film

Last summer /  by Jacqui Booth

 

So...where to begin?  It's perhaps best not to even think about it too much. So much has changed since the last time I blogged about any photos, mainly because so much has happened personally.  It's okay, I've still had a smile on my face sometimes, but hell, it's been stressful and will continue to be for the time being.

It's difficult to place how I feel about a lot of my photos that have remained stockpiled.  It's not only because I'm so tired at the moment that my elbows keep slipping off the desk.  They're just from another time.

This lot are already nearly a year old and I think they were taken to test the AGFA, which seemed very reluctant to give me a good photo on my trip to Denmark.  There's still something going on with it that I'll suss out another time. Since then I've taken almost sole responsibility on a day to day basis for my two teenage lads and (fortunately) for now I have the family home to look after.  The lads and I are grappling with shopping, cooking, cleaning, GCSE's and all the emotional stuff they feel when their parents royally fuck up the nuclear family thing and quite suddenly start seeing new people.

 
 

On this day the sun shone, my youngest protested strongly about getting out of the car at all and a most likely autistic lad laid in a ditch for a whilst his parents patiently waited for him to settle.  A regular day out but I knew when we came here as a four that it was for the last time we'd be such a unit at Sherwood Pines. It was almost bittersweet.  I drove, the kids eventually played happily together in a place full of happy memories and I took some photos...

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

52 Rolls:21 Denmark. Holga Meg Diana+ /  by Jacqui Booth

My family is very varied.  Some folk never venture far from home.  Others decide that they’re going to get as far away from it as possible.  I was talking to perhaps the most wayward member of my family in my Grandma’s flat one afternoon when I said “Well, next time you’re in Europe, give me a yell and I’ll hop on a plane”.  And she yelled.  And I did.

So it came to pass that after a hastily rejigged departure following a flight cancellation, I left the newly bolted together house mamil still sweating off post operative drugs in the care of my laziest youngest offspring, and got into a cab, caught a train to Luton, an airport bus, a plane to Denmark (the Teenagers’s first flight and only my third), took the Metro into Copenhagen, and another train out to Odense.  Heather was located at the top of an elevator, and we all got on the bus to her digs.

The main aim was to catch up with digital photos – so there’s only one from Odense here.  The whole country is so utterly tidy and there are safe cycle lanes right out into the middle of nowhere.  And they’re not kidding when they say it’s flat.  Seriously, even I can ride a bike there for miles and miles.  You’ve got to be a maniac to ride one in the UK in comparison.  I did when I got back – that’s been filed under Not Fun.

This flat, well kept country was potentially quite uninteresting for me as I like the slightly messier asides – but with the help of the Uni staff we did find some run down areas.  However, this was spotted by my son just metres from Heather’s extremely pleasant Ikea infested digs.  We spent a lovely time in the drizzle with the wild horses getting this snap.

After three days it was time to let Heather do some work and for her partner, Mark, to head off on even wilder travels with the tiniest lightest camping kit ever, so we headed to Copenhagen for a day and a bit, staying with a 20-something over tall volleyball enthusiast named Rasmus, who rented out a painfully cool room on Air BnB.  We wandered out on the first day to explore…you’ll notice from the overlapped photos that the Holga was set to the wrong exposure option.  16, rather than 12.  I suspect Teenager involvement (I borrowed his Holga later and it was set wrong), but I don’t have a film mask for this camera so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

The second day was spent in the National Museum of Photography, the Design Museum, and the National Gallery of Denmark so there wasn’t much time for photos.  Besides, the Teenager’s patience was stretched enough as it was by the time we hit the modern art that he staged a sit in (I may have left him in front of one of the more out-there exhibits on purpose) and I had to call in an emergency all you can eat buffet stop at Riz Raz.  He was a bit rancid during the refuelling process but we survived.

We both really liked Denmark, despite us still coming quite seriously unstuck with two cancelled trains along the way and we were rather naffed off to be back in the UK.  But we headed out to the ‘the pits’ for a wander soon afterwards – well, we needed to finish the film, catch pokemon and eat ice cream.  I think we’ve adapted again now to our comparatively under funded over populated environment.  It’s a lot less relaxing, bit infinitely more varied.

