Preparing for work down south

I'm all of a sudden located over in Peterhead, Scotland again. OK, I know a bunch of better places to be when in Scotland, but as I'm at work I got no influence whatsoever about where I am and what we're supposed to do.
Anyway, they are talking about sailing away tomorrow down to the Dutch sector of the North Sea to do some work there for a couple of weeks before we're off to Scotland again, supposedly. At least that's the plan as far as I know. Then we'll sit around waiting for a while again until the next job comes up a few weeks after that. They might find different work for us in the meantime, but we don't know anything about that right now. 

Lines and things like that, again. It's from the old wool factory. You probably know the place by now. I still like it, and there's probably more to come. Mamiya RZ67 and most likely the 50mm wide angle lens attached to the thing. Ilford HP5+ film scan.

We seem to have found our next place to live, me and the wife. We actually did put our names on a paper and everything, so let's just cross fingers that this will be good. 
Can't tell you much right now as it's not 100% sure they will put up the building yet, but having spoken to people who really should know something about it, it seems they will start the building just over easter. Planned date for moving in should be sometime in July/August 2018. Which leaves us with more waiting. As usual. 

Another one from the same area. Same film, same camera but could be a different lens. It's from the power station department of the place, as they used to have one of those here. Times have changed...

Nothing more to say today, I'm afraid. I spent a few hours travelling yesterday so I'm still a bit tired because of that. I'll get better, some day soon.
I might bring a camera with me and go for a walk later, just to try shake life into the rangefinders again. It's been a while since I used the newer one of the two now, so I guess it's about time to find out everything is as it should be. Even brought the 21mm Elmarit lens this time, so might get a couple of interesting views on things for all we know. Looks like they're loaded with Ilford PAN400 and Kentmere 100 the two cameras, but as usual you can never really tell until the film has been rewound and peeled out of the inner hidings of the cameras. I try to mark things up to make it easier to see what's inside the camera, but have been known to fail doing so a couple of times. Let's just hope everything is cool with the indications this time. 

A couple more from the smithy

Just because a few people seem to have been liking snaps of big muscles hammering on soft iron I decided to put in a few more of the same thing. Snapped outside in a bit better light than the last couple posted, so same same but different I guess. 

The Blacksmith himself, and the teacher of old stuff to other people. Mamiya RZ67 on Ilford HP5 film.

I'm soon off for work, just to keep you informed about that stuff as well. Last day home tomorrow, so I guess I'll get things to do then as usual. 
Today I did my last few bits on the bathroom, and hope it's finished before I get home next time. 
Oh, and we went away to check for a new place to live in about a year or so. It's not built yet, so we will have to wait to see if everything goes according to the plan. 
I'll let you know, of course.

One of the "students" trying to learn things. Looked like he's getting there from what I could see. Same camera, same film.

Three in a row

Just a few from the 365@50 project to keep you posted on that series. 

I might wright something sometime later. A bit busy, as it happens...

#019 The snow turns to water and flows towards the sea for re-cirk

#020 The Landy needs a drink to keep on going

#021 The Grandson visited and had to check out grandads "new" car. He liked it a lot, of course. The sound of the old engine, the space inside and all sorts

In the smithy

You might remember I went over there to the old Devold factory one day a few months back. At least I remember I did just that, and went over to the smithy as there was some action going on. Hammering on hot steel and all sorts of stuff they usually will do at a place like that. 
I snapped a few, and went to do other stuff. Didn't think the results would be any good to be honest, as my competence in guessing exposure indoors in a rather dark room with stuff going on is nothing to count on, to be fair. 

Bashing some steel between a hammer and the anvil. 

Mamiya RZ67 and 50mm wide angle lens on Ilford HP5 film developed in Rodinal.  

Anyway, the results ended up not being too bad after all. I'm rather pleased with them, as it happens. The Blacksmith himself was pleased as well by the sound of things. Bought a few of my scans to use in marketing and stuff like that, and also seems to be rather eager to get a few darkroom prints into his ownership. Need to get something produced next time I'm home, obviously.
There's more going on in the area, so I will bring the Mamiya another time as well to see if anything else will stick on film in some kind of pleasing way. You never know...

