The old Spotmatic

As you might remember there was this Pentax Spotmatic that used to belong to my dad during a few years up through the seventies. It went away, but came back to him last christmas. 
As you were told if you ever checked the link, I loaded the thing with a Tri-X a couple of months ago. Snapped a few frames and put it back on the shelf. 
I was up there last weekend, checking what's happening... if they were both well and all, as you obviously do. All good, except the frame counter on that old lovely camera had not moved at all. So I grabbed the thing and finished the film. I am a curious man. At least when it comes to old cameras, and maybe especially old lenses. This one got the great Super Takumar coupled, and I must say I had hopes that it might were able to deliver some good stuff. 
And yes, it does!

Nice start, don't you think? Super Takumar, red filter and a Pentax Spotmatic. I don't know if you recognize the place, but I have snapped stuff around here earlier as well. Back in the 70's as it happens, with the then new Minolta Hi-Matic G camera I still got lurking around. I need to find them on that red hard drive and post them. I think it was the sisters playing with an old sledge or toboggan or whatever you call it. And yes, this was snapped last sunday. There's still snow to melt away around these parts...

I brought the film back home, and had it developed yesterday. I will try not to bore you big time, as there's way too many snaps of relatives and such on the film. But anyway, I post what I got... as you know. Shook it around in some Kodak HC-110 in "B" solution, I did. Don't know why I seem to like that old developer, but it's probably a combination of a few different things. It's versatile, very concentrated, longlife and have a nice colour from the bottle. Add water and it looks like something else, but I will not focus on that here and now. 

Nope! Just could not resist this one! Snapped from the side window of the car when me and my father went to Tingvoll for some milk and bread and things you need to survive. Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4 with yellow filter, and that old Pentax Spotmatic.

My step daughter is 25 tomorrow. They really start to grow up now, I have to say. My son will turn 25 in just a couple of months. He don't know what he wants for birthday, which is OK. He will still get something, I guess. 
My step daughter don't know what she wants either, but my hope is to give her a camera. She borrowed that flimsy plastic Diana F+ camera last time we were over in England, as you might remember. She snapped a couple of nice frames, but the majority of the film turned out totally useless. She still got hooked on film, so she immediately went to get herself her own Diana F+. She also asked me what else to get, meaning a smaller camera with mojo, soul and whatever such a camera would have. She would need a small P&S kind of thing, I guess. I really hope the mail man drops a packet around for me to pick up some time tomorrow. There might be something inside the wrapping she could use. Well, that's what I hope, of course. We all know that buying an old camera on the inter web is not always the wisest thing to do. Still, I have yet to be left totally disappointed about what's coming my way. This was really cheap as well, so will be worth taking the chance. 
Oh, and yes... I will keep you informed. 

Same trip. This was snapped from the side window of the car as well, over there in the small village of Tingvoll. Oh... you might think "Tingvoll" sounds a bit like Dingwall, Thingwall, Tingwall, Tingvellir or something like that? Yup, that's right. Same word, same meaning. The old norse word for a place where great "tings" were held. I was baptised in the church at this place, as it happens. Old thing from back in the time when the earliest churches was built over here in Norway. Long traditions, you see... Built in 1180, made of stone unlike most other churches over here... built to last a few more years. Same Spotmatic, Super Takumar with yellow filter. And Kodak Tri-X sloshed around in Kodak HC-110 for a couple of moments.

I'm at the cottage for the weekend. Left a big bag of photographic equipment outside the door as I arrived. There's this picture I want to take, but I'm waiting for the right kind of light. It will definitely not happen today. That's for sure! First of all the light is not here, at all. Second thing is I forgot to put the good film backs into the bag before I left. I got two bad film backs, and both of them happen to be attached to the back of the two Mamiya RZ67 cameras I got inside the bag for the moment. I mean, what's the odds for that to happen? I got quite a few of them, but still have managed to do this silly thing. OK, I know why I did it, and it has to do with a plan to have them repaired over the weekend. Or at least start to repair them. And I'm still on that plan, but that should not include to forget the good ones back home! 
Oh yes, it's only a five minutes drive to pick up a good back, but having opened a can of beer it won't happen. Easy as that... :))

Long legs

It's got some long legs this thing. All the way from the surface to the seabed as it happens.
It's just a quick post, just to tell you I'm off again for the weekend. Oh no, I'm not going far. And we got a connection out there as well, at the cottage. The one by the sea. It's more like a five minutes drive from home, so should get there pretty early in the afternoon I would say.

