Mancunian nightfall, 1968.
I've had this knocking around in my computer ...more than one computer in fact... in various forms ever since I started scanning negatives. Dust was the problem. I made several starts at clone-tooling the specks out, but the job was so tedious that I could only face it in small doses. Each time the project died after a few sessions. Then I discovered Kodak Photo-Flo, a "rinse aid" added to the final wash of a developed film. Basically, it breaks down surface tension so that the film does not retain water droplets. I am now using this very wonderful product for cleaning camera lenses and the glass in my scanner. I even do the windows with it. Used at a recommended dilution of 1:200 it is scarcely expensive. It occurred to me that it might be worth trying to improve dust-damaged negatives by washing them in Photo-Flo. I let this one soak overnight and then just gave it a finger-and-thumb rub. Result. Such dust specks as remained could be clone-tooled out in half an hour rather than six months.
It's a pity the quality of the photo is not better, but it makes up in atmosphere, I feel, for its technical shortcomings. It was taken at Newton Heath Shed, Manchester, on Saturday 13th January 1968. It was now fairly late in the afternoon and the light was getting bad, even by the gloomier standards then obtaining in this most gloom-pervaded of English cities at the gloomiest time of year. I suppose I must have intended that wheelbarrow as foreground counterpoise; in the event it is scarcely visible. What would those long shovel-like implements lying on the ground, with rings rather than handles, be used for? Of inconvenient form for use in firing I'd have thought.
I suppose there must have been people about. Someone must have been in charge of this locomotive, but my abiding memory of Newton Heath is of solitude. I walked in through the gate and wandered around the shed without encountering another soul. How I miss that particular winter gloom of northern towns, and their red brick, rainy slates, low cloud and soot colouration. All gone now, in the age of clean air, uPVC windows, re-roofings, distribution centres, retail parks and electrified railways; and nothing much to distinguish Manchester from ...oh I don't know ...Luton.
Mancunian nightfall, 1968.
I've had this knocking around in my computer ...more than one computer in fact... in various forms ever since I started scanning negatives. Dust was the problem. I made several starts at clone-tooling the specks out, but the job was so tedious that I could only face it in small doses. Each time the project died after a few sessions. Then I discovered Kodak Photo-Flo, a "rinse aid" added to the final wash of a developed film. Basically, it breaks down surface tension so that the film does not retain water droplets. I am now using this very wonderful product for cleaning camera lenses and the glass in my scanner. I even do the windows with it. Used at a recommended dilution of 1:200 it is scarcely expensive. It occurred to me that it might be worth trying to improve dust-damaged negatives by washing them in Photo-Flo. I let this one soak overnight and then just gave it a finger-and-thumb rub. Result. Such dust specks as remained could be clone-tooled out in half an hour rather than six months.
It's a pity the quality of the photo is not better, but it makes up in atmosphere, I feel, for its technical shortcomings. It was taken at Newton Heath Shed, Manchester, on Saturday 13th January 1968. It was now fairly late in the afternoon and the light was getting bad, even by the gloomier standards then obtaining in this most gloom-pervaded of English cities at the gloomiest time of year. I suppose I must have intended that wheelbarrow as foreground counterpoise; in the event it is scarcely visible. What would those long shovel-like implements lying on the ground, with rings rather than handles, be used for? Of inconvenient form for use in firing I'd have thought.
I suppose there must have been people about. Someone must have been in charge of this locomotive, but my abiding memory of Newton Heath is of solitude. I walked in through the gate and wandered around the shed without encountering another soul. How I miss that particular winter gloom of northern towns, and their red brick, rainy slates, low cloud and soot colouration. All gone now, in the age of clean air, uPVC windows, re-roofings, distribution centres, retail parks and electrified railways; and nothing much to distinguish Manchester from ...oh I don't know ...Luton.