The Good, The Bad And The Fiddly

Morning - I hope everyone is keeping well and safe and greeting the shit-storm of a New Year with typical British stiff upper lip and a tough set to your shoulders. 

Ha, this is nothing like it was when I was a boy.

They used to beat us to bed in the dorm and we'd be awoken by a bugle call at 3.30am for a 16 mile run.

Then it was weights, a hose-down and just as the sun was beginning to rise a luverly runny egg for brekfast,

Cooo, gosh . . . . 

Eugh, gosh!

Made us Britons wot we are. 

None of your Jonny Forener muck round here, all that garlik and unyons and stuff.

Oh no, it's boyled beef, spuds, carots and grave from here on in.

Also just for this year, theres going to be extra reeding, more words, and, chiz, tests at the end.

Coo gosh.

Pleez Sir can we go home Sir . . . .

Anyway, you might recall that at the end of last year I said I was going to have a bash at using a Large Format camera again.

The Wista has been sitting in its rucksack for a few years and there was a likelihood I could punt it over the posts on the games field. 

I won't even mention the Sinar F which is currently safely packed away in a box in a chest in my study . . . no doubt plotting something Swiss.

It was all a bit daunting to be honest, but you know what, I had a go . . . and I enjoyed it too.

So carry on reading whilst your erstwhile blogger has a breakdown and rebuilds opinions as he types!

Haunted Lane

Y'see, whilst having a clear out, I found myself with a surfeit of well-expired 5x4 film - I'd always known it was there, but I just hadn't realised there was so much:

Delta 100 - 12 Sheets

TMX 400  - 7 Sheets

TXP320 - 30 Sheets

TMX 100 - 45 Sheets

So what do you do with so much film? 
Yes that's right - you use it! 

I also decided that rather than hang about in the dark for hours on end (if you're tray processing a sheet at a time, believe me there are better things to do) I would try and find a different developer that might  shorten processing time. 

Bruce from t'OD suggested Adox FX39II, so I gave it a go.

As you'll know, it is generally recommended practice when you footer photographically that you only try one thing at a time, just to see how you get on with it. 

You absolutely do not thow the baby out with the bathwater and change everything at once.

Not me though.

Oh no.

Why do anything by halves?

So:

New developer.

Well expired (2012 some of them) films.

A format I'd forgotten how to use, as the last exposures I had done were in 2016.

Cold weather - nothing better for testing the mettle of a proto-LF photographer.

PVD-affected eyesight, which makes a lot of things (like focusing!) more difficult than they could be.

Oh yes, I was ready . . . but before we get to the main monkey-business, here's some backfill. It's long and no doubt boring, so if you fancy a yawn or are in need of a good sleep, please read; if not just skip it all till you get to the bit that says:

You Can Carry On Now

A long time ago, when I first started taking Large Format photos, I threw myself into it.

I had a Sinar F (for Field, or for those of us who have actually used them in the field, F for Feck Me That Weighs A Fecking Ton!); a 150mm Symmar-S; the world's Biggest Tripod and Head (Linhof Twin-Shank and Gitzo SERIES 5); a Sinar loupe, and couple of nice Toyo DDS. 

Oh and Gumption. 

I carried it all neatly wrapped in a Tee-Shirt Dark cloth, packed in a Deuter 22 litre (!) rucksack, with the Dark Slides in a lunchbox.

Oh boy was I dedicated!

My initial practice exposures were done on cut-up Ilford MGRC slotted into the holders, just to get an idea of things. Those were the days before you could buy the likes of pre-cut Ilford's Direct Positive.

It was a total bastard trying to neatly cut MGRC down to an accurate size under a safelight with a scalpel . . . well actually I didn't even have a proper safelight either, just a Philips red bulb.

But I was dedicated!

I then moved onto film and Kodak's HC110, coz I woz no longer just dedicated, I was serious too y'ken.

I lugged that set-up all over the shop, urban, suburban, haunted sites, woods, hills and one notable trip into the wilds that very nearly killed me (though that is a bit of an exaggeration).

Becoming frustrated by trying to produce contact prints I wanted to print something, so a call to the lovely man at the much-missed MXV Photographic resulted in £375 well spent - a DeVere Bench 504, 150mm Rodagon, all inserts and hand delivered too!

Printing was fun, but I still felt a need to break free, so hunting around I found a new friend.

I have to say, looking back, the acquisition of the Wista made the biggest difference - it was like carrying a kitten as opposed to a struggling bull-mastiff.

Looking back now I wonder where all that vim came from. 

Was it just a younger man's energy and enthusiasm, or was it something else?

From 2007 to 2014 I was like a man possessed, it was pretty much all I could think of.

And then it stopped dead.

For some obscure reason, my enthusiasm wained and I let it drop like a stone . . . right after the acquisition of one of the last 90mm, f8 Super Angulons ever made.

A final 4 more exposures were taken in 2016 and then nothing till this Christmas.

Why did I drop the ball? 