Here we go! Now you have to struggle with rigs and offshore snaps for weeks and months, I suppose. Looks like that was more or less all that were to find onto this roll of Kodak Tri-X that was fetched out of the black rangefinder about a week ago. It's the Magnus rig, by the way. Located on the Magnus field on the UK side of the North Sea. A rusty old thing, it is.

They look a whole lot better these new films I just developed. I only did a couple yesterday, but there will be more to come over the weekend some time.
And hey... the mailman seems to have a bigger packet coming my way as well. I wonder what that might be?! I did not get it today though, so maybe tomorrow then... with a bit of luck.

It seems I got a few projects going on

Had to go downstairs this morning. Down in the basement, as I got a few things down there. Things I should have finished off in a few weeks or so. 
It's the boat, you know. Or not the boat, ofcourse, because that's a bit big to get in there. Bits belonging to the boat, it is. Wooden stuff left there to dry over winter to get a nice and fresh layer of oily things some time during spring. There's old varnish or oil to be removed, which takes some time, as you might know. Big things they are, them wooden things. The jib boom (or whatever you call it the long thing protruding from the bow on a decent sail boat) is a quite heavy piece of wood, as it happens. Long it is as well. Just barely getting it inside the basement to get the job done. 
Well, I'm on the task and getting there. Some time tomorrow, I guess. Getting the old stuff off, that is. There's a lot of work still to be done before it's all finished, but I will get there as well. Need some good weather for that bit, as I want to work with that outside the house. Will need some help to carry it outside. 

Seven stones in a row on the beach. Pointing outwards, towards the sea, they do. They point towards the landside as well, naturally, but that's not the important one. It's one of the misserable negatives you've heard about before. The beach is in England somewhere. East coast, probably Yorkshire.

Itching a bit to get inside the darkroom soon. I have been waiting for a new bottle of fix to get here, as my last batch appeared to be stone dead last time I developed a few films. You have seen the results, and there's more to come. Grainy and dull negatives with absolutely no contrast in them. Thick they are, as well. Need some real light to have the slightest chance of shining it through the stuff. I post them anyway, as you know. 
Counted the rolls yesterday. 10 pcs. of 135 film and 8 rolls of 120 film to develop, and then there's a few prints I really need to get done. Looking forward to that bit, I do. I love to do prints, and to see them materialize in front of me. At least when the print turns out to be a good one, that is. 
I got things to do, as you might understand, but luckily one of the things require daylight while the other mission require darkness. Not that the darkness comes at any early hours this time of year, but there's no point in waiting for too long either, as it's not going to help me a lot. It's the different seasons, you know. During the few summer months it hardly ever gets dark up here, at least as long as the weather is good. And I want some good weather this summer. Actually we deserve some good weather this summer, as the last one was more like a very long autumn with cold and damp weather all the way until the real autumn came along. Then there was winter, and now it's spring time. Although, wakening up this morning was a bit like it was mid-winter again. 10 cm of fresh snow had been falling during the night, but it's OK... it always will do this trick anyway, the weather. Most of April is the same way up here. Everything tells you that spring is here, and then it's all turned white again. Bloody irony of the seasons.

Way down in the dungeon of Edinburgh castle. Cold, dark and damp. Not a place you want to stay. Just saying.

Oh... and I have just developed three films, and they looks a lot better than the ones you have seen the last few posts. You will see some soon, if you stay around this place a bit longer. One film from the old Pentax Spotmatic as well, as it happens. Cool?! 

Home again

Well, not at home as in the house, but rather at the cottage by the sea. We like it a lot better here than we do at home. It has a lot to do with the surroundings and such, and the quietness of the place. The cat seems to love the place as well. I just let her in, and she has already been asking for new food twice plus gone to bed. She's got her own carpet on the floor in a very convenient distance from her food. 
Some wind today. Or it's not windy as such, but having nets in the ocean in the hope of catching some fishy things it's a bit windy when the hope is to get it all into the boat quite soon. Looks like we might get it done, but I will certainly not hold my breath. I'll let you know at some point. 
The snaps today will all be from totally ruined films. Fixer problems, as it happens. I manage to get a very few, but still very bad, pictures out of the things. Will have to do for now, as there are more film to be wasted during the next few days. 

