The Artist

We had a visitation from The Artist -previously known as Jon - the other evening which, as you might expect, was most welcome.. Was sat, talked about this and that, ate some food and looked at some images - all in all, a great time was had by all.

 The Village

More of the Village

Only a couple of weeks ago Mr Windy loaned me his nice little Pentax Espio and so, enthused by the possibility of something interesting, I loaded it with colour film. So easy to use and easy to waste film - which, obviously I did. The result was - well, ordinary which I put down to the user rather than the machine. After all, Some people seem to be able to brilliant images out of any camera at all.

An old friend of mine from the soft south of the UK well, the north of England actually, accused my photographs of bleakness. So I show these rare colour snaps to show how bright it is here. Only, the weather is bad - again and I couldn't wait for next year's day of sunshine :-(

There's a wonderful artists work over here which I implore you to look at. It's young Carl Radford.

Was Lowry here?

[Gaelic] Homage to Lowry

After the outstanding success of the last two snaps I posted, I realised I was on a roll - the same roll of film actually - and got to work printing up one of these masterpieces in t'darkroom while a storm rages outside, threatening to rip the ventilation pipe off its fixing. The snap was shot on a camera I found on a shelf around the place - a nice Kodak Retinette 1b as it happens - loaded with movie copy film called Polypan-f from some unknown source.  Shot the image 'on the fly' with 1 sec exposure [ish]. Once the potential masterpices had revealed its negative self I then printed on Adox MCC fibre. Nice eh? Well, I think so anyway. I have an even better one drying still since its short sepia bath this morning. Nothing too much trouble :-)

GRINNEAS NAN EILEAN

The local arts show at An Lanntair is coming up soon. Paintings by well known artists as well as less well known ones. Photos too - although there's usually  a plethora of beach snaps and images of the Stones. I'm entering a couple and there's not a beach or big stones among them. You know, I might even get in the darkroom and print this wonderful snap of Stornoway and one of its residents. Anyone know who it is??

Still life - moving

Or what about this still-life???

Uh?

Took me ages to figure out this snap taken with some cheap plastic pano camera. I like though.

The New Place

The Coelyns will be letting their collective hair down this weekend while on a St Kilda gathering in Edinburgh.  Hope they have a great time and come home safely.

Rax

I love this fellow's work. His name is Ragnar Axelsson and his work from the far north - Greenland, Faeroe Islands and the like is outstanding. The Video here is lovely too. Take a few moments of your time and enjoy the images. A lot of this work was made with B&W film and Leica Mamiya cameras too :-)

lith - eh?

Hector's Peats

Yes, it's an old neg but with a new interpretation - done as a lith print on Oriental Seagull paper. Nice eh? I had a little bit of Rollei-Creative lith liquid left and thought I'd put it to good use.I have now just about recovered from chasing The Crofter's flippin calf [Esme]around the croft - well, the next door's croft actually since it somehow got over fence and wouldn't go back via the gate. After Esme had run us ragged and had some fun in the warm sunshine, she popped down the croft and walked over the low fence. Cow's Eh?

Mr Leica Man

I took a trip over to Barvas the other day. It's not generally somewhere I usually go unless the Agricultural show is on or I'm off to snap a photo somewhere. For some reason, the area has not won me over. Still, now I have friends in the area. Two just up the road who have moved there recently of which, no doubt more at a later date, and Colin aka Mr Leica Man [and tells me he's too busy to use his cameras! ] who has opened a shop selling all thing garden machinery. How good is that? The place is packed full of new and pre-used machines and others being resurrected from an early demise. Mr Leica Man has a nice little shed in there too where he can hide and drink cups of green-tea between customers and work. Go pay him a visit, he is such a nice chappie.

My dance teacher

My dance teacher - and her Mum

The sun's still shining here and it's as mild as can be. A lovely walk along the coast was great to clear the cobwebs in the morning but in the afternoon we paid a visit to my dance teacher. 