I have no idea. 

It might well have had to do with Hasselblad lust (a known affliction) but I've never really thought about it until, this holiday period, whilst kneeling in the dark for an hour loading all my film holders, I pondered why on earth I had actually taken up LF photography in the first place. 

And it sort of struck me, like a box falling off a top shelf, that it was (I think) a yearning for Validation.

Ah yes, the Heffalump in the room.

I believe I thought (in my Oh-so-SERIOUS-LF mind) that if only I approached photography with a BIG idea and a BIGGER format, I could validate my creative attempts and be taken seriously. . . as a . . . as a . . . ahem, coff coff:

Photographique-artisté

Make that a small herd of Heffalumps.

You see in those days I cherished an idea that someone somewhere would actually like my stuff enough to say:

Here y'go Sheepy! 

Go forth and make photographs you poor unrecognised thing! 

Here, have a grand!

Go and buy some nice gear, you poor thing. 

All these years labouring with a knackered old Rollei T - how on earth did you manage dahling?

I think you're GREAT and that world out there deserves to see your work

Or something like that.

I think we all feel like that don't we?

Maybe it's what drives the hunger for gear we all have.

If only we had better stuff we could make better work.

Tempting isn't it - you could be recognised, or even, gasp, appreciated!

That's a younger man's dreams right there, and fortunately, such a thing never happened.

No one came knocking and nowadays I just beetle about being creative in my own way without anyone asking where the work is.

Self-funded creativity is the only way I think.

An understanding and patient partner is a massive help too.

If you're happy - great, that's the most important thing.

If others like it - great.

And if they don't - well so what.

But back to the main banana, WHY THE MADNESS?

Because, I have to say (rather like me old mate Bruce) I do find a large portion of Large Format photography relatively dull.

I know, because I've taken most of it, so don't get insulted and chuck your Dagor out of the pram.

It's a controversial statement, so let me justify myself. I've railed against it many times on here.

Just as a f'rinstance:

 

Buachaille Etive Mòr from that angle again, on an 8x10 camera and in colour too. 

Jings, just because someone famous took an iconic image of it, why copy? 

That single £20 sheet of colour film is sent off to be processed and printed (roughly a further £10 for dunking and another £10 for printing). 

Approximately, £40 for one colour image.

It's like owning a Rolex. 

Nice, but really expensive and almost pointless, because at the end of a day is it a craving for validation or something else? 

Does spending enough to cheaply feed a small family for a week on one image really make you a

Photographique-artisté?

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have a go on the likes of a really nice 8x10" camera, and to be able to print it . . . Sorry for knocking a hole in upstairses staircase darling but the DeVere 8x10 enlarger wouldn't fit! 

But I don't necessarily think that having all that gear is going to make your work any better.

By the way, please notice the sarcastic use of work there; it's all over forums and gatherings and I loathe it. 

It's an effette term that's elitist and has all the hallmarks of Art School Bullshit. 

Work often hurts, can be mind-numbing, satisfying, exhilarating, soul-sapping, enjoyable, rewarding, stressful or a form of modern slavery. 

But please don't say photography is work, because it isn't.

Photography is a pleasurable experience that you do because you (hopefully) enjoy and are enthralled by it.

 

At the end of the day, no one is forcing you to take a picture.

So when you finally do decide to go all Ansel, mortgage your kidneys, leave a weeping family group and lug an 8x10 a couple of miles from the car, then give up because you're knackered; plonk your tripod down and think:

This'll do . . .

That is not work! It's Large Format photography.

Is it a form of masochism? Possibly.

Is it an urge for justification of the image? Possibly too.

Is it a craving for validation? Yeah possibly.

I'm not knocking anyone with the hunger to do it - after all I've been there, I can sympathise - you must have iron constitutions, but I am just pondering the reason we do it out loud in an effort to explain things to myself.

Maybe (and you can take this with a pinch of salt) most Large Format compositions are a result of the (not so) complex equation:

Weight + Distance = Image

I had to chuckle when I thought of that one; you see something promising, however, whereas with smaller formats you have the liberty to move around a bit and find something that looks exciting in the viewfinder, you are inexorably tied to that tripod (unless you're using a press camera), so you plonk it down and go through the rigmarole.

You fit camera to tripod; check camera; erect camera; lock down; open lens; compose and focus; get happy; check shutter; check meter; check f-stops; check film holder; double check composition; check focus on groundglass; make sure the corners are sharp if you want them that way; close down lens; stop down; cock shutter; insert film holder; remove slide; wait for fleeting light; take exposure; insert slide; remove film holder and place it somewhere safe; tear down set up, or else, more likely, carry it around (dangerously) on a fully erected tripod to the next place.

All the initial enthusiasm you felt for an image (well all my enthusiasm) can be rendered null and void by this activity.

Phew, is it just me or is there a pontificating twat in this room?

Anyway, again, WHY THE MADNESS when you could have just skipped in with a Medium Format camera and got pretty close to the same image?

