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.

Week 18: Leicester Riverside Festival…and the EU /  by Jacqui Booth

Jacqui Booth / June 24, 2016

Well, this morning I opened my eyes in an unfamiliar bed and gradually remembered that I should really check my phone, for something momentous had been happening overnight and the results were due.

And so I checked.  And I felt disappointment.  I didn’t even cheer when our reviled PM resigned – just feared the further instability, particularly in the eyes of other countries.

I realise that the UK’s exit from the EU is far from cut and dried.  As usual the scare stories regarding the implications seem to be nearly as far fetched as those surrounding the terrifying Millenium Bug.  We seemed to survive that.  We’ll have a cup of tea, calm down a bit and survive this, but sadly in the knowledge that we really don’t necessarily hold the same values as half our neighbours or the generations before us and that – from my admittedly limited perspective – there are still a lot of people making poorly educated decisions out there.  But who can blame folk?  The UK press is horrifically corrupt and they’ve whipped the country into a frenzy without really managing to involve much of the truth at all.

I’m proud to see that Leicester voted Remain.  If a leave vote is poorly aimed protest against immigration, then for that to triumph here would have been inscrutable.  Even a bus ride into the city is a multicultural experience and once there you’re literally spoilt for more.  It’s not all plain sailing of course – but we’re doing bloody well at the job at just getting on with things and living together.

The UK is still the same as it was yesterday. Eyes open a bit wider perhaps.  There is still good and next year I trust that there will still be hundreds of wonderful volunteers sticking up two fingers up to hard nosed commerce and coming together to deliver the laid back wonder that is the Riverside Festival.

First up, here’s the legendary DWC, who is part of Leicester LoFi‘s very core, and worked his ass off recently to exhibit Yours and Mine for me and the house mamil.  I bumped into fellow 52 Roll-er Barnaby Nutt here who was also taking some snaps and kindly tipped me off when it looked like I might get embroiled in a conversation about toting a bellows camera!

We then headed off to hunt for my dear old Dad, who we found to be in his element showing off Serenade for the Peter Le Marchant Trust.

These two blokes haven’t met but actually live only streets away from each other – so, Dave – meet Dave!

Then me and The Teenager were off to check out the stage and the festival field…

But couldn’t leave without seeking out the Leicester Real Junk Food Project, now a year old, who save food that would otherwise have gone to waste and put it into tums.  It’s a doubly wonderful project as you Pay As You Feel – so if you’re really skint you get fed too, and if you’re solvent enough you can pay more to support such a great project.  And the people running the whole shebang are caring and lovely – I felt so looked after and even got a spontaneous arm rub with my spicy aubergine sarny, avocados and bread.

Heading back to the Park and Ride (where we asked for a price only to be treated to a free journey home as we’d joined with my Dad who’d parked there – yay for Park and Ride!) led us along the canal and through Castle Gardens.

And through the Lanes in Leicester where the iconic Very Bazaar was shutting up shop and I eschewed the now sterile but once fascinating Silver Arcade for a snap of the much more interesting Royal Arcade.

Technical Shit:
Agfa Isolette
ISO100 Acros 120 Neopan
Ilfotech 1+31 6mins, 19°
Neither film nor fix discarded prematurely = WIN!

And I debated whether or not to include this – but there ARE people in the UK who don’t know who she was and why she died still, so it’s still important to share.

‘While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us’

Jo Cox 1974 to 2016

Week 17: Pushchairs and Pinholes /  by Jacqui Booth

Future me is going to be awfully confused. I’m behind with this but I’ve decided it’s best not to be too precious.  The motto for this year has been DO DO DO.  I’ve yet to achieve a balance, but balance is dull, so let’s just do it.

This film was started some time ago and I ended up with four frames that just needed to be shot so I could see the first two. Which didn’t turn out.  Fairies are notoriously difficult to capture ;)*

So, I headed out one Friday with the following:

Holga Wide Pinhole Camera
Tripod
Pushchair
Baby
Sun hat
Change bag
Sippy cup of water
Blanket
Beetroot and lettuce seedlings (sensible purchase planning is not my strong point)

It’s a bloody good job I’m not too self conscious these days.  Wandering round with the camera stuck on the tripod whilst talking at length to said baby niece about the terrible habits of mallard drakes is bound to make a person a little conspicuous.  We also got a bit of counting practice in as I wildly estimated the exposure times.  Then she fell asleep so I was left talking to myself.

Anyway, honouring the ‘starting at the doorstep out’ approach I adopted at the beginning of all this, here’s more of Watermead Park, about 15 mins from my house.  To say it’s picturesque may be pushing it, but it looks slightly less like a horror movie location.  I hope you hate the third photo as much as I do.

 

*Taking photos in a dark tunnel is not advisable with a pinhole, unless you have all day.  It’s a bit sad as they were of me and a couple of mates, but hey ho and all that.

Technical Shit:

Ilford FP4 ISO125
Ilfotech HC1+31 8mins at 20°
An increasingly cavalier attititude to chemical management and timings.

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.

52 Rolls Weeks 15: My Grandad’s folding Brownie /  by Jacqui Booth

Well, I said they’d be some cheats, and seeing as I’m falling behind then this is going to have to do!  I started this roll of film last summer and because the camera belonged to my Grandad Booth, I wanted to run family shots through it…and these things take time.

But with a squeal of delight which alarmed the baby and just about shifted the sorrow caused by my realisation that I’d wasted a frame AND most likely blurred a couple of shots in snap happy haste, the roll of Neopan was ready to meet its Rodinal.

So, I was kitchen bound…the soundtrack was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Tender Pray and much singing and dancing was done between agitations.  This is how Saturday mornings should be.

And lo, there were pictures!  Pictures of the wife and descendants of the Booth man himself.  Not all of the family by a long shot – I may have to round them up.  And enter into some sort of unholy alliance with a tripod…

This was risky – a indoor shot with only bright sunlight from the window to the right.  That’s my expectant sister with my Grandma.  I should probably have left using the camera to her to be fair – she must have used it before!

And here’s a motley selection of 1st and 2nd generation descendants – with a 3rd generation in utero.  I can’t have taken the 2nd pic as I’m in it!  I suspect Mr Z was called to help again.  I may have told him to stand too far back.

And later, here’s my newly adopted fave pub for lunch – you’ll notice that there’s now four generations all out in the open!

And a few months later, here she is valiantly tolerating her first day in my sole care.  And I was treated to smiles.  And I messed it up!  Still, I’ve tested it and I can fit a tripod under her pushchair.  Next time.

Note to self:  Just stop it with the light leaks!