Oh yes, we were in Scotland. He was standing here in his kilt, probably freezing a few bits off. He looked happy enough, no matter what. 

I opened my drawer yesterday. The one upstairs in the cottage you know, the one supposed to contain a few clothes I might need. It's always good to open one of my drawers as they seem to contain stuff I had forgot about. Simple things like yesterdays need of fresh socks made me run into two great cameras, a couple of good lenses and film. Exposed film, which I could not remember having put in there. I knew the films did exist, because my "Notes" I told you about the other day have been telling me that there should be films somewhere that have yet to be washed in some developer. I have had no particular clue on where to exactly find them, though. Well, now they're taken out of the drawer and put elsewhere together with the few rolls I have exposed during last period of work. I might even find that something has sticked on them. When I get to the developing, that is. Ofcourse. 

That would be some underwear to stroll around in... huh?! To be honest I think it's a good thing that we have moved a bit forward since the days this was used. Found it inside one of the buildings up there on the hill in Edinburgh. The castle, you know.

Well... I wrote them words you just read quite a few days ago, to be honest. Have had things to do, as you might understand?! 
Not that I have done much, more that I have been out and about and around. It's called life, as you know. 
Today I was up early. Scanned the last film from the trip to England a while ago. You see I can't get it all done in just a few moments. Oh, and I have been to work as well. One month at sea, you know. 
We got some fish in them nets, as it happens. Which was good as we had a fish meal planned. Three cods, one of them quite big, a nice haddock and a couple of good sized pollacks. We made fish cakes (as we do over here) of everything besides the cod. They were turned into a couple of fantastic meals straight away. It was very nice

Up the stairs they go. I tried them as well, and managed quite well I would have to say. It's up there, inside the walls of Edinburgh castle. 

Well, I better try to get a few things done before the sun sets, even though it seems to set at quite late hours these days. At least when the clouds happen to be somewhere else. 
I will try to get a post out a bit more often folks. Need to blame this hickup on the easter and such, I think. 

One of those days!

You know the sort, don't you?
Having lined up your working day already the day before, just to make sure you will be able to get it all done and dusted, and made everything in order to go on holiday in two days.
You even wake up an hour early to really get a flying start and be a little bit ahead of the game, because you know it's going to take time and effort, and the extra hour might be your reward when the evening comes, and things like that.
So, that's what you think and plan for, right? And what do you get instead?

See? Wouldn't this be a whole lot of fun to play with? One of our jobs is obviously to check and make sure that all our fire equipment works as intended. There's a lot of stuff on board, as we're supposed to be kind of self dependent out at sea. In between we also try to have some fun, obviously. At least when possible. Testing the water cannons always is. That was until the helideck itself disappeared because of the heavy seas out west of Shetland, ofcourse. Now there's more or less nothing at this spot. No canon, no helidec... but we soon got a new one to be fitted, so stay tuned.

I went down this morning, just to grab a cup of the best coffee made onboard this ship. You'll find it in the engine department, just to inform you should you find yourself on board this lump of steel at some point. I almost got there, but ran into some funny smell, one engineer, two laundry assistants and a couple of ROV workers standing like a mob in the hallway between the engine room door and the laundry door. And that's when I understood my day was totally ruined. 
A bloody washing machine had caught fire, and that will, just saying, mean a few people will need a report on the table. Soon! Sometimes it seems they want the damn report even before the fire is out, but they behaved a bit today, the report readers. 
The report writer suddenly wanted to be home and away, to be honest.

Hellyeah!! I love the feeling of this! Trouble is that I had to get so close to the water because I was stupid enough to put that 21mm very wide angle lens on one of the rangefinders that not only my camera was totally drenched before we had finished this session. I had to go straight in and change clothes. And wipe some water off the camera. Sea water and all, you know. But it's fine. 

