It usually takes me while to finish a roll so I hunted down a 15 exp roll.
All I
could find was Agfa HDC. I opted for the ISO 100 and was quite surprised by
the
quality. I am not too sure about the rendition of yellow but the resolution
and
saturation seems pretty good. I must dig out my loupe and compare the grain of
the negs with Fuji Reala.
What did I shoot? Well I was hoping for good weather so I could justify a trip
to
Birr Castle to see a historic telescope there since we are sort of on an
astronomy
related theme here, however the weather was a bit dicey. Lots of wind,
intermittent
periods of sunlight and some light showers thrown in for good measure. In the
end I
didn't go so come late afternoon I was getting desperate then I remembered a
Neolithic passage tomb a short drive from where I live so I drove there after
supper.
there was no one else around and I had the place to myself. The tomb is on a
hill
side with a southerly aspect overlooking a nice valley. It consists of a a
small
circle of small standing stones within which is a U shape area of flatish
stones
as a sort of pavement. In the centre of the U are some larger standing stones
in a
rough oblong arrangement. At the mouth of the tomb are two fine portal stones
forming a sort of doorway. According to the sign the entire tomb was
originally
covered with a cairn of stones which were removed by the archaeologist who
investigated it. The remains of a youth were found inside.
It is hard to take a photo encompassing the whole tomb as their is no vantage
point
with enough elevation. I brought a small step ladder with me but it was not
really
tall enough with a 24mm.
After I had been there a while trying out angles while waiting for a break in
the
clouds a young tourist couple came along. I moved my ladder out of sight so as
not to spoil any shots as the fellow pulled out his buzzing, beeping whirring -
one
zoom fits all - SLR camera.
Perhaps it was my ladder that gave him the idea so maybe I am partly to blame
but
this fellow decides he wants some elevation so he gets his girlfriend to stand
in
front of one of the outer ring of standing stones - about 1m high - this puts
her
standing in the apron of stones I mentioned, then he makes several attempts to
clamber onto the top of the stone while holding his camera in one hand and his
partners shoulder with the other. A very unsteady arrangement and I bet the
results
are poor as it must have been an f3.5 or slower zoom judging by its size and he
was
shooting one handed and was teetering all the time. The overall level of
lighting
was quite low as the sun was near setting and the tomb is in the shadow of some
trees.
I offered him the use of my step ladder in order to save this place from the
indignity and possible damage but being real macho and with a woman to impress
he
declined. If he had just held his camera over his head and gone for pot luck
with
the framing he would have got as much elevation as he ended up with as he had
to
crouch right over in order to hold onto the shoulder. He would have had
greater
stability too.
This should have been my subject for the day - this .... risking the integrity
of a
Neolithic tomb probably 5000 years old or greater - for the sake of one or two
lousy, probably blurred, shots. It occurred to me but I did not take the
shot. Earlier these two had actually walked right into the heart of the tomb
to
stand within the inner stones, walking on other loose paving stones in the
process.
That archaeologist should have put the cairn back.
Giles
Daryl F Hurley wrote:
> Well.......I got my ADITL shot, now I gotta use up the other 23 frames
> and get the film to the processor!
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