I have thought about this a lot over the past few weeks, and I think this is where I (that's ME) am coming from now.

You see it isn't just a question of the ritual, though that is a huge part of it, but rather like doing Yoga or Tai Chi in a park, I think that the whole process gets you into a zone whereby you are entering some transcendental state of consciousness. 

The procedure is part of one whole thing. 

It's almost like a form of meditation and the image is the result of your concentration. 

Weird thought eh.

I am constantly surprised after immersing myself in taking 4 sheets of film, that a couple of hours have passed and all I have done is concentrated my attention on doing that.

Nothing else has mattered.

If you do make LF images though, please, these are just my thoughts, mad though they are - I'm really not having a pop at you - it's kind of addictive isn't it.

I'm there (behind that misted-over groundglass) with you.

There really is something rather satisfying about seeing the world on a groundglass in an upside down and reversed way and gathering all that conflicting information together so that it makes sense to your brain and ultimately to the final image.

It is certainly a challenge to do it well.

I don't know if I'll ever get there.

It actually just struck me, that it has a lot in common with my favourite TV series of the 70's, Kung Fu.

Anyway, you're not here for the pontifications of an old twat are you Glasshopper, you're here for photography . . aren't you?

You Can Carry On Now

The contacts below look utterly shite, and I would agree with you too, but that's what happens when you are trying to ease yourself back into something and trying to remember the process at the same time. 

It wasn't easy.

Gargh!
Delta 100 and TXP 320
90mm f8 Super Angulon

The 90mm f8 Super Angulon was like looking through a misted (it was very cold, the ground glass became condensationy immediately!) black net curtain. 

I hadn't a scooby what was going on.

Giving up all hope, I pointed the camera in a general direction, adjusted focus a bit and let rip.

Compositionally I have committed visual suicide as you can see.

You'll never take me seriously after this.

Developer was Adox FX39II. 

It has made me go hmmmmmm in a high-pitched way . . bit like a mozzie really.

Gargh 2!
Delta 100 and TXP 320
90mm f6.8 Angulon

It was slightly warmer - well the sun was out briefly and the wee 90mm f6.8 Angulon, whilst barely covering 5x4, did the job and I could see the ground glass a bit better, however it doesn't excuse the visual ghastliness of the above.

Maybe it IS that 5x4 thing.

I don't know.

All I do know is that the proportions of a 5x4 image are probably the most difficult to compose with - well they are for me, and strangely, unlike other formats, they seem to imbue the whole pantheon of Larger Format Photographers out there with a similar look - it is very weird.

Is it that the inherent proportions of a sheet of 5x4" or 10x8" are locked against the wider view of an increasingly widescreen world? 

Think about it, we all viewing everything in effectively Panavision.

Your TV is big and widescreen - you're so used to it that anything older than the mid-2000's looks cramped and small.

The world is 16:9 mad.

Over the past couple of years, cosying up with some old boxsets (Frasier, Cheers and Only Fools And Horses) it made me think that the old 4:3 ratio that the world lived with for so long, has far more in common with a 5x4" negative than modern 16:9.

Like the best advertising, auto-suggestion is subtle. Ergo, if you are viewing something W-I-D-E then you are thinking wide. It colours the way you view the world.

Maybe . . and it is a big maybe . . . that is why Large Format photography looks a tad out of kilter to modern eyes.

It is just a thought.

Again the sheets were developed in Adox FX39II. 

Anybody want some? 

OK it is optimised for T-Grain films (lower speed ones) but even with Delta it has produced muddy looking negatives.

Don't mention how it acted with TXP 320.

Look, don't mention it right!

That's Better!
Kodak TMY 400 (Expired 2012!)
90mm f8 Super Angulon

I had come close to deciding to wear the 90mm Super Angulon like some sort of 1990's rapper's neck attire. MC Sheep in the House, or something like that.

Fortunately I chose to lug it and the gear back to the Art College and try again.

I thought I'd better use the TMY 400 because it was the most ancient of the ancient ones I had - it expired in 2012.

The sun was out again, but really low and seeing as the whole slant of the Uni campus is South facing . . . well, what could I do but invoke the gods of flare!

Developer? 

Hmmmm - I stroked my chin - the thought of processing one sheet at a time in Pyrocat for my nominal 14 minutes leant an air of total ghastliness that I couldn't even contemplate it.

I thought again, and herein lies more madness.

It certainly wasn't going to be FX39II!

I've had 2 small containers of HC 110 (the old original un-f***ed-up stuff) sitting in my darkroom for 10+ years. It's gone a bit orange but I thought, why not, so tried it.

My reason there, is that I'd had a bad load on a sheet of film - fingers all over it trying to get the little bugger into the holder - so I thought why not try the developer and if the load was buggered up, I had nothing to lose. 

So, one 5x7 tray, 9ml of HC 110 and 295ml of water at around 20℃; 6 minutes in the dark for development, 1 for stop and around 4 for fix and bingo! A result.

