I mean, check this out!

Pirate's on tandems

I shall return to life and snaps in the near future. In the meantime go and have a look at the first post from the Oiseval Gallery in Brue in the island here where you can see some fine snaps - including my own [blush ].

A bit of the 'other'

Eh?

No, I have no idea what that above is. Obviously I meant it to be like that - all texture and surprising tones that lift your heart after a night of sleeping badly. I think perhaps it was influenced by the snap below, taken with the Kodak Retinette 1a sometime past and just re-discovered. I have not idea why I like these, but I do. Maybe it's the lack of sleep!

Castle walk

Still bothering

The Crofter

Despite the fact that I was going to follow the Crofter for a year, three years on I am still wandering down the road and seeing what he's up to armed with a camera [or two]. Sometimes it's in his old croft house and sometimes it's out on the moor. Who knows? Go here and have a look from time to time.

Yes, Mr Windy won!

Ok, I know, Mr Windy won. I didn't actually realise we were competing actually. But there you are, he won square and unfair. Perhaps Mr Windy didn't know he was competing either - and I didn't ask. It seemed churlish at the time. But he won all the same - and I'm not at all sore about it. Even though he used a d*g*tal camera sometimes - as well as the two 35mm film cameras - shooting hither and thither. I had to put my foot down in the end. "That's mine, I saw it first" I shouted, nearly loosing it and getting not at all upset despite the gross provocation coming my way, knocking the fellow off his feet and almost sending him to his doom in The Minch. Still, he would have deserved it!

 The Lighthouse with no ice-cream

We were on Scalpay island with Eve and the lovely Deanne, walking from there [gesturing vaguely] to the lighthouse at the end.  The sun was shining, lunches nestling in rucksacks and Mr Windy shooting everything in sight. I was more restrained you know. A few selected snaps with the Ricoh 500G that winged its way from Mr Urban. And a few even more select shots with the Agfa 6x9. Restrained eh?

A wall

How did Mr Windy win??

He shot more snaps than me. 

Meanwhile, Pushkin waited patiently at home.

We have friends in high places you know

Not sure why I said - 'friends in high places" and all that. I was just trying to impress you all I suppose. Did I?

No? Ok, I shall move on.

The soon to be wed Anne

I snook over to see her who will be soon wed this week. While Toots was away on the mainland seeing old pals and the like, Anne and I took ourselves off to Oiseval Gallery in Brue to peruse the lovely images on show there - and drink their tea in the conservatory as the sun poured in. Twas lovely. Even He who shall not be photographed [pictured below] joined in the fun modelling his wedding outfit [see blow] for the great day to come. Not everyone was impressed with it as it happens.

He who shall not be photographed shows off his wedding outfit.

We had a lovely time anyway - even though the continued trip to Morven Gallery up the road ended up apple-pie less. Am I never to eat it again?

All lith-ed up

I have some old Agfa Portriga paper kindly gifted to me a while back. Did I say it was old? As a result some people don't like the prints from it. Granted, the highlights are a bit muddy and what have you - but I like prints like that so all is well. It also works great in Lith developer though and since work have actually paid me my overtime, I lashed out and bought some Rollei Creative Lith.

The sun was shining yesterday - could not have been a better day really and my walk took me to a favourite snapping spot out by 'our' peat bank. Yes, yes, I showed some snaps from that yesterday too.

Anyway, the Hasselblad came with me loaded with HP5. I shot this in the morning, developed it at midday and printed in the afternoon. It's dry now.

Lith Print- what's that all about then?

The camera always lies

It was really very warm but the camera didn't see it like that. I like the way it saw it though. Now I'm sat by the fire I do anyway!

Yes, it's warm outside!

More moor

Feels like I'm slumming it in in paradise at the moment. Sunshine pouring through the windows - or would do if I get round to cleaning them. Hardly a breath of wind in the air, not long back from a short bicycle ride and previous to that a most wonderful stroll out to the peat bank this morning. I didn't cut any don't you know - we seem to have plenty at home already. But I did take a snap with this little camera I received from some nice bod over at Filmwasters as part of  'share the love'. Eh? How good is that? Very as it happens.

Go on, go and have a look at filmwasters, I know you want to.

The camera I used was a Ricoh 500g with Polypan-f rated at 200asa and developed, or should I say 'over-developed' in LC29. I like it!

With a pin-sized hole

With a pin-sized hole

Did you see me? Down on Garry beach carrying a box with a hole in it. The hole was meant to be there but most of the time I covered it up then, when the moment revealed itself, I showed the hole to world and let the light in. This is what it saw.

Same hole, different view

There was an extra bonus for me in that I didn't fall in the river!