And we’re planning our next trip. California/Nevada/Utah, I’m told…2019. I hope we do it.

Technical shit:

I really have very little idea.  It was ages ago.  Bear with me!  I know I used Digibase C-41 Ready to use pre diluted softpacks.  The temp was 25 as it was such a hot weekend and after I following the 21 temp instructions earlier in the day I followed the instructions for the 25 temp…but I’m not sure it was the best idea.  Another film in the same canister was less than impressive – but it was probably just way too out of date.

Olympus XA2 at the beach /  by Jacqui Booth

Jacqui Booth / August 20, 2016

Well, there’s been a little gap (which has since grown into a very big gap) as life got in the way.  Predictably, the house mamil rather inconsiderately threw himself off his bike one Sunday evening and is still is recovery.  I’ve heard more ‘ows’ than you can shake a stick at in the last few weeks.  It’s been…interesting.  I also went to Odense and Copenhagen in Denmark using public transport from door to door, which was an experience.  Shortly afterwards I took my driving test.

So, this is from a time gone by, when the house mamil was away cycling to Paris and my eldest was traipsing around the Derbyshire countryside with an extremely large backpack.  My sister and I decided that it was a really good idea to go away with a baby and my youngest (it was, actually) so off we went in her campervan to Hunstanton.  I stayed with the boychild in a tiny floral-ish tent that smelt faintly of curry.  I’d diss the previous occupants but they were brave enough to take a floral tent to a biker festival, which I gather attracted a few comments, so I’ll leave them be.

I think my naughtly little sister (to give her her full title) may have become faintly pissed off with me taking pictures and filling her van with sand, because we’ve not been away since…

Or it could have been when I left her in the van for the ‘short walk’ I took from Old Hunstanton to ‘New’ Hunstanton that took a little longer than anticipated and took in the local suicide spots, then an ill chosen sprint back along the beach.  Of course, you can’t sprint on sand – and there were photos to do.

Or maybe it was that she couldn’t move even into the middle distance without me taking a photo of her holding her baby…

Or perhaps it was my unwisely chosen dungaree shorts.  I started out with a sensible pair of thick tights…but it degenerated badly.  I pulled them into some sort of decent state for the photo but it will forever be THAT weekend with the shorts.

Ah well. We survived!

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AND she must have forgotten about it as we’re going away again soon (don’t show her this).

Obligatory film using up shots, back at my fave shortcut in Leicester:

Developed in the kitchen using Digibase C-41 Ready to use pre diluted softpacks.  The temp was 25 as it was such a hot weekend but I followed the 21 temp instructions…which in retrospect was lucky, I think.

Week 19: Fuji Instax in the 1940's /  by Jacqui Booth

I thought I'd cut myself some slack this for this week and take the Fuji Instax along to work, of sorts.  Handily, the Little Bird SOS studio is at Greenacres, at the North end of the Great Central Railway and there's often events going on outside the door, so Lisa and I opened the shop and whilst she made items to sell, I spent the day stocking the shop up with donated wool, which took AGES.  Surely such a simple task should have been quicker?

I got waylaid by Lisa’s yarnstormed bike though first…

Here’s our gaff.  The view from here across Leicester is pretty good.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I nipped out to see the stalls and say hello to some of the reenactors who’d been camping out there for the weekend.  This Is Vintage Amor who tempted me with a red snakeskin effect vanity case…which smells of powder and is now full of film cameras.  Ahem.

This impressed my lad…

And this nice bloke, who had the gift of the gab and also enjoyed being a ‘scary’ German on the trains, is from Feldjagerkorps 44, a living history/re-enactment group.

I should have taken more photos of the women, who looked amazing.  They made me want to wear a dress too!  Unfortunately my Pearl Lowe tea dress makes me look like Grayson Perry.

And then it was time for the corporate photo to be renewed. I decided that I rather liked the 1940’s when two smartly suited gentlemen insisted on helping me out of the chair.  Hell, sometimes it’s nice to feel like a gal.