I was so chuffed that it actually looked normal (compared to the mud the FX39II had produced) that I decided to process the rest of the sheets in it.

To say I was delighted would be an understatement.

HC is a nice clean-working developer and the time is very convenient, although these are now salient points as Kodak changed it entirely a few years ago. Plus it is now nearly £40 a bottle!

God bless 'em.

I think if I continue along this route I'll just use Ilfotec HC which is supposed to be virtually identical.

Haunted Lane (again)

Him (again)

The Planet Takes Over

And that's about it really - the above are scans from work prints, quickly done on Ilford MGRC, Grade 3.

I quite like them actually - it's enough to make me want to persist with the Super Angulon's dimness.

By all accounts,  the Super Angulon design is a Biogon derivitive and seeing as you've seen a lot of that courtesy of the SWC/M on these pages, well maybe there'll be an air of uniformity to the images.

Anyway, I'll let you go now - you've read a lot, and they'll be coming around with your cup of tea and scone soon.

Remember to say hello to that nice lad Herman, he might look a bit funny but his heart is in the right place.

TTFN.

A Youth In High Places

The Cairn On Mayar
This Was Made With The Rollei T With 16-On Kit.
Film Was FP4 Developed In Rodinal

Morning folks, well, in the absence of any photographic activity whatsoever, I was scrubbing me noggin, trying to think of something, and then came across this quote in the booklet of a recent CD by a Dutch musician called John Kerr. 

I personally think he is under the hammer of some ultimately fatal diagnosis, for (much like the uber-famous Klaus Schulze) his recent albums have had a theme of memorial to them - anyway, aside from that, the album is called "Requiem For A Dream"; it isn't the sort of music I listen to, just one of the artists we sell, but I was touched by what was quoted:

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. 

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

It's a brilliant quote isn't it.

There was something about it which resonated with me, and days later, there I was again in the preternatural morning light of Scotland, this time not with socks in my hand, but two recycling bins.

The sky was dark turning light.

I happened to glance up at the stars again and there, quicker than a thought, quicker than it took to register in my mind, shot a meteor.

It was an incredibly brief unzipping and zipping of the dark, like a shining through to some vast, bright beyond.

And again, like a distant gong, something resonated within me and I felt that kinship with my proto-me.

The always interesting Kate Bush once had this to say on the matter:

"I have a theory that there are parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up, Our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we're children, and if you're lucky enough to... hang onto who you are, you do have that at your core for the rest of your life." 

I think what she said has a lot of validity (though maybe everyone is different in which bit of their early years they most associate with). If I were stuck with The Blob (that was me, pre-teens) all I'd be interested in was 'Where's the food?' and farting . . oh and fishing . . .

So in my case, proto-me dates from my later teen years; a younger, hairier Sheephouse, who, despite the passing decades, is really (in essence [he's not changed much]) still here.

Fairly Typical Scottish Mountain Weather.
This Is The Foot Of Jock's Road Before It Gets Really Serious.

We're a funny pair, him and me - he's a bit mad; worried about his future and the mantel of responsibility that comes with leaving youth behind. He's also a bit in awe of the machinations of  nature; a bit bewildered by how his world could change on a sixpence and if truth be told, deeply sad . . not in the modern sense, but sad from sadness. 

He finds solace in peace, aloneness, and a deeply-tuned syzygy with the countryside that surrounds him.

That's him over there examining some lampreys and water nymphs.
He always yearned to get into the high mountain passes too, because he was fascinated by them; but the absence of transport/someone to go with/correct gear, meant he never did, 'til one day (in his late-30's) he said to himself,
"Feck it"
bought some boots and a map and got out there.
Anyway, before we go and speak to him, let me tell you something - he's got some thing.
I am jealous because I had it once too . . . (no laughing at the back) . . . 

There are numerous references in ancient literature to the 'third eye' - y'know, that place in the centre of your eyebrows where your uber-consciousness; your key to infinity, dwells.

He had one.

No kidding!

It was there like a subcutaneous feeling above his eyes, but weirdly, it was only a thing he discovered after long hours of outdoor solitary confinement.

Let me explain myself there.

Isolation can do weird things to a mind.
In my later teenage years I was isolated.
This wasn't really true loneliness - the two are very different things.
No, I was isolated in the middle of nowhere.
Sure there were buses (last bus to anywhere about 5.30PM) and even if I got there, what was I going to do?
Only two of my friends drove and petrol was expensive, so when I came home from school at night or at weekends, that was pretty much me on my tod.

I dreamt a lot.
I walked miles in open-air solitude.

Sure, I had aspirations and all that shit that people expect you to be thinking about for your future, but in reality I really wanted to be a roadie (!) though what chance had I of that (despite the [no doubt] numerous bands whizzing up and down the A74 in their transit vans) . . . it would have (temporarily) broken my Mum's heart.

So all I could do was hunker down in the long grass, immerse myself in nature and dream of a time when I could get out into the world.

