Pig Sty Avenue

At last! After maybe 6 or 7 rolls I'm getting the hang of the F4. All those buttons were intimidating until I began to get an inkling of what the Focus and Exposure Lock buttons could do. It's the realisation that this camera was designed and used to capture, for example, action in football games or riots. It's slightly insulting to use it for static portraits, like inviting your drug-using disreputable pal to your granny's birthday party. Action! This is the last of a few rolls of Kodacolor 200 I was using. It's been ok as part of the learning process, but is rather grainy. I've got a roll of Portra 400 in now, and then it's an old roll of HP5+, and nine of Kentmere 400; just yesterday we found a roll of Lomography Color Print 800 when tidying out the old sideboard - no idea when I got that, but heigh ho. By the time I get through that dozen or so rolls, I might be more or less competent.

Thanks to the Photo Express people for developing this roll of Kodacolor 200 and getting it back to me almost by return, (posted late on a Friday afternoon, returned on the Wednesday). Much less hassle than doing 35mm colour myself at home or at Streetlevel . Bit of a chore, C41 developing and scanning, leave it to the professionals. Besides, I don't have a neg scanner these days, and Streetlevel is still under lockdown, I think. That's me back on the F4, which I have quite literally picked up and dusted off again. Frankly I have been somewhat intimidated by it, so I'm working through that, a roll of my stash of odds and ends of 35mm at a time... This photo, I've misframed it slightly but obviously, slicing off the top of the sitter's head, and leaving her unintentionally off-centre. This was Aperture Priority, f1.4, by the light of a table lamp. The shutter speed selected by the meter must have been quite slow, maybe 1/15, because there's  a slight but noticea...

What I learned from this negative, digitally "printed" by means of a light box and iPhone: Photos taken indoor with flash using an inverted-lens box camera will necessarily lack subtlety, so this approach should only be used with loud images. 6x9 contact prints with a degree of subtlety require a different camera. I've spent weeks, months, researching this, and I've plumped for the Moskva-5 over the Fuji GW-690, largely because the latter is four times more expensive, but also because of my previous positive experience with Soviet cameras: the FED2 have given me the best 35mm photos, better than any Nikon professional SLR.  However, the negative is encouraging. Look at the way the image of the fairy lights have stretched in the top right corner: this suggests we'll get good image-distortion vignetting, (works very well with trees in Winter). Despite all my precautions, (running the shower hot for a few minutes before hanging the film to dry in the cubicle) dust ha...

This was with the F4, well over a year ago. Kentmere film. I developed the roll last night, using Anchell’s two bath suggestion for D-23, 3+3mins, (with a citric acid stop and plain hypo fix). Underexposed, I got this image with a light box, iPhone and Paint. I won’t do a proper print, wet or digital. That big WILLS distracts too much, (what was I thinking? Why not get him to change the hoodie?); and besides, the real subject are the dice in his hands, but the shadows are cruel, and I should’ve gotten him to hold his hands out at arms’ length  for goodness sake! One lives and learns. I still like the idea, though, properly executed next time on 6x9.

But in other news I am edging back into the kitchen-darkroom. This is a (not very good) photo from the Glasgow 10k Women’s Race 2018, newly scanned this afternoon. From it I learn: - no meter is better than a dodgy meter, (the auld Nikon F’s meter never worked properly); - just forget about expired film, too hit-and-miss, and no cheaper; - settle down with Kodak Tmax 400 for medium format, and Kentmere for 35mm, get to know them both; - ID11 is NOT the only developer; - one can only learn so much in a busy darkroom; - it should be possible to digitise even 35mm contact prints, to the extent that not-very-good negatives will be revealed to the world for what they are, so get a grip; - the point is: have fun.

We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner My rating: 4 of 5 stars Now longlisted for the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize. When you complain that you haven't been paid your wages, and are told, 'It happens'. That's where we're at. But the narrator and their companion's resilience to the indignities the system throws at them is the diamond stuff that shines through this trippy, thought-provoking narrative, which had me both cringing and laughing out loud. Siting the narrative on the Isle of Wight: genius. View all my reviews

Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth My rating: 4 of 5 stars Very funny, satirical, not laugh-out-loud-on-the-bus funny. As a study of a woman addicted to social media, it is actually somewhat disturbing; or fascinating maybe: certainly a page turner. Fun . View all my reviews

The allotment will be given over to someone else in the next few weeks. I had been planning to semi-retire when I took it on, but now it looks like I'll be working full time until I retire, in about 7 years time. And to tell the truth, my heart's not in it lately. The underlying anxiety: do we really want to be eating foodstuffs grown a few hundred yards from the busy M8? All those bloody big lorries... Mostly, now, I'm reading novels, and I'll post my reviews from Goodreads here.

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste My rating: 4 of 5 stars The first movement of Shostakovich's seventh symphony came to mind during the first half of this book, a slow melancholy prelude to the madness of invasion and resistance. The central characters during that phase are the cook and Hirut, who has been to all intents and purposes enslaved by the local lord and lady of the manor when she is orphaned. Hirut and the cook are like the servants in Moliere, but without the humour; indeed the lack of anything by way of light relief, apart from the occasional dance, is the novel's only real flaw. All of the characters as we move into the second half of the novel, the occupation and insurgency (it might be better characterised as an actual war, there is nothing amateurish about the Ethiopians fighting to free their country), are finely drawn, no one is spared a three dimensional presence, even the war criminal Italian colonel has an abusive father by way of back story. There is so ...

The gorse seeds were collected early last autumn, and I wasn't really thinking through the timescales involved. I scarified them in almost-boiling water, and sowed them in the two seed trays you can see on the right of the photo, that was probably early November. They've been in the seed trays on the sideboard by the bay window since then, nestling amongst Xmas presents for a while because that's where the tree goes. They're getting their first true leaves, so it's time to prick them out. I took them to the allotment this morning. The thermometer tells me it's been down to -4.5C this week, even though it hasn't been particularly cold elsewhere, the allotment is one of those 'rural areas' the weather forecasters refer to, outwith the Glasgow urban micro-climate. I planned to prick out 200 or more, but decided to stop at 50, because I just don't know how gorse seedlings will fare in these temperatures, and didn't want to spend time on th...