Taken with a Rolleicord Vb on Ilford FP4 developed in Ilford ID-11
I had spotted this group on the Great Orme in Llandudno and thought it might arrange itself into something if I paid attention. But I had also spotted out of the corner of my eye a fellow enthusiast edging towards me. Edging towards me, I imagined, because he had spotted the camera that I had hanging off my shoulder - a 1960s Rolleicord. He himself was carrying a modern digital camera with a very long lens. I had a feeling that somehow I was going to be tested.
I kept my eye on the swirling kaleidoscope of figures at the summit but it was only as the group on the right of the photograph above sidled helpfully into the frame and then the young woman by the trig point raised her arms that I felt the miracle had happened. I took one shot, just in time.
“Are they as great as everyone says?” he asked, beside me a moment later and nodding at my camera.
I felt this boxed me in a tad. If I said yes it was, then I would be setting myself up to justify that; and if I said ‘no’ then the obvious question was ‘why do you bother then?’ The only thing to do was to tug the exchange round in a different direction.
“Look,” I said, pushing the camera towards him “the image is reversed in the viewfinder.” I’d have to admit that there might have been an element of majesty in that response, because everyone who is up to snuff knows the image is reversed in these cameras.
We proceeded to push the conversational pieces around the board but it wasn’t a very interesting exchange. The territory of photography is so vast that you often stumble across tribes that you only vaguely knew existed. You speak their language only brokenly and they seem to have no idea of yours. His interest was digital night sky photography. I’m afraid I can’t even identify the North Star. Ostensibly, capturing digital images of the moving heavens is the same activity as snapping shifting groups of figures on black and white film but in practice there isn’t that much in common.
After a few desultory minutes we tacitly agreed on a kind of amicable no-score conversational draw and he continued on his way. I turned back to the scene I had photographed to find it had disappeared into the ether and this one frame is the only evidence that it ever existed.
(For Waiting For The Miracle (1) see May’s blogposts below.)