Circumstance meant that I was fortunate to be living at the top of a steep drop down to an incredible riverbank, and it was there I would spend long hours just sitting and watching.
I let the warp and weft of moving water enfold me in a richly contemplative peace.

Fish became somewhat of an obsession.
You've really never lived till you've seen large sea-trout lift themselves free from their fluid domain, urge themselves into the weight of gravity, take a passing insect and then crash back into the water.
Similarly in the languidity of summer, when all the water is as golden brown as the brown trout who wait, idle in the lea of river-stones, till some hapless fly or nymph floats by.
To watch trout rise, quicker than thought and see them repeat it endlessly, whilst the sun moves beyond the hills and the cold of the river meets the heat of the land, raising mist free of the fields, is something beyond the soul.
To see that mist rolling down to lay itself atop the river, like some sweet lover tucking their water-born companion to sleep, well, it got to me.

But then I guess that is part of what we are. 

Pre-industrialisation the world was a quiet place, leaving room for thought (if you weren't too knackered from the pressing activity of life). What was human consciousness like in that silent time? Was the third eye only there for some?
Was it a mystic and mythical thing for only those who could listen to nature?
Or was it, as I believe, some sort of inner natural link to a deep human past, sort of like a gut-instinct for the mind?
Who knows - all I know is that is what happened to me - I started to feel something I had never felt in my 16 years of living in London. 

It felt rather like an expansion of my mind, which centred around the middle of my eyebrows.

And one day I discovered that nature and me, were (like mist and river) entwined.

Peace - My River
Olympus MjU, Agfa 200 Film

Peace - My River II
Olympus MjU, Agfa 200 Film

BOLLOCKS! I hear you shout, but look at the pictures above - I can only tell the truth.

I felt so attuned to nature that I became a part of it - not a visitor - not a human really, just something natural, something that belonged.
I wandered freely without disturbing creatures. All was open to me: the patter of hedgehogs circling each other in a love dance; clouds of midges that refused to bite me; deer; fish; heron and kingfisher; coypu (!); mink and weasel and stoat; water voles; eagles; a myriad of flocking birds.
I was no danger to any of them.
We saw each other and moved on our way.

I so deeply belonged that when my Mum moved, my heart broke in two and my soul was cast to the winds of the world.
I was (very privately) utterly distraught.

Coming to college in a smallish city sealed thick concrete flaps over that 'eye'.
My mind was stuffed with cotton wool.
The deep awareness I had felt was smothered (even in the bits of the city that were relatively green, there was nothing to tickle my amygdala) and I have rarely felt that connection since.

OK you boring bugger, what has this got to do with photography, or even mountains?

Ah, I knew you'd ask eventually.

Well, my artistic leanings (with the encouragement of Joe McKenzie) and love of the natural world led me to admiring and trying my hand at landscape photography.
I was shit at it.
I tried really hard; I took lots of photos of rocks and trees and rivers, skies and distant hills and the rise and fall of landscape, but for all I tried, I couldn't do it, because landscape can be a double-edged sword.
It is at once awe-inspiring and moving and trite and bland.

There's not that many images which have ever captured the land in a way that speaks to my proto-me.
I don't wish to point any fingers, but go and pick up any photography magazine or go on any photography website and you'll see it in all its (in)gloriousness.
Work your way back through the billions of square inches of film, the googolplex's of pixels. I'll warrant that if you are being honest with yourself, there's some stuff that stirs emotion and a ton that doesn't.
I really don't want to be so horrendously damning about it, but I'm only talking from my point of view - there's an awful lot of 'landscape work' that makes me  go (in modern parlance) "meh".
I no longer look at the majority of it actually (including my own) simply because I can't.

So where are we going with this you pontificating git?

Ah, so glad you asked.
Well, y'see, I think you can squeeze something out of landscape, but it's difficult.
It's not a case of popping your tripod here and there and taking pictures of every incredible vista that assails your eyes.
And it certainly isn't worth playing the emulation card (poor Joe Cornish! if he had a penny for every bloody image that tries to be like his . . . )
So definitely don't just think:

"Ooooooo, wot pic am I going to snap next?
Ohhhhhh Buachaille Etive Mhor looks awesome, I know, I'll do that". 

Because it is EXACTLY THE SAME as that other utterly pointless human activity - ticking Munro boxes.
Not only that, but these poor majestic beauties of nature (hills and mountains) have been photographed more times than you've had hot dinners.
They are sleeping old bones.
Let them sleep!

To capture nature, you first need to understand it.

You need to observe it.
Stalk it as it were!
Just in the same way that motoring all over the country, ticking boxes on a list of high peaks you've climbed doesn't really give you much of an understanding of mountains, so aimlessly snapping away at anything scenic in the hope of capturing something profound, will not get you anything more than a chocolate box picture of the land, or, that dying pariah, the postcard.
It's like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant, slurping your way through each course in 5 minutes flat and then saying,
"Great, what's next?"