Full concentration on the task. Don't think he even noticed being snapped up by the bulky, old Mamiya. Same film as above.

Went away, got stuff done, came back home

Hi all!
I know, I've been really out of reach for some time. I went away to my little island about a week ago, and didn't return back home until yesterday evening some time. It was a great few days, as it happens. Built myself a tiny little darkroom and everything, which worked quite well believe it or not. 
At least it worked for a little while, up to the point when the tiny little lamp inside the enlarger went south. Of course it did. Just had to, that little bugger.
Anyway, I made a few prints (which is still out there because I simply forgot to put them among my stuff to bring home), and a few of them looked nice enough for a test anyway. 

#016/365 16th January, 2017

A bit more snow when looking this way, straight across the "Storfjorden" over to Masdal and Masdalsklova. Blue skies and sunshine this morning, obviously.

At least I brought a bunch of exposed 120 film with me, so I managed to get them developed. I thought about leaving most of my cameras at home for this trip and only bring the "daily snap" one for my on going 365 project, but still I failed to do so and brought a few bulky Mamiyas and stuff like that. So I went out to take a few snaps as well, as the weather was a bit on the wild side for a few moments there. I never seem to be able to capture stuff like that on film anyway, so I'm not sure why I bother. At least I managed to waste some film, if nothing else. 

#017/365 17th January, 2017

Rain coming down again, and the mother in law found it best to get rid of the snow on the veranda getting heavier by the minute.

And now I'm home. Scanning 120 film and doing stuff like that. Been inside the bathroom again to do a few things, but nothing much. I'm going to work again soon, and thought it's a bit important to have a few new scans ready for the blog and things before I leave. 
I'll give you more tomorrow, but here's three more from the 365 thing. Ordinary stuff, as you see... 

#018/365 18th February, 2017

Snow almost gone again, and a couple of guys from the local power company found it to be a nice day for climbing the pole just up the road from the cottage. I think they were soaking wet a long time before they were done with the job.

Work done, films developed

Sorry for being a bit absent lately, but I got this stuff I just need to get done either I like it or not. Besides, yesterday evening I finally got started on the small pile of 120 films I got around the cottage at various places. Strange, but it seems that every time I finally are done with a bunch of films a few others suddenly jumps out from their hiding places. I should have made some effort getting myself a bit more organized, probably.

#013: This strange and white belt of stuff came drifting along outside the cottage this day as I was just looking outside the kitchen window. Turned out to be fish fat coming from a trawl or net having been cleaned in the fjord a bit earlier. They had the boat full of herring. I know, because I called the harbour master to let him know about what was going on around here. He was happy that I called, but told me it was absolutely normal and nothing to worry about. That's exactly what I think as well, as it happens. And check that snow coming in! A white wall in the middle of the fjord.

I got the scanner here at the cottage these days as it's not very comfortable to live back home in the house. I might just as well go find my binder containing the latest part of the 120 film archive as well, because there's a few frames there I ned to scan again. Something's going up on somebody's wall, and then we would need a bit finer scan, I guess. This one's going to be big, I'm told, so needs to be done on a pixel printer. 

#014: Woke up to this on this morning of the 14th of January. It's a bloody lot of snow actually, because there's a decent bit of road until you get up on the very top there. At least there's a lot more than it looks like, just saying.  

I'll go over to Ona in a couple of days, and will bring at least one enlarger and some paper. I'm going to dig a hole and stay there until something great has come out of it. I even threw in an order on some fix and a bottle of selenium toner this morning. I guess it's here some time tomorrow. They did not have any Lith chemicals available right now, which means I have to wait another bit of time until I can try that sort of thing. 
Just got a message that the local camera club (the one I went around town with a few months ago) is going to the little tiny island of Ona some time a bit closer to summer. I might just get there before them and greet them with a cup of coffee or something when they arrive. That might be a surprise to a few of them, I guess.

