Quick Blast: Alexandra & Moel Tryfan Quarries

After a busy day at work the weather man said it would be a decent evening for photography, so how could I refuse? With little time to wander round I headed somewhere easy – Moel Tryfan. I always like going to Fron, it’s a strange little village but with so much interesting stuff surrounding it! Anyway, I got to the quarries and it was still spitting rain, but there was some great light from the low sun over Caernarfon so I got snapping.

I only made a quick pass through the pits and out to the top of Alexandra quarry and back again before running out of light but it did allow a few half decent photos and a good idea of what to see next time I’m in the area.

As an aside I was most gutted to see that the Vron Quarry Mill has been demolished. It was still standing last time I visited the area, and I’d hoped to get a snap or two on this visit. Still it’s that ever changing nature of these places that draws me back. Anyway, on with the pictures!

Chwarel Yr Eifl

Seemed a bit breezy at home, but that wouldn’t stop me, I was more worried about the cloud cover. Trouble was it was blowing a gale up in Llithfaen as I set off for Yr Eifl! I managed to make it there though and was amply rewarded! There was a mist over the horizon allowing masses of light rays which made for a great backdrop, with fast moving clouds creating a dance of light across the landscape all around. If only I’d had a little more time I’d have loved to make it down to the crusher house and explore the interiors of some buildings on site, but never mind, I’m more than happy with what I came away

Finally back to photography!

It’s been a long absence due to multiple factors but yesterday I finally got to wield a camera once more!

Nothing special as the light was flat flat flat, but a couple to add to the collection nonetheless.

I also got to see the largest enlargement of my work, a huge 8×6 panel which is a crop of one of my images. Very impressive, just don’t stand too close to it!

Adox CMS20: Like T-max on steroids!

Adox CMS20 is an ultra fine grained document film, which boasts not only invisible grain but also an ultra high resolution of around 400lp/mm, that’s pretty damned imoressive! Why isn’t it popular then? Because it’s slow. Glacier slow.

However Caffenol can change that! Caffenol can up the useable speed to 160, Provided you like the look if gives which I have decided is T-max on steroids! You get the same dark and deep shadows with cris detailed highlights that you get with Kodak’s own wonder film, but you get none of the grain and a lot more detail!

To try it out I took t to Dinorwig on a forum meet up, and it didn’t disappoint. These are all straight from the scanner without any dust removal. (The dosnside of a film like this is the dust is bitingly obvious when there’s no grain to mask it!)

It works incredibly well in flat light, bringing out tons of detail that would otherwise be murky. The climbers were shot handheld at 1/125 on a 135mm lens at f2.8necessary I’m afraid, otherwise there would be a whole lot more detail available in the rock. The slate fence and the compressed air pipe both show amazing texture detail!

The film has a fantastic dynamic range, well beyond my scanner’s capability which is a shame, and means grads will be a necessity for landscape work.

The recipe for 300ml:

Coffee 5g; Decahydrate Soda Crystals 10g; Ascorbic Acid 0.7g.

Development time 21 minutes, constant agitation for 1 minute then every 5 minutes.

This stuff fixes nearly instantly – if you use rapid fixer at 1:4 strength then it probably would be instant i na fresh mix. I’m using a seasoned 1:6 mix and it still fixes in around 10 seconds flat! The fixer is turned bright pink, which goes after a while back in the bottle.

So there you go, a new film to play with, capable of remarkable enlargements when done optically, (not so if scanned, film scanners suck) and offering remarkable detail in a 35mm negative!

Sneaking industry into beauty

Something I try and do every day, but rarely is it as effective as this. This is the beac at Trefor. At first glance it’s a typical seascape – but delve deeper and you have 3 Granite quarris and an Iron mine present! Don’t belive me? Well in the background are Tyddyn Hyweland Tan y Graig quarries, in the mid distance is the jetty of the Eifl quarry and the area on the right was the stock yard. Immediately behind the camera is the Morfa Iron mine which is said to run out under the sea, and did at one time use the Eifl quarry tramway too.

So there you go, there’s industry everywhere!

[Prints available here]

Treforus

Treforus is an unfinished and abandoned village in Cwm Ystradllyn. It was begin in the 1850s to accomodate the workforce of the Gorseddau Quarry – a pathetic excuse for slate but nonetheless investors stumped up a massive amount of cash which was promtly squandered on projects like the satellite mill at Ynys y Pandy and Treforus.

I didn’t get long up here, less than half an hour, but managed to squeeze off a few interesting shots in that time. Here are a couple from the LX5. Film shots to follow.

5 Months late…

A few of shots for your amusement. Kodak Ektar shot through the OM2 SP way back in October during a holiday in Cornwall. I have only just got round to doing something with them!