This land is vast.

Mountains are hard and difficult places. They need to be appreciated, and that can only happen with time and effort.
Revisit many times if possible.
Like a person, get to know them!

The marvellous British photographer, John Blakemore, back in the 1970's, borrowed a Bronica and explored and re-explored the same stream that flowed through Lynch Clough from Lady Bower Reservoir.
He did this with other places too, constantly re-examining the areas, to get the atmosphere and feel of a place.
And it worked.
Plenty of other photographers have done it too.
James Ravilious with his Devon essays being a notable example; even Bruce Robbins, friend and fellow blogger, who has been taking photographs in the Carse Of Gowrie (just outside Dundee) for decades. His constant re-examination shows. He has the feel of the place nailed.

Am I saying I've got it?
NO, I definitely haven't.
I still don't think I have captured something that has made me stand back, but maybe that's a good thing because it means I am still trying.

Anyway, some photos - if it is alright with you, I'll write a wee blurb under each one to keep us all right, alright?
The young Sheephouse would have delighted in these high places in his late teens. The older Sheephouse says:

"Here y'go Son - we made it."

You've maybe seen some before, but they're only here because I've not had time.

Permafrost.

Hard to ascertain from the photograph, well maybe the icicles are a clue, but everything, including the tree, was frozen solid. Ground when it is like this is nice and easy to walk over as there is a very slight crunch and give underfoot, so you're not sliding everywhere.

Although I'd walked a couple of miles to get this at least it was mostly on the flat . . 

This was taken on the Sinar with a 150mm Schneider Symmar-S - the cheapest modern lens (nearly) that you can get for 5x4". It is a sterling performer. I think the film was Delta 100 developed in HC 110.

This would (I think) make a good very large print - I've got some 9.5 x 12" paper somewhere . . might just do that.

Lost Boulders.

These beauties were in a quite little ghetto of boulders cast aside by glacial movement, covered in dense forest, deforested, lost in the midst of modern conifer planting and now, in the past year or so, deforested again . . in other words they've been there for a bleedin' long time.

They're hanging over a helluva steep drop and it really does make you wonder about:

a./ The Mentality 

and 

b./ The Stamina 

of the forestry workers who planted that hillside.

It is beside the path that takes you up to The Shank Of Drumfollow.

Camera was the Sinar F1, a Linhof tripod, Gitzo Series 5 head . . in other words about 15 gravities of weight . . but more on that for the next photo which was taken on the same day.

The lens was the under-rated CHEAPEST way of getting into LF photography . . the humble Schneider 90mm Angulon. It just covers 5x4" with no movements, but you know what, there's something about it that takes a really nice photo. It isn't overly contrasty and has a nice way of dealing with midtones.

I was hovered over the rocks with my body supporting the tripod - it was pretty damn steep.

This being said, I could achieve exactly the same (well, better, much better, but similar) result with the Hasselblad SWC's Biogon. AND I WOULDN'T HAVE TO KILL MYSELF LUGGIN' ALL THAT STUFF!

Honest, The Camera Was 100% Level.

The Shank Of Drumfollow. Well there I was, I'd got to the top of the Col between Dreish and Mayar. It was damn misty climbing up. It had taken me nearly 3 hours to do a walk I've done in 1 hour and 40 minutes. I got to the top - ate my second choccie bar of the day, contemplating heading to Mayar, and what happened? Yep, the mist got souper-thick. This is an extra level of thickness above thick. In other words you can't see a damn thing at all. 

The only way to find your way is to get your bearings with map and compass. Lugging a Sinar F1, Linhof Twin Shank Tripod, Gitzo Series 5 head, 10 dark slides, spare gear, water, and slogging a pair of boots that weighed 1275gms PER BOOT, I was fecking knackered. 

All my enthusiasm for picking my way across a plateau to top a Munro only to be surrounded by dank mist and silence, sent me turning tail and back down again. 

Coming down, I turned around and was astonished by the near 45 degree shape of the hill with all that mist floating around, so I set up the camera and took a photograph.

I kid you not. THE CAMERA WAS LEVEL.

The lens was the 203mm Kodak Ektar; film was original Adox CHS 100 in 1:50 Rodinal.

Cairn To The Witches.

Another uphill, down-dale and UPHILL again, though fortunately not carrying a 5x4 kit. This was my Minolta Autocord - it's totally battered and scratched to buggery, but still manages to capture something.

The cairn is on the shoulder of Cairn Inks, and it was from here that witches would throw boulders and generally have a good mess around with travelers on the Clova road which follows the line of the river in the distance (well, there's two roads in a circuit actually at that point, but below the Cairn it narrows down to one long and lonely dead-end one heading deep into the hills.

I've been to this point a number of times - the hill up to it is about 50 degrees of steepness and it doesn't get any easier.

The Watcher.

I could reveal where this is, but I'd have to kill you. The stone, to me, so resembles a human sitting, watching that I need to explore it more, so Mum is the word.

