I’m now well into my third month without Facebook, and I have no inclination to go back. My account remains deactivated rather than deleted because I still have uses for Messenger, but the main site has no attraction.
I have noticed a lot of links in Tweets to people’s FB postings; sometimes I can see them sometimes I can’t. C’est la vie; posts are ephemeral, life is too short.
Incidentally, for anyone who has done those Facebook personality type tests, this is worth a read, and the 10-minute talk below is worth a watch. Of course, there is no doubt a huge marketing reason for the company to play up their influence and gain more customers, but still worth a look.
We’re going to Skye and Harris later in the year for a couple of weeks. I haven’t been to Skye for a long time and have never been to Harris and Lewis. I’m looking forward to it immensely.
Amy: Seagull 4B1; 1997?
As far as I can recall, last time I was on Skye I was using my old Canon SLRs, probably the Canon A1. I know at one point I used a Seagull 4B1 TLR too. I’ve been digital for a while now, but I still have film cameras and they all have film in. Every so often I take one away with me, but it tends to stay in my bag–I keep getting suckered by the ease of digital, the immediate gratification. So for this coming holiday it crossed my mind only to take film cameras, and I may yet do that.
One of those film cameras will, if all goes according to plan, be an old Pentax 645 medium format I’ve just bought off eBay.
Why the 645? because I saw a documentary of Harry Hook in Africa, and was impressed by his use of a 645 and the results he was getting.
Pentax 645
I’m not so dumb as to think the camera makes the photo, especially because he is a highly experienced and talented professional with access to professional laboratories. But, having done a lot of research, the 645 seems a good place to start to step up to the larger film format, and Hook’s brilliance gives me something to aim for.
The Seagull (which I still have) is a nice enough camera within its own limits (and I have some Rollei 400ASA black and white film in it right now as a test roll), but it’s not flexible enough for what I want.
With a bit of luck you’ll start seeing some results here soon–I have a scanner by my desk that takes medium format negatives, and test efforts were promising, though I have some work to do to make a proper go of it (see the pic of Amy above).
The challenging thing to do, the one to throw me back entirely to film, would be to take only the 645 and a tripod and a bag full of either Ektar or Portra (or similar). I’ll decide on that once I’ve run a couple of test rolls through the camera.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a story being published at some indeterminate point in the near future. You can read about it at this link. I know it’s getting closer because (a) I’ve had the edits back and (b) I got an email today about publicity when it comes out–essentially my role, amongst other people’s, in making sure potential readers know about the book so that they can buy it.
The email links to this blogpost at Fox Spirit Books. It is very sensible and I understand what it’s getting at. If I have a problem, it’s that if someone persistently promotes their work to/at me on Twitter, I reach for the ‘mute’ button.
So I’m pondering the dividing line between reasonable and unreasonable promotion, and obligations to the other writers and the publisher, given that Twitter is now the only social media platform I use.
We went out for a stroll yesterday, a start to working off the festive chocolate glut. It wasn’t a huge walk, just three miles alongside the Union Canal from Ratho, but it was enjoyable.
It’s a while since I/we’ve been there. Some new houses and a marina on one side of the bridge caught me unawares, but on the eastern side, the one we walked, the only change was a path has been laid to replace to previous muddy track. The narrow boat owners weren’t out on the canal, but canoeists were, powering their way through the murky water.
It wasn’t especially busy, but there were a pleasing number of friendly dogs looking for ear scratches and chin rubs.
Goosander
Bird life was unexciting, and there was no sign at all of aquatic life until, towards the end of our walk, a handsome pair of goosander put in an appearance.
Unfortunately there was no room at the Bridge Inn for lunch.
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For some reason, not long after the bells at New Year, I found myself pondering mortality and transience. Partly, I think, this came from an awareness that the older one gets, and with each passing regular ‘event’, the shorter life seems; partly also it was because of the death of my uncle over the holiday period; and partly it came from reading Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.
Perhaps it was thoughts of transience, or perhaps it was just getting round to it at last, but for whatever reason I spent last night working out the basics of Robin Dransfield’s Fair Maids of February, one of those songs I come back to again and again and again.
From the darkness of winter, the first flowers to venture And now you’re lying beneath the snow
Fair Maids of February are snowdrops.
The song covers, or hints at, a lot of things, and I catch different resonances every time I listen to it or read the words. Robin and his brother Barry, individually or as a duo, have so many good songs.
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