#015: The next day, and the snow is turning into water again. At least over there at the other side of the fjord. There was still some snow left on this side, but you can't see it at all on this snap. Don't know why I pointed the F3 in this direction to be honest, but I guess I had no better idea at all at the time. Sometimes you just have to pick something, shoot and forget all about it. 

OK. Need to run again. I have these tiles drying inside the bathroom back home, and I feel I need to go check how everything's going. Then there's a lot of stuff in need of getting cleared away as well, as the place really looks like a rats nest right now. Redecorating a house brings a few unwanted things with it as well. As you probably know.

Monday Morning Blues

Up rather early this morning just to get the old bones heated up to get some work done during the day. I'm off out and about quite soon, but thought I might just post three more of the 365@50 series of snaps before heading out of the cottage and over to the house to do stuff. 

The weekend was good, thank you. Didn't do much, but had a few more films developed and dried. None of the medium format ones yet, but they're due as soon as I find the time and energy to get to them. 

So now I'm on the third film of the project, and got two of them developed already. It's not bad at all if you start thinking about it. 

Looks like we're off to Ona for the next weekend. I think I'll just load an enlarger inside the Landy to hopefully get things done on paper, finally. After all, it's the right place in the world to be to do stuff like that, as there's nothing going on to disturb the thoughts out there. Some focus can really come in handy, after all. 

Oh, and about todays snaps there's nothing much to be said other than the obvious I'm afraid. 

They are the kind of everyday snaps you would expect coming out of a project like this. I mean it's kind of a part of the point for doing it at all, to be left with some kind of documentation of the year seen through my eyes. All three of them were taken in spots and fragments of time which in some kind of way was more or less describing of the day they were snapped.

#010 Testing another car. This time it's a Renault Clio which turned out to be something we had been looking for. 

#011 Oh yes. I was getting stuff thrown out of the old bathroom to get room for new tiles and things in there. They will be thrown further away to somewhere else another day when time allows. 

#012 Another morning watching the weather coming in the fjord from south west. The good thing about having weather coming in from that direction is that we know exactly what to expect. It's going to be wet, and sometimes also a bit windy. Always wet though.

A darkroom to die for, and some 365 snaps

Oh yes. I went outside today, me and the Landy for a drive. A fair bit we went as well, as the Leitz Focomat enlarger I was talking about the other day was over there. Over to big chains of mountains and two fjords, as it happens. We drove straight through one of them mountains, through a quite new hole they drilled not too long ago. We had to drive over the next one, which was snowy and all up there at the top.
We did not have to swim over the fjords, thank goodness!

#007_365@50 Went inside this building to do the paperwork on the Landy purchase, and to try get a good deal on a second car. Smaller one, as it happens...

The bloke with the enlarger is a photographer, as I probably told you a few days ago. Educated and everything, and not only that. He used to be an apprentice under Hans Jørgen Brun, probably one of the best printers inside a darkroom in Europe today. How cool is that?!
Good to see then, that the bloke with the Leitz enlarger is doing business with analogue equipment, and still intend to do so in the years to come. He is doing only medium format and small large format (4x5) so had no use of the 135 size Leitz enlarger, of course.
And what a studio and darkroom this guy is having! I mean it's huge, and on two full floors. 
OK, if I had that kind of space and place I would probably make the darkroom part of it a wee bit bigger, as the studio thing was as big as a football field anyway. But then again, that's just me. Downstairs he had a gallery with a few, or maybe 20-30 portraits hanging around. 
A school close to his home had a photography and darkroom class back in the days but shut it down a couple of years ago for some reason. They were getting rid of everything, so he went over and took what he could manage to stow away, and gave it all away to whoever wanted it. Ten Leitz enlargers were stowed away in his studio at one point, but now he only got this one left. The plan was to maybe use it some time in the future, but as he is moving his studio right now he no longer have the space to store it, and it just had to go.
I picked it up with the promise that I have to give it away to somebody else the day I'm no longer in need of it. That's the spirit and how we should keep analogue photography really going folks. Grab stuff we need (or think we might need) for free, and pass it further on to somebody else another day when the fun is out of the thing, or just for whatever reason.