It was bloomin' cold, but fortunately I was only carrying the Rollei T, Screamin' Chimp (Hakuba tripod) and me. Film was Acros 100 and developed in Rodinal.

Contrast is through the roof,

Bones Of The Earth.
This is quite a common sight on hillsides - burning back old heather cover to encourage new growth which is favoured by grouses, grousci or even just grouse. It makes for a very weird texture, sort of crispy and brittle, but resilient and bouncy all at the same time. This could have been a better photo - if I remember rightly it was the Rollei T and I was stuffed for DOF because I was in close.
Must go back with the SWC.
This being said, aren't those distant hillsides impressive . . but I wouldn't like to climb them!


And that's about it really - where has this long ramble got us?
Well, if you are inclined to get out and explore nature, do it, enjoy yourself, but TAKE YOUR TIME. Munros and other mountains, countryside, hills and Corbetts aren't a competitive sport - they're for contemplation, reflection and exploration and maybe, if you're inclined to pick details, then they can be incredibly revealing of the nature of land and man's interaction with it AND ALSO your own place in that landscape and what it means/has meant to you.

The countryside isn't just somewhere you go through to get from A to B. it is a living, nurturing entity that can teach you a whole deal about yourself if you give it a chance.

TTFN, now where did I put my laxatives . . .

Il Buono, Il Matto e Il Cattivo - Parte 1.3

OR

HOW TO SPEND A HAPPY COUPLE OF HOURS NEXT TO 

A RIVER

Morning folks - fed up of the election yet? 

Remember a vote for Sheephouse is a vote for fair dealings and honesty, so I urge you to go and put your X in the correct box - we're fielding candidates all over the country - YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE.

Well, here we reach the happy conclusion of something started a while back - you can read about part 1 here . . . and part 2 here . . .

I'll let you get on with that if you haven't read them already, and for the brave and exhausted souls who have . . . on with the show! 

OK, so I'd been weathered off and decided that I simply must take some pictures, so I found a nice riverbank and did something I haven't ever done with a 5x4 camera - 

I parked myself. 

Wot's that Sheephouse? Parked?

Yeah, parked - dumped my rucksack, unpacked it, set up camera on tripod, attached LowePro bumbag to my bum and over the next two hours wandered up and down the riverbank taking pictures leaving rucksack where it was and packing/unpacking nothing apart from at the start and at the end. I made 8 photographs - this would normally have taken approximately 3 total hours of time were I having to pack up and move on every time, so essentially I shaved around an hour off of valuable time. 

Light waits for no man and I was alternating between astonishing, bright sunshine, heavy cloud and deep freezing shadows. The river was running fit to bust. The air was filled with clouds of water droplets all diamondy and wonderful in the sunshine. The noise was incredible and my soul flew. 

It was a pleasure which I can hardly describe. 

How wonderful not to have to think about packing up and moving on! Never done it before, but I will from now on. I dug deep into the landscape and felt that having the freedom to just wander about paid out in spades. If you are a LF photographer, please consider using this approach:

study your maps

pick a spot that looks good

PARK

and then have fun

It made all the difference to me.

Anyway . . . 

Right, well what have we here Sheephouse?

It's prints M'am innit.

Oh really?

Yes M'am . . . proper prints, made on proper paper and developed in proper chemicals. The paper, if you don't mind me telling you M'am, is some ancient Agfa Multicontrast Classic (or MCC if you like) - it's at least 10 years old and has lost about a Grade of sensitivity, however it doesn't appear to be fogging. The paper developer was Fotospeed - it is excellent and very fast, and then they were archivally fixed and toned in Kodak Selenium.

Really young man . . . that's jolly interesting.

Yes M'am, I agree

So, here they are as promised at the start of this lengthy process - film was the last of my well expired TMX 400 (when it cost £50 for 50 sheets) and some of my well-expired TXP 320 (when it cost £50 for 50 sheets). All were developed in 1:25 Rodinal at 21 Centigrade. Some of the negatives were sorely underexposed (because I'd knocked my meter and hadn't noticed) and I had to try and enhance the upper Zones by Selenium toning the negative - this works quite well actually.
The lenses were a 1980's Schneider 150mm Symmar-S and a late production Schneider 90mm Super Angulon. I like them both - they are superb lenses.
Camera was the Wista DX which is a superb companion and my tripod was the Gitzo Series 2 Reporter - it is ancient but operates as new - testimony to great engineering and build.


So, kick back, dip your bagel in your coffee and tell me what you think.

OK - the eagle-eyed will notice that is only 5 contacts . . well the other 3 were impossible to get looking right so I haven't included them, I have however printed one of them!

So now for the projection prints. All printed on my DeVere 504 through an ancient 150mm Rodagon.

This was actually bleached and then toned - unfortunately it was a bleach too far and it has given it this lith look. That being said a number of people have said they really liked it . . so there.

