Journey with Space and Time

I’ve found a quiet library, which shall remain anonymous so it doesn’t get spoilt. Eating and drinking is forbidden, and it is full of old books in glass cases. A Victorian clock ticks high up on a wall and at one o’clock a man in a high visibility jacket climbs some steps to wind it up.

One person was working silently there when I arrived, and when he left I was by myself. What a relief! To sit quiet and undisturbed, and not be surrounded by anything that wants my attention or money, with no computers or mobile phones in sight. How very un-twenty first century. I loved it.

I had a think of my goals in the quiet, and looked back at all the goals I’d written since a teenager. They all had the same theme: writing, art, photography, thinking, philosophy and religion. Nothing that fits into a career. That doesn’t matter for the next few months. I’m doing them anyway.

I drove out to Carlton today and took some pictures of the church (St Peter). It was an old and weathered church, which was dark and chilly inside. Here are a few pictures.

I’ll have to go back and get some more unusual photos. You have to get the obvious ones out of the way first before focusing in on quirky details or unusual angles.

We got an email this morning to say that the dentist has died. That was shocking. I never met her because my dentist left earlier this year, and the practice assigned me this one. I looked at her picture on the website when they told me she was my new dentist, and she only looked in her thirties. I don’t know what can have killed her so quickly – a heart failure? A stroke? It’s so sad because I think she had young children. You just don’t know what each day will bring.

We changed my car insurance so my elder daughter is on it. Privilege, our current company, wanted to charge us £404 extra for a learner driver. We had a quick look online and discovered the RAC offered the same thing for £240 less. We went with the RAC and paid the £50 cancellation cost (with £10 admin fee) that Privilege charged. It’s a sorry world when you can’t trust the people you buy products from, and when you know they’re looking for chances to swindle you.

The latest on the lens: the seller has agreed that £90 is a fair price and has said he will refund me part of the cost. No refund as of this evening. I have taken the lens out of its box now, and assumed I’m keeping it. I hope he refunds me, and I don’t have to complain to Ebay.

I did some gardening in the afternoon and in the evening transferred the stuff from my day bag to a proper camera rucksack I had. My day bag didn’t have compartments in for lenses and flashes, so I was keeping each in separate pouches within the bag. Now things are much better organised. The lenses and flashes fit in little compartments, which are quicker to access. There’s a laptop pocket at the bag where I can put my notebooks.

The lens seller got back to me and said, “Best/easiest is if you want to keep it and let me know what will make that worthwhile for you.” I suppose this means, “Make an offer”. I did some research and offered £90. It’s slightly low but he mis-sold an item and sent the wrong lens cap, so I think he owes me a bit. Plus I got an offer on the same lens, with its original hood, for £115. It seems the hood is rare, and by itself can cost £40, so that’s a good offer. I told my seller about this!

I already tried the lens with another lens hood, which doesn’t fit but which I can just hold to the lens to test out. It didn’t make any difference to the fogging, so I don’t think the hood will help much anyway. He says he’s travelling but will get back to me tomorrow. My ideal would be if he just accepted the offer and refunded me the difference. Let’s see.

I found the adaptor screws for my TLR camera. They were in the first place I’d looked yesterday, but in a tiny plastic bag I hadn’t seen. I’d already ordered some more last night, since they only cost £2.95. Knowing Ebay, I’ll probably get sent a monkey wrench instead.

In the evening I got my old film-era flash out, went in the garden and took some test shots with my Spotmatic and TLR (MPP Microcord). I found a flash lead extension so I tried holding the flash away from the camera and experimenting with different exposures.

Photography day, so I did some research and decided to go to All Saints’ Church, Icklingham. In the morning I spent another hour and a half chatting to a former colleague, then waited for the post. The lens was due to arrive today. It arrived after the post, around 2:30pm, and it was not the lens advertised. Why is it so difficult to sell what you describe?

The lens was a cheaper and older one than the one advertised, and I think the seller had got confused with model numbers. I looked at the reviews and discovered it’s actually a better lens than the one advertised, but worth much less than the £160 I paid. I tried it out in the garden and around the house. It’s sharp, with beautiful colours, but it’s very susceptible to fogging. If there’s a large, bright light source in an otherwise dark scene then there’s less contrast. It’s easy to rescue this in post-processing, though.

I wrote to the seller and said I’d like to either send the lens back or pay a fair price for this model. Incidentally, he sent the wrong lens hood for the camera as well. It’s not a wide angle lens hood, and it doesn’t even fit the front of the lens.

I never made it to the church and guests came in the evening. When they’d gone I hunted everywhere for the adaptor screws that allow me to mount my TLR camera on my tripod, so I can use that in churches. I couldn’t find them anywhere – very exasperating!