#008_365@50 I got it from my wife for my birthday. It was great! Warm and thought through and nothing like what I thought it might be. Strange, actually...

Oh, and he pushed a couple of nice darkroom timers on me as well which was very good as the one I got now is starting to have hickups every now and then. It's been OK since I went inside the thing and spoke up in a rough tone though, so it might be alright for another 30 years or so for all we know.
And then I got a loupe, a couple of sets of contrast filters, a brand new set of 8x10 trays and a nice and handy easel and a few other bits and bobs. Things that will come in handy, you know. 

Now, all I need is some spare time to get use of all this stuff!
I got a plan though, so just keep coming back and I might tell you all about it. 

#009_365@50 And the VW got to go! A machine wash first, then a good old bashing with a sponge  and some hot water and soap. It's not sold yet, though. Seems like nobody wants it, but then again we're probably asking too much. We'll see how it goes.

The Painting Game

If there's one kind of things you have to do from time to time that I don't like, it's painting the walls inside any room. I'm usually very reluctant to use the word "hate", but I'm actually almost there. So it's bad, as you understand. 
Anyway, my wife had the bathroom painted when I was off at work so that was absolutely brilliant. Everything would be good to go by the time I got back, and I could start doing the tiles and stuff like that. 
Hah...
It was the wrong color, of course. And I mean totally wrong! It was wrong to such a degree that even I noticed and let words fall out about it.

I was reading Patti Smith's great book, "M Train"

Today I have been repainting the bathroom, in case anyone wondered about where I was and what I was doing. First round done, one to go. Hope to have everything finished off before bedtime this evening. Shouldn't be any problem, I suppose. One have to just keep up the spirit, you know. Jump at any task with an open mind mixed with some jolly good joy.

It was probably the day we threw Christmas out the doors and went back to normal. Ice on the pond by the house this day, obviously.

If all goes well I should be ready to throw a few films into some chemicals later this evening. Got three rolls of 135 and a bunch... like 10-12 rolls of medium format film. I sort of ran out of D-76 the other night, but I'll mix out some nice old HC-110 or Rodinal or something. 
I could go for Caffenol as well, but I'll save that for another day as it's a bit more hassle to that than just mix stuff with water and go ahead. 
Oh, and all todays snaps are from the 365@50 project. They are all numbered and everything, just so you can keep track of them :)

The carrier of The Fur Full of Fleas, The Bearer of Hair to Hit my Drying Film, or simply The Cat or whatever. I snapped this handheld at 1/8s at f/2 and nope it's not sharp at all. I seem to have missed considerably with the focus as things don't look too bad down there in the left corner? It must have been rather dark as we are talking 1600ASA film here, so that's probably the reason of the focus failure :))

It's launched, the 365@50 project

Just to let you know, the first film from the 2017 365@50 project has just been posted over at 365project, as I thought I might need a place to put it all away. I will post them all in here as well, so you don't have to jump over there if you're kind of reluctant to the whole idea of jumping back and forth. The only advantage will be that you can see everything from #001 and all the way up to #365 by the end of the year without having to jump between posts, should you so wish. 
I'll post them in chronological order, just to make it a bit simpler to myself. And remember: All snaps are to be posted, no matter what they look like. 

#001 1st of January. New Years Day, Gray, Grainy and Wet.

I developed five films yesterday, but still got a bunch to get done. I might get some spare time one of these days, so no need of entering any level of frustration!

#002 2nd of January. I had this Landy on trial for a few hours. I ended up buying it a few days later.

