Old York City

Another scanned negative photograph from my recent day trip to York.  Again, taken on Rollei Retro 400S 35mm film, loaded into the 50p camera (Olympus XA2), then developed in LC29.

The 400S as I keep saying, is so difficult to work with, but it produces results that I like - at least when I get the light right.  It often makes old brickwork and building features look very aesthetic, in a way that I enjoy looking at.  I guess that is what it is about.  Creating images that I like to look at.  Not IQ or HD.

1st February 2016

Photography

The above photograph was captured on my favourite little Olympus XA2, loaded with Rollei retro 400S film.  I have been really concentrating the past three months on compact camera 35mm b/w photography.  On one hand, I use the Yashica T2 AF compact, loaded with Kodak Tmax 400, that I then develop in Kodak Tmax developer; on the other hand, I use the XA2 loaded with Rollei Retro 400S, that I usually develop in Ilford LC29.

The Tmax camera produces smooth, clean, "nice" b/w negatives.  The Retro 400S camera produces high contrast, rough and ready negatives, that often suffer from underexposed / under developed - but above all, high contrast and grainy.  On the latest couple of films, I've been setting the XA2 exposure one stop up to ISO 200, and I've added a minute to developing time.  They look better.  However, it is because Retro 400S looks so odd and high contrast that attracts me to it.  It makes interesting images.  The film (as I understand), was initially produced for aviation aerial photography, and has near infrared range - for better cloud and mist penetration.  Even with no infra red filter, it produces some interesting infra red-like results.  I like it so much, I recently bought a ten pack.

Running with dogs

I've just completing my 23rd run in the campaign.  Last month, with the dogs, I ran over 60 miles.  Go our canicross team.  I feel pretty confident at keeping it up.  I have let the strength training go, but I'll pick that up again when I feel ready.  Nutrition plans, I've been pretty good.  Okay, I slip a little from time to time, but I have eaten one hell of a lot of vegetables and fruit over the past three months.  Weight loss really slowed down after losing a stone and a half.  I'm lucky to lose a pound a week.  Still, I'm not going to let it put me off.  This is a long term thing, not just a weight loss diet.

The below image is from Rollei Retro 400S in the XA2.

Ancestry

 Right at the moment I'm feeling a little concerned and annoyed with 23andMe.com.  I don't think that they are really looking after their European or outside-of-the-USA customers as well as they should be if they are serious about our markets.  All information, updates, and shipping appear to be two class - USA, and Others.  I'll let this journal know how it goes, and to be fair, it is early days.

On the paper maternal genealogy chase, I have today received from the GRO, a copy of the marriage certificate between my great great great grandparents, Reuben Daynes, and Sarah Quantrill, on the 26th April 1848, at Besthorpe parish church.  Reuben's father is confirmed as Reuben Daynes (senior).  It tells me that Reuben Dayne senior was actually a publican.  Sarah's father was a Robert Quantrill, a labourer.

In my search for my mtDNA line, I must return to the Norfolk Record Office next, and search for a family of Quantrill's, headed by a Robert Quantrill.  On more than one census, Sarah claimed that she was born at Wymondham, Norfolk, around 1827.  I'll first look for baptisms of any Quantrill children in Wymondham or Besthorpe, around 1815 - 1840.  I have seen what may have been my Sarah, staying with a family of Long's in Wymondham, age 13, in the 1841 census.

The above photo, taken on the Yashica T2/Tmax 400 film, is of my mother, my surviving mtDNA donor, standing next to (not the donkeys) a headstone for a William Quantrell.  I don't yet know if he was a relative, but this is at Besthorpe church last week, and this William was several years older than my Sarah.  He could potentially be an older brother of Sarah, and therefore my G.G.G.G uncle.  If he indeed is, then his bones in that graveyard would contain the same lineage of mtDNA as myself and my mother here.



A pug, and my b/w film photography

The Flickr Explore algorithm and it's fans appear to like this photograph today.  A pug in the town.  Pugs are apparently very in at the moment.  I captured this last week on Kodak Tmax 400 film, loaded into my Yashica T2.  I developed it in Kodak Tmax developer.  I'm not too sure that I like that developer, perhaps I should increase developing time, I like a little more contrast on my negatives.