I like the tonality of this one - it did need a little bleaching, but I was careful and then toned in Selenium

This is a little section from the above - you can see how well the Super Angulon has rendered the water.

And finally . . . this is my favourite - it reminds me of John Blakemore.
It's hardly original, but I find it pleasing.
The thing that attracted my eye first was the reflection of the tree at the bottom of the frame.
Bleached selectively along the water's white and then Selenium toned.

And that folks is that - was it worth the wait? 
Only you can decide. 
LF takes a huge amount of effort, and sometimes I am not sure it is worth the effort, however with that last print, I can say to myself (as I wash up on the beach of emptied and dying LF photographers, spent before their time on the river of photography) 
"Yes . . . at least I think so."

TTFN - poiple pills - yum yum yum.

The Good, The Mad And The Ugly 1.2

Morning folks - well the madness continues . . . if you read the last one, you'll know the story . . . if you haven't, best catch up here.

Anyway rather than bore you with acres of meaningless rambling, I went with the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words . . so you've got 16,000 words ahead of you . . good luck!

Oh, and I apologise in advance about the picture spacing . . . strangely for such a wonderful tool, Blogger is total shit at handling pictures and text together - it's a well-known problem. 

So, do like I do: put on your best Yorkshire accent and keep muttering: 

"Chuffin' bloody technological bloody marvels . . "

Once rinkling, tinkling burns turn into raging slippery torrents, courtesy of the melting snow.
Deeper than you think, you wouldn't want to fall into one.

  

I have often just stepped over this one. I couldn't jump it this time though - the bank on the far side is pretty soft.
Slip, crash, smash . . . . goodbye camera.

At last - something I could cross.
New pair of Altberg Defender boots get a good work out - they passed with flying colours.

The snowy-mist just wasn't having any of it.

Every time I take a picture, my Mother stares back at me . . . not that she had a beard or anything.
What you see on my head is God's gift to Winter headwear - the Lowe Alpine Mountain Cap - it's Goretex, warm, covers my elephant's ears and keeps my head well dry.
My Buffalo Special 6 shirt (star of several FB's) was wet through, however still remained warm.

Just about sums up the day so far.
The small ridge you see just to the right of centre, is up by Davey's hut on Jock's Road. It doesn't look that high, but in the words of Father Ted:
"This one is near . . . that one is far away. Near . . . Far Away."

You can't tell from this pic, but my rucksack was steaming in the sun - it had got very wet

I count the blessings of Mother Nature.
Resting besides a small river is a true heart's ease. I could have spent all day here, lazing in the sun . . . but there were photographs to be taken!

 

Hello Mum!
The look on my face says it all. I was steaming too, though not in the accepted Scots fashion . . . however had someone passed me a bottle of Woods Old Navy Rum, I would gladly have obliged them.

This gives you an idea of the sound!  

Sheer heaven. 

You can tell there's a lot of water moving along though by the sound. Outwith spate, river's tend to have an upper, higher-pitched tone. The bass aspect of this is indicative of thousands of gallons of water passing each and every minute.

I'll take this little break in the pics to say how fortunate I am to live not that far away from such beauty . . . of course, for me, it would be better to live in the thick of it, however it would make commuting a tad difficult . . how the feck did I end up in retail in a city?

Right, back on with t'shite . . .

 

The power of our Mother.
Dense clouds of fine water droplets were thrusting into the air and being illuminated by the bright sun - it was quite something.
My inner caveman stood in awe.
Unfortunately the photo doesn't convey just how much water was passing by - it was lots, and rapid too.

Yes I know . . . the centre column shouldn't be raised (slapped wrists) however the Gitzo reporter is pretty sturdy and it doesn't seem to have any detriment.
And anyway, I couldn't get the legs in a position where they wouldn't be in shot, hence the jaunty angles.

Same again please.

'E's big, 'airy and 'orrible and I be feared of him.
Passing Yeti decides to take a snap.
© Shite Sheephousian Shelfie

Ah  yes, the Craghoppers Microfleece Darkcloth!
You can often find them for about £6 in their sales. It works well - very breathable, doesn't cling too much, keeps out a decent amount of light. Has a zip neck so you can get it tight 'round the rear standard, and being a fleece, seems to eliminate some of the 'Darkcloth breath' condensation problem.

Packing up to go

And the weather just glowered in again.
As I was driving off from the car park, a massive snow storm blasted in.
What a day!

And I am going to call it a day there - the films are processed, but I have hit a time-related problem in being able to show you real prints, so I shall endevour to do that in the next one. 

The one thing I haven't mentioned, is that, rather than the usual 'set the camera up, compose, take photograph, take camera down, move on' . . regime (approx. 20 minutes taken each time) I decided to park my rucksack in one spot, set up camera, get dark slides into Lowe Alpine Fjell bum bag (very handy) and just wander up and down and enjoy this small section of riverbank - it made a hell of a lot of difference.

But more of that later - so, until the next time, take care and remember to start heading to the bathroom before you get the collywobbles.