And oh, the nose seems to be growing together into one piece thank you very much. Still sore, but it's getting there slowly. 
I had a real nice time outdoors for an hour or so a bit earlier, but it's cold as heck. Well below the freezing point and all, which makes it real frosty when the wind plays along as it has done the last few days. Some time in the afternoon everything changed though, and the blue sky turned gray and the temperature raised quite a bit. The only thing we can do now is start waiting for the rain. It will come, as we know that much having lived in this place for centuries. 

#003 3rd of January. Another gray day, but with a hint of sunshine in between.

I was knocked out, not loaded...

I'm finally home, and have been so for a few days now.
Not been able to do much though, as I tried just that Saturday morning and sort of failed. Big time!
See we had this huge pile of wooden logs having been cut down from the ground where they grew and into suitable lengths (around 2 meters long) for transportation and further cutting into smaller pieces suitable for the ovens placed inside the average norwegian home.
So, up they went from the field and onto the tractor trailer to be pulled up in front of that big white house up there in the middle of the hill. From there they were moved a few yards over to the place we got the big saw placed.
I found it easier to load them up on a wheelbarrow for the final move, because in this way I could move a lot of them using less time. Effective, you may think?!
Well, having been doing this for some time and getting quite close to the end of the pile, disaster kind of struck.
To make an end to the story, and the work day for me, one particularly long piece of wood got stuck into the ground in front of the wheelbarrow as I was pushing it quite hard forward to get up the little bump in the ground. What happened next was pure physics (forces acting in all possible kinds of directions) and the next thing I know I was hit hard (very hard, actually) from below, with a perfect uppercut straight into my nose. I remember the sound when the thing hit me, and I quite clearly remember a rather huge amount of blood. And I remember pain, and a sneaking fear that all my front teeth were swimming freely inside my mouth. Luckily they were not.
The nose and the upper part of my lip does not look good, though. Not at all, as it happens...
A few hours later the pain kind of increased and I had to go see a doctor, because I thought something might be broken. At least the nose thing probably had to get stitched together, but some tape obviously had to do the trick as there were pieces missing and stitching would only make it all very much out of enlignment according to the guy who should know something about stuff like that.
I must say it was a bit embarrassing sitting waiting for the doctor with that kind of nose very early on a Saturday evening, as you could clearly see what everyone in the waiting room was thinking...

I have not been able to develop any film yet, since you ask.
I might get some of them done later this evening, but we shall see. As you might remember there's a bit of hassle made to my workflow as we're living in the cottage these days because of the on-going work inside the bathroom back home. No water in the taps there, and that sort of story. Makes it impossible to develop any film, as you should know.
I plan to wait until late night and give it a go here at the cottage. It should work fine I think.

A study in rays of light hitting clouds and foggy stuff just outside the cottage a few months back. The light of winter, you know. Mamiya RZ67, 250mm lens (probably) and some unknown (yet) film.

The snap was made during the same very short session as the one from the last post. On medium format film using the Mamiya RZ67 big and boxy thing. I'm not sure about what kind of film yet, but I'll find out when I get to my archived neg folders some time during this day or the next. 
It looks nothing like that outside the cottage today, mind you. Completely blue sky and sunny now, and been like that since I arrived from work a few days ago.

Another day gone, getting there

Oh, happy day!
Nothing much to say today, except the beautiful message that the crew change just got moved to Friday instead of Saturday. Which is great news, because then I'm home Friday night instead of Sunday evening, or extremely late Saturday night if I was to drive from Bergen in the afternoon.

We had some weather coming in the fjord a while ago. I had a couple of Mamiya RZ cameras I was checking for any trouble, as they had been living peacefully inside a bag for some time. I'm not sure which film this one was snapped on, but it could have been either HP5, Tri-X or also a roll of repacked unknown stuff called something and 400. I'll find out if the world seems to want to know. I'm sure it was the 250mm lens in use, and I'm also quite sure I had some trouble during developing...

Well, I don't have to think too much about all that now, as it seems to have sorted itself out in the best possible way after all.
I need to drive a bit south to pick up the enlarger I just got, but that's alright. I'll manage that, I guess.