I haven't actually discussed my photography much in this new blog have I?  I feel as though I did that enough on my previous blog, The Tight Fisted Photographer.  However of course I haven't any intention of walking away from b/w film photography.

My B/W Film Photography

Just for the sake of any future voyeurs who stumble onto this journal.  I'm living in 2016, the Age of Digital, the Binary Age.  I don't have any problems with that, obviously I am embracing it in the form of this web-blog and in sharing my images on Flickr.  I have a smartphone, and I even use a Go Pro from time to time.  I was actually a pretty early fan of fully digital photography.  I'd even say that although I spent the first forty years of my life, living during the great Age of Film, that it was with fully digital cameras, that I became more enthusiastic about photography, and for example, learned to experiment much more with exposure methods, composition, and the technology itself.

Yet, unless I need a quick, easy, colourful and technical image, I rarely bother with digital cameras anymore.  Why?  They no longer scratch my itch so to speak.  I enjoy the technology, and the process, of hybrid film photography.  Not only that, but I've come to appreciate, even to love, the results, the photographs, the argent tones of b/w film photography - even those that have been digitally scanned from negatives or prints.  I want to record the rest of my life, and my world experience, onto the silver salts of b/w negative film.

It goes against the grain (there's a pun there), but I don't like where photography is going.  I don't like the mainstream of what goes up on Flickr or in photography club exhibitions.  So much gloss, shiny, sharp, magazine inspired, technically perfect, but boring dross (in my eyes).  So much emphasis on post process software.  HDR makes my eyes bleed.  Thankfully, not all photography enthusiasts have been seduced by the gear markets.  You can still find some great images there, many of them shot on film.

No.  as long as I can buy b/w film, I'll stick to the salts of silver.  It is a matter of personal taste.


The above photograph I took on Ilford FP4+ film, exposed in my Bronica SQ-A with the PS 150mm f/4 lens attached.  This guy appears to be embracing digital photography, but it looks as though He is trying to use the LCD as an optical viewfinder.  He was concentrating so hard, he never even noticed me creep up to him and steal this candid.  I love this photo.

10th January 2016

I normally run following at least one day rest (at least from running), but this afternoon, the dogs were asking, no-one else wanted to walk them, so I thought, "why not, maybe a short run?".  I at least took the dogs on a different route, down to Friday Bridge, up the Stitch and around Bar Drove - but it turned out to be a similar length to my recent runs - 4.4 miles in 46 minutes.  That was Running with Dogs No.14.

What really inspired this post though, was what I was just reading in that Richard Askwith book Running Free (2014).  He cites a number of surveys and studies from across both Europe and the USA, that seem to praise running outside in green areas, as opposed to treadmill work inside gyms.  The studies appear to correlate that exercising outdoors, particularly in green areas, appears to offer tremendous benefits to our mental state, our health, our sense of wellness, even perhaps our fitness, compared to working out indoors only.

I have not read any of these studies, but I'm not at all surprised.  It is something that I have considered at length many years ago - the benefits of being close to other species of animals and plants - being out in Nature.  Biophillia.  We are drawn to it, and appear to benefit from it.

The above photograph is of myself.  Taken last week in the pocket cemetery by Anita, using my 50p camera, and that strange Rollei retro 400S film.

Candid reflection on a train.

I captured this photo this week, using my 50p camera (Olympus XA2), loaded with Rollei Retro 400S film.  That film can be very temperamental, often producing dark, underexposed, or overly contrast negatives.  I must remember to stop the camera up, and add a minute to developing time.  However, regardless of it's faults, this film can sometimes produce really interesting high contrast images.  I developed yesterday, it this time in Ilford LC29.

That's the technology.  The image is something else.  I kept seeing her staring into the reflection, not seeing me, but through the window.  Candids of pretty girls can be a dodgy affair, particularly in the confines of a railway carriage - but I couldn't help myself.  I saw this image, and tried to capture it.