The best explanation of England today, and Brexit.

I also think it goes a long way to explain Trump, and the current marches in France 

Nine hundred consecutive days of German

It's been a while... .

One way or another these last few months have been very busy.
I'm involved in trying to put an artists studio together in Clonmel that's going a pace but I feel uneasy about. We have a new bit of company law that fits like a glove to our endeavour, the Company Limited by Guarantee. This limits liability to the extent of the guarantee, which may be as small as €1 per person. Some of the others are determined to complicate the thing by using older structures that aren't as good, but those they know.

The other major project has to do with an Artist in Primary Schools Scheme. 50 contact hours which one is paid but not for the prep' which is likely to be a full day for a two hour encounter.
The Idea loosely hinges on the discovery that our system of education is excellent at passing exams, but not so good at asking questions. Something the establishment realised the country will need if we are to survive into the future. I'll try to attach a PDF to Google Drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1agMU2ShooN6DMqw_QTGB_nqhBYOcXxTC/view?usp=sharing
 Anyway that's taking an inordinate amount of time.

Our social night at the camera club was a success if I do say so myself. The prizes were handed over, a draw was had. Most brought a spot prize, but some didn't. I mentioned the club should buy from funds a supply of six to eight extra next year to cover the ones that arrived hands hanging.
 We had a quiz too. I compiled the questions and was quiz master. Lots of moaning of course, I perhaps pitched the Q's a bit high. But I felt that was better than it being too easy. Higher you can compose hints. One of them was 'what was the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic'. Another was 'who directed Jaws'.

In other news. My Zeiss died. Not a tragic event, for it may well be fixable. And that will be something for the dark evenings. But I also had a 1970s Pentacon on order which arrived the very next day.
Here's one for you. I decided on pricing out the films that a bulk loader is the way to go. You get 30 m or 100 ft of film that you load into reusable film rolls. Now I asked a supplier in Ireland to see if they could get me one. They said no, they couldn't. Well I was on the Amazon website at the very moment I was speaking to them with that very page opened https://www.amazon.co.uk/35mm-Bulk-Film-Loader-Cassettes/dp/B000RO4FZ0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545824318&sr=8-3&keywords=bulk+film+loader 

Now they could have bought it off Amazon, reclaimed the VAT and resold it too me. But no. So I will be buying my films off Amazon in future. Really annoying that BTW.

I hope everyone has had a happy and Holy Christmas. And best wishes for the new year.

Following are some photos of the Winter Solstice at Knockroe passage tombs.

Film photography and developing

I got my chemicals for developing film yesterday along with a tank. Here are the first attempts.Taken with the Zeiss Ikon camera I bought. One thing I forgot when building my shed/darkroom was you need the chemicals to be at 20-21 degrees C. Meaning the shed will be used as a darkroom for summers only.

CLICK TO EMBIGGEN

Look who I met.

My mother needed me to drive her to the regional hospital in Cork and while I was waiting I went to Fota Wildlife park. In the past I'd always took it as being fairly shit, a sort of half zoo. But I was shown I was wrong.
Now he? was behind a tight linked fence but I think if I didn't say that seeing it would be hard enough. He was inside 20 foot of me.

A grab bag.

I read Bill Bryson's, A walk in the woods, about his trip up the Appalachian trail. I found it to be a bit of a Parsons Egg, good in parts, excellent in others and tedious beyond any will to live in many places. So much so you began to hope for a bear to enter the lists and lance them with a lodge pole pine. It should not be a book one should carry on the AT.

I also got through Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Somme. Now this is a true work of Historiographical Art, and perhaps because of that it should be read by dipping into rather than as I did end to end. It took the Battle of the Somme from the years before the war to the day it started. But then, and had too because of the nature of the battle became geographically linier. So if one takes a chess board with the right hand black castle being the south adjoining the French and the left the other end of the battle front to the north. Then he took each regimental position, and its opposite -white piece- German segment by segment.
The only part I found objectionable was his treatment of the Irish regiments where he did that patronising English thing that annoys all Irish of any hue uniting us in a will to pound them into the ground on a playing field.

There's a new odd thing going on here at the moment. Women have taken to wearing skin formed pants. I'm not complaining mind. These are like the yoga pants you see on runners, but these women aren't running, or doing much of anything beyond shopping.

Trump eh ?. Can't write more for the gobshite will have done something that will go beyond anything I've written.

Shed/darkroom almost done. I've just to add the mineral felt. Something I couldn't do for I need a flat calm day and the last few since I bought the stuff has been quite blowy. I have a tarp over the roof to give a measure of protection at the minute. Soon I have to decide if I am going to wire it for electricity or simply run a drum cable as and when.

And in further news I just bought a full wetsuit, and a stunt kite. Mad eh.


    

Culture Night event

On the whole my event was a real success. I made 150 images and printed about 45. Since it takes about 15 mins from start to print that was fairly solid going.
Since I set up one lighting pattern that I could infinity adjust and I needed only one image that worked things could be made in camera fairly quickl. The I would spend about 5 mins on the PC doing some adjustments.
Once people figured out what was occurring I found they were happy enough to wait the printing. The image was at an A3plus size 13 inches by 19.

I was down from last year in the numbers through but up on the numbers that sat and prints. I blame myself to some extent for I allowed another event to take place in the space below. This event when it was mooted to me was sold as a busking event but in the end it became a sit down one. Where the chairs were in place long before it began. This gave people the notion that this was the event, and had it not been for it being on the national radio I might have had far less.
You know what they say about good turns.
Anywoo's. I'm happy about it on the whole.

Instagramming the event was on the cards but I couldn't. I simply didn't have the time when people were in and when they weren't what was the point.   

I've been building a shed/darkroom.

A neighbour moved out and the new people didn't want the deck the first guy put down. I was driving past this morning and asked the builders for the timber and largely because the guy put it down with so many screws the timber was useless for it would take more man hours than the timber was worth and by some distance. So the builders were only too delighted to deliver it too me and let me sort it out.
So the last month or so has been devoted to getting the shed up.
It took so long since I was designing on the fly and wasn't certain how much actual timber I had. Meaning I had to go back and re-do a few times.
Anyway I have a shed 14 ft by 7 ft by 8 ft at the peak, internal.  But I've yet to form a door.
There is a debate going on whether I use the off-cuts or to simply get a slab of ply and have done with it. My natural make-do-ness is winning at the moment, mostly because beyond the tar felt for the roof and a few pounds of nails (and time) it's been free on the whole.

My previous shed was erased in the storms last autumn so I needed something to store useless stuff on it's trip to the dump/recycling. But I also needed a space for my idea about developing film. It isn't a massive fuss like it was back in the day to develop film. Mostly because you needn't print, you can scan the negative.
 

My Culture Night event

River Suir

The Devil's Bit.

The Devils Bit, the bite shaped gouge in the distant mountain. The Devil flying over Ireland took a bite of the mountain but Ireland being so holy the piece burnt the devils mouth and he spat out the chunk, and the chunk is now the Rock of Cashel.