Keeping myself busy
After a long period of premeditation, extending over years, the Great Project to archive my "back catalogue" of negatives is underway. The dining table is out of commission for the foreseeable future. The mighty enterprise applies only to my 35mm era, which lasted from December 1973 until the Eight Wasted Years (2002-10) of my digital period. I continue to use 35mm occasionally as a change from medium format.
So far it's gone better than I dared hope. This morning, at the conclusion of only a third session, I arrived at May 1974. Admittedly this early part of the job has been simplified because the first six months'-worth of colour negs were on Kodacolor X, easily distinguished by its "orange" look from the brownish replacement, Kodacolor II. May 1974 was about the time Kodacolor X disappeared from the shops and, indeed, I think I can see the first of the Kodacolor IIs looming ahead in the "parallel" boxes of prints, used for reference.
I had begun using 35mm after buying a new Praktica LTL on the instalment plan from Mrs Honeybourne's Grattan catalogue. During the decade or so between starting work and first buying a house I was relatively wealthier than ever before or since, and I could have gone out and bought a camera from a shop. Self-consciousness prevented me; an SLR was a big step up from my old prewar Coronet Cub and I would have been too embarrassed to disclose, to a supercilious shop-assistant, my lack of familiarity with more advanced cameras. Yes, silly I know, but that was the way my mind worked ... and still does to a lesser degree.
The new camera emboldened me to try colour film and this is a shot from the very first colour film I ever used. It was Saturday 22nd December 1973 and I'd gone out after work, probably with some idea ...like every newcomer to colour... of getting some snaps of a sunset. Not a bad result considering how poor the light must have been. This row of Georgian houses at Hambrook, just north of Bristol, is little changed; but, well, you know the kind of thing ...sort of smartened up, blandified and tidy. I imagine they must be "listed", for there are no uPVC windows; all woodwork is a uniform white, however, as though aspiring to be plastic. Smooth render throughout and an outbreak of pink masonry paint, as though this were Suffolk. The house off right appears to have lost its railings, of early 20th century vintage and perhaps considered inauthentic. They may still be there, smothered in greenery. Tall hedges, for bourgeois "privacy", obscure these pleasing frontages from the eyes of the passer-by. I commend the owner of the single exception.
Keeping myself busy
After a long period of premeditation, extending over years, the Great Project to archive my "back catalogue" of negatives is underway. The dining table is out of commission for the foreseeable future. The mighty enterprise applies only to my 35mm era, which lasted from December 1973 until the Eight Wasted Years (2002-10) of my digital period. I continue to use 35mm occasionally as a change from medium format.
So far it's gone better than I dared hope. This morning, at the conclusion of only a third session, I arrived at May 1974. Admittedly this early part of the job has been simplified because the first six months'-worth of colour negs were on Kodacolor X, easily distinguished by its "orange" look from the brownish replacement, Kodacolor II. May 1974 was about the time Kodacolor X disappeared from the shops and, indeed, I think I can see the first of the Kodacolor IIs looming ahead in the "parallel" boxes of prints, used for reference.
I had begun using 35mm after buying a new Praktica LTL on the instalment plan from Mrs Honeybourne's Grattan catalogue. During the decade or so between starting work and first buying a house I was relatively wealthier than ever before or since, and I could have gone out and bought a camera from a shop. Self-consciousness prevented me; an SLR was a big step up from my old prewar Coronet Cub and I would have been too embarrassed to disclose, to a supercilious shop-assistant, my lack of familiarity with more advanced cameras. Yes, silly I know, but that was the way my mind worked ... and still does to a lesser degree.
The new camera emboldened me to try colour film and this is a shot from the very first colour film I ever used. It was Saturday 22nd December 1973 and I'd gone out after work, probably with some idea ...like every newcomer to colour... of getting some snaps of a sunset. Not a bad result considering how poor the light must have been. This row of Georgian houses at Hambrook, just north of Bristol, is little changed; but, well, you know the kind of thing ...sort of smartened up, blandified and tidy. I imagine they must be "listed", for there are no uPVC windows; all woodwork is a uniform white, however, as though aspiring to be plastic. Smooth render throughout and an outbreak of pink masonry paint, as though this were Suffolk. The house off right appears to have lost its railings, of early 20th century vintage and perhaps considered inauthentic. They may still be there, smothered in greenery. Tall hedges, for bourgeois "privacy", obscure these pleasing frontages from the eyes of the passer-by. I commend the owner of the single exception.