As it happens, my dance teacher was busy - busy making ginger-bread beings with her Mum while her young brother created the usual havoc and Dad placated him. The ginger-beings were fab - not overly gingerey but just nice. I didn't get any dance tuition.

Eroba-Race

That's 'im, chasing at the back [of the break - obviously]

Two more snaps I found among Victor's negs - one of the bike he was / is so proud of and one of him racing :-) Both on glorious AgfaColour slide film.

Victor

 No idea who it is but I love the image!

 Victor?

Eroba-Race

Our pal Victor is currently sunning himself in Australia at his daughters en-route to a few months cycling in NZ. Before he left, Victor sent me some really old negs to look at and perhaps print. I am so impressed with these three that I post them here - hoping he doesn't mind :-)

Something tells me these were taken in Germany. Victor was in the RAF and was posted there. Maybe it was just after that as the bike was given t Vic by his pals when he left the RAF. I'm sure Victor will know when he sees them. Aren't they wonderful? Oh, and the bike; Eve, my partner rode it this year at L'Eroica bike event in Italy .

Not Morecombe and certainly not wise.

There's unseasonably good weather lurking round the island at the moment. Granted it's a little breezy but the warmth is still there as is the sun. The moon's up too which means I shall be out soaking up it's energy as my wonderful Reiki teacher tells me to.

Miasma of Mince-pie dust concern

Yeah, winter's around the corner

There’s a crisis looming. A surfeit of cheap mince-pies came on offer at the main island outlet. And when I say cheap, I mean less than a bag of chips – although having said that, it’s such a long time since I bought a bag of chips my comparison of prices may be a bit off. The last time chips were bought sans poisons – or even avec – was…. Oh I don’t know. A while back anyway. And what with the hike in prices I may have lost touch. Still, I bought several boxes of pies of the mince over-consumerist-capitalist faux-christmassy type.

I have been putting in some design-time for an on-going photographic project [that is; I thought of a snap to take] and the mince-pies lurking within the packaging on the table in the warming-room came to mind. And I was tad peckish after a long afternoon’s meditation. The box was soon opened and the first of the ‘fine’ [I use the term loosely] food items within consumed. And then I noticed the other items – crushed to a pulp. Mashed and cracked, dead, nailed to their perch. No wonder the very reasonable cost.

Fearing for my lungs from the dust, the pies were soon wrapped within the tums of this household. I should imagine that the ‘erb who dropped the case of pies from a great height in the storeroom or lowered the half-ton of bottled Highland water on top of the case of pies is now lurking down Francis Street as we speak awaiting the Lack-of-Jobs-Centre to open in the morning.

I wondering if there is going to be an outbreak of ‘mince-pie-lung’ [© Wiesmier] in years to come as a result of the miasma of mince-pie dust on  that fateful day.

Just William

The sun shone today-once the lashing rain had departed. My plans to inhabit the darkroom foiled again, as one must enjoy the light when it's here. William, a former work colleague of mine arrived unexpectedly [the text announcing William's possible visitation arrived some hours later when i walked down the road] in his new white van. No string or gaffer tape holding this one together and no odd graphics on the side either advertising a closed down pottery business. We took tea in the Warming room and then enjoyed the air on Garry beach for a while as William explained to me how lucky he was not be working for the same company as as I suffer from.
Of course I took a camera - finishing off a roll of film lurking in the Voigtlander Perkeo since our hot trip to Tuscany.

William enjoying the local Tolsta air - and not talking for the moment!

I did visit the darkroom- albeit with the door open to the warm sunshine as I developed the film.

Another nice link

Listen and watch here  NOW!

Am I alone?

Am I alone in thinking that much of the social unrest that is around at the moment - and that is likely to come is because of the gross inequalities in the world that have helped shape the culture within which we now live? There a great article in The Guardian today and, if you want to read a fine book on the subject read The Spirit Level; Why more equal societies almost always do better. [Wilkinson & Pickett].