tirsdag 5. september 2017

Offshore stuff, again

Another rather quick post, I'm afraid. 
I'm just out of the darkroom after a rather frustrating session in there. You see there's four or five pieces the wife has picked out for one of the walls, and I thought I'd just get them done. This night seemed to be as good as any other to get it done, so I went for it. The medium format neg was a tricky one, so I might have to alter the settings a bit I think. I'll let it dry and have a good look at it in the daylight, but I suppose it's not up to standard. 
But OK, it was a print, at least. 

Brent A. The only steel legged platform on this field consisting of Brent A, B, C and D (the latter now partly removed, see next picture). The Brent field has been producing oil and gas since late 1976. The oil is fed through a pipeline to Sullom Voe oil terminal in northern Shetland, while the gas goes to St. Fergus in northern Scotland. The field is very close to the norwegian border, and you can easily see what's going on over the border at the Statfjord field.

Then there were a series of four 135 negs on the to do list. Had to switch to the other enlarger as the bigger one is not very well suited to do 30x40 enlargements from small negs. Ping... and the damn bulb went dark as in really dark and no hope for any further work for either today or tomorrow. And before you ask, nope I did not have a spare one in stock. 
I'll put in an order for a new one, or three. 

Brent D, or at least what's left of it these days. 
I got no particular clue what exactly our mission this close to them old legs were, but I'm sure we had important stuff to do. We always seem to have, if you ask the right person. See that thing up there on that left leg? Every second day or so a helicopter will land on top of the leg, and some dude will come out of it and walk over to have it checked sort of carefully. I suppose they would soon find out if anything's wrong from hundreds of miles away, since it's some sort of navigation beacon or similar, but they still have to check it of course. It's probably written in some sort of procedure somewhere. At least they know how to spend a fair amount of money in places like these... 

The snaps for today is from a film I wasted about a month ago when at work. Leica M3 camera with Summicron glass 50 and/or 35mm lenses attached, Ilford FP4+ film developed in Paranol S. 

Ah... the little steel drum with yellow cable spooled on. We picked it up right here, on the bank of the River Clyde up in Glasgow, you know. Put the whole thing on the back deck, and off we went to drop all the yellow stuff into the sea west of Ireland somewhere. We were careful not to drop the drum as well, so no harm done. I got no idea what the yellow cable will do once they decide to power everything up, but they told us it was rather expensive and important. 
Nothing new, in other words.

2 kommentarer:

  1. Interesting snaps and stories as usual, Roy - a glimpse into a different world for me.

    So you doing - or trying to! - some nice big prints, eh? Knowing you, the grain will be golf-ball size and the overall look will be fantastic. Make sure you bring us up-to-date when you get that bulb sorted.

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. Thanks, Michael.
      It's probably a bit different to the everyday life to most people, I know. We'll soon check out the norwegian side of the border out there in the sea. Should be quite similar to the UK side, if my memory serves me sort of right.

      The printing session... well, nothing worth mentioning actually. The grain were not that bad after all, but the bulb blow-out didn't exactly help my workflow to any degree.
      I'll get the thing sorted and hopefully have something produced some day :))

      Slett

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