Well, it's now 21.25 in the evening, and my report is not only finished and gone but also reviewed and acknowledged by all the top guys on board. Next is the shoreside, which I fear a lot more. Maybe, but only maybe, a washing machine is something they have seen enough times to understand what I'm talking about, but I will certainly not hold my breath.
Each and every time I write a report and send it off to the Brightest Brains in Britain, they seem to come back to me with the most unbelieveable questions. Why is that? I have been thinking a lot about it, and the only answer I can actually come up with is that they are not marine engineers. Not that marine engineers is that bright, that's not what I mean. I think it's more or less the same whatever your profession is. 
Sometimes I would love the things to turn a bit. Make them write reports from their daily work, which I obviously got no clue about, then they send them over to me for review. And I would, ofcourse, not understand a single thing about nothing, and start to ask a million, for them, silly questions. 
Why can't they just try to understand that we are not speaking the same language, and if they want things to be simple they got to have some top shot marine engineer or something similar sitting in the chair waiting for reports sent in by us. I still can't see the point in writing a report that no one understands, and which always seem to end up with a lot of e-mails going back and forth, and in the end they want a telephone meeting to "clearify" stuff. And then, after a week or so, they basically can't find any better question than asking if we're sinking...

See? These are the simple things we deal with every day. Nothing like rocket science at all, as it happens. Foaming up a helideck is easy enough I would believe, even for a hot-shot technician on the shoreside. I wonder more about how I managed this snap without foam on the lens. It was pretty darn close on a few occations there.

Well, enough vomit for the day. It's just the fact that it has put me a bit off. I did not need this only a couple of days before I'm going home, but I will make it. I always seem to do, no matter what :)

I will need to talk about pictures some other day!

Getting closer!

To the end, that is. 
Well, not the end as such I truly hope. More like to the end of this very long line of pipe out here at sea. We have surveyed the majority of it now. Just need to do some checking of risers and stuff out here where the old Schieallion FPSO used to stay. That old barge has finally been removed now, and we are currently waiting for the replacement thing, named Glen Lyon to get finished off and sent out here. 
You can read a little bit more over here, if you bother... All I can tell out of it is that it's a fairly big project, but then again my ship has been working more or less non-stop on this field for 13 years. Wouldn't do that just for fun, I would believe?
We did lots of the dirty work of dismantling things between mother earth and the old Schiehallion thing, but it seems like my vessel, the Subsea Viking (I know, looks like shite here, but that's what the area west of Shetland do to a vessel...), is getting swapped out by a newish vessel soon. The old beating west of Shetland has taken it's toll on this old lady, but I think there's no doubt that we would manage to put the new FPSO in place as well, if we ever were given the chance. After all we got some good competence and know-how on board after all these years. 
Well, it's not in our hands, or heads, to decide things like that. We got brighter brains ashore to do the thinking for us. At least such kind of thinking...

OK! Not what you by any means would call a great photograph in any way. Case is that the thing in the middle never was too good looking anyway, so doesn't matter to much I would say. But it lasted for a while out here in this area, and believe me when I tell you that the weather you see in this picture is not exactly the usual state of the sea west of Shetland! I have no idea of which camera, film, lens or developer used. Probably Rodinal, I would say.

Anyway, seems like we already have a contract for some work waiting for us when we are due to leave the west of Shetland area for good some time this summer. Early june has been mentioned, but I have stopped listening to rumors of dates long ago when it comes to this business. We shall see. 
We shall also see if this is the last they will see of us up at this field, because after all bringing a new ship on this contract might not be as easy as the bright heads ashore seem to believe. 
Then again, it might function alright for what we know :)

One more then, of this giant of oil production for the UK up through the years. This is history now, and I can at least guarantee you that these snaps are among the last taken of this thing on film, And if there are later snaps on film of it, I'm the one who got them somewhere in my files. Not to many souls out here dealing with film anymore, as you might have guessed. Would have been nice to be the first and last one to snap the Glen Loyal on film as well, when that one is into postition, but looks like someone else might get the chance. Not that anyone would bother... 

Portraitlike kind of snaps

Snapping up people. Making them fasten on film.
Sometimes it's quite easy, other times you may seem to struggle forever, and still miss to capture something even close to what you had in mind.
It's still fun though. And interresting to see how different people behave in front of a camera.

I have learned that people generally get used to it. And I have somehow learned that some never seem to get used to it.
The younger generation just couldn't care less should you put a lens, or even a double lens of a TLR, straight up their nose. Worst you'll get is a couple of flickering eyes after the deed is done, but most of the time just nothing. No questions, no nothing. The reason might be that they usually seem to use a lot more energy looking at some screen than take on board that they just were snapped onto some good old film. So, the youth is quite OK to work with if you want to test things. Test you know the film, light, what works and what's definately not working. Things like that, use the youth if you like to make things simple.