52 Rolls Week 16: Chrome Hill and the Quiet Woman /  by Jacqui Booth

I’ve encountered quite a lot of kindness along the way of doing 52 Rolls.  At least three people have bequeathed me their stashes of expired film, the Impossible Project were generous when I ordered the wrong polaroid film and had return it and a very kind man has given me cameras, bought me cake, coffee and leant me his ear.  In fact, he’s been good enough to become my friend.

This week’s expired film is from a close workmate and fellow skinny dipper, Jane, once a keen photographer herself.  However, the roll of Ilford 400 B&W film seemed destined to be trapped in its canister and so she very kindly posted it so me along with a good stash of other film.  So, when an email came from Karen to say that we needed to get together or else, then it seemed like the right occasion to take this film out and show it a good time.  Or at least some photons.  I'm pretty sure I used the Canon AE-1 for this.

Karen is officially my Aunt (and has kindly supplied me with an Uncle Bob, so Bob really is my Uncle).  However, a wild generation gap and a bit of meeting in the middle means that our kids are the same age, which has been brilliant as my sister has only just had the decency to make me an Aunty.

So, my cousins became my pseudo-nieces and still are…and now they’re at that difficult age.  Still, considering the terrifying mix of boys v. girls our families now consist of, I think it went rather well, my youngest aside…

Please feel free to smirk at my predicament.  We hike in jeans despite warnings from all good walking sources that this will lead to certain death should the heavens open.  They have good walking gear.  My son forgot to bring a coat – that’s my spare he’s wearing. The girls more or less obediently walk.  My youngest stages a sit in.  The girls pose sweetly for photos…my kids pull faces.  They don’t swear.  I do.  The saving grace is that I caught these two beautiful mostly vegetarian, organically grown creatures gnashing their way through a Ginsters sausage roll. Monsters.

Still, the walk went rather well.  Chrome Hill (owned and named by Google Chrome*) is also known as the Dragon’s Back.  Aye, I thought – even the spiniest ridges are never that bad when you’re actually on them though, are they?  So, as various members of the family opted for the sensible route around the hill, I scrambled up a vertical incline after Uncle Bob, right behind my smallest pseudo-niece.  If she could do it, so could I, right?  Hmm – it seems I could but only with a bit of shaking and help down off the hill from my watchful eldest lad (in deeply unsuitable Clockwork Orange T-shirt) as everyone waited.  Ah, the shame…

But then – the reward.  We were back in time for a pint at The Pub.  Not just any pub.  I’d been told tales of it along the route, about how the landlord only sold pork pies and other family bar staff based horrors.  But nothing could really have prepared me for the full joy that this place would bring.  You HAVE to go there.  It’s one of those places that will die with the Landlord – a quintessentially Derbyshire pub if ever there was one.  The League of Gentlemen missed a trick when they didn’t use this place.  Or maybe they just twisted it into the household with the colour coded towels and the frogs.

For starters, it was called the Quiet Woman.  The poor wench on the sign HAS NO HEAD.  There’s a newer sign on the roadside too which isn’t much better.  And the whole place is still in the 1980’s – it would be earlier but church ROOF ALARMS are clearly space age technology.

You can camp there too, but you mustn’t wash your pots in the loo sinks.  Not that you’d want to when you see the grey towel on the rail.  I bet it speaks to you after a few pints.

There are useful notes around the place, to help you maximise your enjoyment of the facilities.

TABLE TRAYS

Please do not remove from their tables.

Packets from Snacks have to be collected and removed.

Anyone putting waste into empty glasses will hear harsh words from the Landlord.

I suspect when I return they’ll be a note asking me not to snigger and take pictures of the signs, and something about unauthorised reproduction of the words being prohibited.

We took our leave before we could get into proper trouble – but not before finding an ancient sticker designed by Uncle Bob himself!

Cheesey family photo time.  Spot the freaks that belong to me…

And so, another day of the decendents of Booth passed by happily.

 

*This may not be true.

PS.I do not have cats to complete the last two frames so meet Rietta and Vienna…Rietta has since become very bold and I found The Teenager cleaning up her poo from my office as few weeks ago.  Awww.

Technical Shit:

After being a bit disappointed by Rodinal on my last two B&W films, I used Ilfotech HC 1:31 8 mins to dev this lot.  I think I like it more.
I accidentally threw my fix down the sink again.  Must stop doing that.