HP5 v Pixels ..

This photograph is one of my own personal favourites. I took it at an Air Show in Manchester around 1980. Last night I was scrolling through 'My Archive' - as it's grandly called on the Mac - and it occurred to me that, if I were to put one of the pictures from it online every day, it would still take over three years just to show you all of my favourite black and white shots! That fact I found amazing! And that's without all my colour shots - the travel stuff, the slide library! Man, when I had my little Olympus XA camera I just shot and shot and shot! And those were the days when you had to buy film, and spend money on darkroom materials (Not to mention the time to process and print everything!) I have nothing against digital photography - seeing as I use it all the time! - but it does make me feel good knowing I was a photographer when the art needed a certain amount of skill, knowledge and know-how! Smug gloating over...   

A question of timing ..

This amused me yesterday! I was searching through my 'box of important stuff', trying to find my MOT certificate (And no, I didn't, now that you ask!) However I did find my diary for 1981, the year I turned 21. On the inside front cover there's this list of figures and abbreviations. Hello, hello, you ask, what was a bright young thing like Martin keeping a record of in 1981? Chicks' phone numbers? Names of great Manchester discos? New punk singles to buy? No, no, no .. sadly, it's the dev times of HP5! Now if you're not into photography this won't mean a thing, but it's a list of the development times and chemicals needed for a black and white Ilford film called HP5 when rated at varying ISOs .. or ASAs as we used to call them! Man! Look at that! If you wanted to shoot at 6400 ASA you had to dev your film for 25 minutes in Microphen! (And probably at about boiling point!!) These days that adjustment would take you .. oooh, a second and a half? And you wouldn't need to make a note of it in your diary! Go chase chicks, you square...

You da best...

It seems the search for happiness is doomed to failure, apparently, because we're always projecting things forward (An expert said!) We will get that promotion, we will win the lottery, etc., etc., etc... Turns out that when you achieve what you aimed at, you soon revert to your normal state of unhappiness.

Well, I guess that's why I'm always so deliriously joyful. I'm always looking backwards!...

Back to the 'good old days' when everything was rosy and Adele hadn't even been born! Back to HP5, and vinyl and news that came on sheets of paper! Back to 3 TV channels - ok, four - and access to bands and famous people without having to sign your life away! Back to a time you could trip over a wire and not make money by blaming someone else! Back to the days when a good photographer could make a decent living without being undercut by a numpty with a 'good' camera. Yes, folks, I like it in here. Those days were the Best...

Aw, fair go...

I did have a good look around when I saw this sign, though I didn't really expect to see one that said "Please keep off the ordinary working man!"  This sign's at Tatton Park, pointing people away from the lovely grassy slopes at the rear of the Mansion House. I saw it when I was shooting a Wedding there last week.

On the same subject - not! - I found an old diary from 1981 the other day. Guess what I've got written on the inside front cover..  Phone numbers of my nearest and dearest? Names of picture editors on national newspapers? Nope! The development times for Ilford HP5 film, that's what! Since you ask, it was 7 minutes in ID-11 for 400 ASA, up to 25 minutes in Microphen for 6400! God, how I love that ISO dial on digital cameras!!