I could probably get closer if I wanted. The bad thing about these snaps is that it's more or less impossible to get eyes on film. It's all about that center of the universe, the screen, you know! Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we removed all these phones for a day or two... 

1957 Rolleiflex 2.8E on some well outdated early 1980s ORWO NP22 film. 

Then you got the tiny bit older ones. Say around 30 or something. This bunch is usually, for me anyway, my colleagues at work and a few figures back home. They can be tricky at times, wondering and asking questions. You know, why they were snapped and what use you think the final thing is going to get. Internet? Facebook...? I usually leave the answer a bit blowing in the wind, prefereably underlined by a more or less noticeable shrug of my shoulders. On a few occations I hope they stay away from searching the net for any blogs I may have written at some point. People in this category will be able to find out if you did this or that, which can be good and bad. Weird thing is that they may feel it's quite OK to put more or less anything on facebook, but in the same time feel that you have done something close to horrible if they find out you have posted something they have not seen before onto some odd web page no one has ever heard about.
Anyway, the guys at work has stopped noticing when I silently walk around with some camera. I have done the same thing now for years, and they have not seen anything on the web they did not like as for yet, so they just leave me to it, probably thinking that the film is not working or something like that. Weird, huh?

Easy! This guy got used to my behaviours with a camera through the years we worked together. A swedish master of the karate sport, so I would think I'd find my cameras in bits and pieces some day if he thought it was not OK. Then again, these karate guys got an extremely long fuse to burn out before they pop! I know stuff like that. Don't ask, please! Here he's testing his mind and patience on some unsolvable puzzle. He made it in the end though, ofcourse, finished the puzzle off and everything. He got another job not to long ago. The puzzle thing was found to be burnt just after he left...

The majority of people shots, or portraitlike snaps I've done up until now, has been of people I know and who has been very aware of me snapping away in their direction.
Then I have also been out there walking the streets with my camera ready, but never really got to it. Not in a real way, if you see what I mean. I have taken photos, but have not been able to get anything special out of them. They need to look authentic, somehow. They need to tell me something, but I have not been able to do just that. As for yet, anyway. I am curious to the process, and need lots of more training to get it right. If I ever get it right. We shall have to wait and see, obviously. I think you will need to look at things with the right eyes, and I think you need to pick the right sort of people and situations. I also to some degree think you got to have it in you, or you just will not be able get it done in a good way.

Then it's the elder sort. Not necessarily old, but a little bit older than myself. Let's say 65 and older, just to have a starting point. As always the limits of where you go from being middle age to old is very individual... just saying. And it's tricky, because it seems to move a bit along with your own ageing... 
Well anyway, this category is a bit different. The majority of them would not be able to find their photo unless you printed it and really forced them to have a good look at it anyway, so no danger here! They never seem to think you would use the snap for anything at all, and would act more or less like the youth. Oblivious to the whole thing. Well, not in all situations and maybe that's just as well. We want to capture some kind of expression, don't we?

I love this one! It's part of a series on a few snaps I was able to get a few years back. I was sitting very close to him, wearing a FM2, or maybe the FE2, and a nice old 50mm lens. I am quite sure this was some Delta 100 film. Not my favourite thing, but that does not matter much. One have to use what one can fish out from somewhere when needed. He was a bit curious in the beginning, but after a few comments around film and such, he found better use of his time and started chatting like I hoped he would. Turns out this is one tough guy. Throwing himself on a bike pedaling like 5-6 hours more or less every day. Participating in long races he does as well from time to time. The Trondheim-Oslo race is the longest one in Norway. Some 540 km in one go. Crazy man...!

OK, and this will be the bottom lines and my conclusion of it all, I promise. Best snaps of people will usually be the ones done when people act as normal, more or less, or when you get some sort of expression you're after. And I think part of my conclusion is that people at all ages will be able to do just that, but not all of them. Not with a camera lens stuffed up their field of vision. Some people you will never be able to get a decent snap of, no matter how hard you try, while others will be an easy match. 
But you will always need to be in the right position there and then, everything ready set to just hit the trigger at the right moment. And that's the tricky part. Some times we make it, more often not. And we need to practice to nail it. It's as simple as that, really.

Nice, huh...?