Locust.

Locust

Dreaded Locust – after several days of sometimes quite intense storms, these have appeared ! I hope there are only a few…….

Sorry that the focus is not that good, it was a very quick grab shot (in find camera and run out again, all before it took flight)

William Shakespeare’s birth.

Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Love’s Labour’s Lost – W.S.
As no one really knows the exact date of William Shakespeare’s birth, although he was baptised on the 26 April 1564, and died on the 23 April 1616: It seems universally acknowledged that today is his birthday.

St George’s Day.

“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven”.

Rupert Brooke.

Rock Art.

Rock-art-No1

The above image shows what is almost certainly a Wusum found at a number of rock art sites and camping places: it gave the tribe a method of transmitting information about land and animal ownership.

The other interesting feature about the above depiction is the very obvious sign of someone’s attempt at adding their bit to an early image. (In many it is not so obvious and therein shows some of the difficulties ageing this art)

Rock-art-No2

Another difficulty with these images is age, they can be very faint and so extreme side lighting is often required – for that read a ‘early start in the morning’ one thing I am not  good at……..!

A Comment.

In response to a comment by Murray Foote on ‘Masirah A Storm Coming’

I thought it would make a good post rather than be tucked away under comments.

He said:-

“It’s impressive but I think it’s the sort of image that can’t really be appreciated online. I suspect it really needs to be printed to whatever size is appropriate and probably on matte paper.
The reticulation in the sky makes it look as though it is a matte print but I presume that’s the consequence of the pushed TMax and the developer.”

 

Thank you for the critique Murray; yes there is some reticulation in the sky, accentuated by scanning unfortunately. I would have used a different developer, but at the time that was all I had.
Oman is not the best place for buying chemicals – almost zero supply now !  You are right in that it prints well on paper like Ilford FB matt and certainly does not look its best on the screen but:

I thought long and hard before I started this blog and decided it was for fun, rather than promoting my photography.
I am in the process of putting together an idea for a gallery type site, which I can use for my best work (for that read more care with the scanning…..) 🙂
The thing is, it begins to feel like work and the time could be spent in the darkroom, so the jury is out on that idea.
It is also nice being able to give some an idea of what Oman is like as a country.
I hope it also reminds people that film is still part of the process and has not been consigned to history. This is one of the reasons I have started mentioning what film, developer and camera I used.
I get such a shocked look from some when I answer the question “what camera do you use?” by saying a Bronica S2a along with a number of Nikon ‘F’ cameras and anything else that I can put film into.
I do use the Nikon D200 but am rather ambivalent about it, a bit like my thoughts on Vinyl and CD’s.
So do I leave the image up or take it down, along with several others that I am not 100% happy with. I think I will leave them and probably end up writing more answers like this one.

One thought – the above does not imply that I felt petulant in any way about the criticism I received from Murray. On the contrary, I admire his work and rather pleased that he took the trouble to comment.

Go and see his site it has some fascinating travel writing along with excellent photography.  http://murrayfoote.com