A hectic day socially. I did some French revision and went to my French lesson, where FT (my French Teacher) and I discovered my edition of Un Sac de Billes had different page numbers to hers. Of course it did. I don’t understand why people on Ebay don’t sell what they advertise.

Speaking of Ebay, did I mention I ordered a 20-35mm lens on Monday? It’s a Tokina lens that will work on a full-frame camera, which will mean I won’t have to take my EOS 550D camera out with me. The 550D has an extra wide angle lens (10-18mm, or about 16-29mm in full frame terms), which is wider than the 28-135mm zoom on my EOS 6D. This means if I want an extra wide angle shot I have to hawk my EOS 550D around. If I get a wide angle for my 6D then I just have an extra lens to carry. Anyway, I’m hoping I’ll be able to use it in a church tomorrow (photography day).

I was supposed to have the dentist tomorrow afternoon, but they emailed today to say my appointment has been cancelled because my dentists had to be rushed to hospital.

I chatted to a former colleague for an hour and a half after French. Things have gone downhill for him at work, with the management being as petty, distrusting and punitive as ever.

I’ve been reading advice from archive offices about archiving images. I’m surprised to find they don’t trust digital, and still recommend black and white film, because they know it lasts. Digital preservation is less certain. This gave me the idea of using film to photograph the churches as well.

Out to Saffron Walden in the evening, where I met up with former colleagues.

Well, what a procedure solar intaglio printmaking is. It’s interesting that there’a natural connection with photography, though. It’s almost an extension of photography: print a black and white photograph on acetate, lay it over the photo-sensitive plate, expose it to UV light to engrave the dark areas into the plate, and then just print from the plate. I chose the simple approach of printing in sepia, rather than two colours or chine collé.

Then I traced a photo. I don’t feel comfortable doing this – tracing, I mean. I think either you draw freely or use a photograph. Tracing is a stilted compromise that has neither precision nor humanity. This was the image I used:

Here is a print from it:

So that’s the end of my printmaking course. It’s a relief in a way because it frees up a day in my week. I can spend more time on writing. I’m still doing my letterpress course in December and maybe I’ll do another course before then, like a more advanced linocut course or another solar plate one.

My copy of Un Sac de Billes arrived today, with a different cover to the one advertised on the Ebay listing. I specifically chose the one I did so it would be exactly the same as my French teacher’s. I hope it’s just the cover that’s different and not the page numbers.

I was going to Sainsburys in Haverhill so stopped off at Withersfield church for some practice. I just used my 40mm lens, to see how restrictive that was.

G was ill yesterday so I slept on the sofa, which didn’t go well. I drove the children to school this morning, had some porridge, then fell asleep for an hour.

I still felt tired so I thought I’d venture out. I drove to Kedington church and took some photos there. This time my challenge was to use only flashes for lighting, and no tripod. I put both camera and flash in manual mode and worked like that for the afternoon. Sometimes the flash worked well: it brought a light subject out from its background, and improved the quality of pictures of a dark subject in dark areas. Where I struggled was with monuments against the wall, often high up, with their sculpted figures in alcoves. This was a horrendous challenge.

If you placed the flashes to the side then you didn’t light up the full figure: the light just glanced their side, but of course a flash straight on leads to a flat image and drop shadows in the alcove. Then, if the monument is higher up, you can add the distortion from perspective and the ugly lighting from below because I can’t get the flashes to the same height. I did try putting one on the end of a trip and holding it up but still got horrible shadows. There was nowhere to bounce the flash off because there were only dark pillars leading up to a dark, cavernous ceiling.

In the evening I experimented with ways to soften a flash that didn’t involve bouncing it from a wall or ceiling, or buying more gear. Bouncing from a light reflector worked well, or shining through it if you took the reflective cover off and used it as a diffuser. I’d probably have to hold the reflector manually, though, which means putting the camera on a tripod and on self-timer.

Dropped the daughter off at work then packed the car and rushed to the tip. I’d somehow mis-timed my trip and had 15 minutes to pack the old bits of sofa and storage heater, and a sack of garden waste, and get to the tip at Haverhill.

I got there with five minutes left in my slot. Then back home to answer some emails, including one from my French teacher. I sent her the link to the documentary The Sorrow and the Pity , and then made a huge mistake. I started watching it. I watched it about 25 years ago, and was impressed, and after watching four hours this afternoon I was still impressed. It wasn’t part of my plans for the day, though.

I looked once again for a new laptop, since my money has arrived from my previous employer. My heart wasn’t in it, though. Windows is now a marketing platform, and Macs are over-priced. I delayed the decision.

I’ve written a few retrospectives in the last few days, so I won’t bother with one this Sunday.