What better activity
to do on a sunny Sunday afternoon than go on a lovely bike ride? It was our first wedding anniversary earlier
in May and one of the gifts i got my wife was an old Raleigh bike. I stripped it down, sprayed it up, stuck a
wicker basket on the front and re-assembled it.
I wasn’t sure how well it would go down with her as she had a nasty
accident on a bike when she was younger and has feared riding ever since. All credit to her she got out and now she loves
it!
As part of the
ongoing Guild celebrations in Preston the council have decided to create the
Guild Wheel which connects new and old cycle paths around Preston to create a
21 mile ring of green and pleasant roadway.
Fortunately this wheel passes right outside our house so we decided to
check some of it out.
We were having such
a pleasant time that we went 4 miles and ended up at Brockholes Nature Reserve. If you’re ever in the area it’s well
worth a visit as there are lots of hides to watch wildlife and a lovely
floating visitor centre and restaurant.
We parked the bikes up and had a little wander around – fortunately jess
had brought one of her other anniversary presents, a Holga 120 CFN. We had great fun pottering about and shooting
a roll of Tri-X 400. We had a drink and
some Chorley cakes and then set off on the ride home. After riding 8 miles we were pretty wrecked
(due to general unfitness) and spent the rest of the evening working our way
through the Lost dvd boxset (what the heck is going on on that island?!?!).
Monday night after
work i developed the film in Rodinal (i had to give a little push in
development as i thought the film may be a little underexposed) for about 13
minutes and left it hanging to dry. A
couple of hours later we were in the darkroom getting ready to print. We decided to work on 2 shots from the roll
which make a nice little mini-set together.
After making some test strips we had figured out what exposure we wanted
to work on and what dodging and burning was required. An hour or so later and we had 2 prints that
we were very happy with. Jess loves to
print and i must confess that there is something rather exciting about placing
some paper in a tray and watching an image slowly develop.
Were planning on
going out again this weekend (weather permitting) so hopefully we will take
some more shots and have a pleasant ride.
(The scans dont really do the prints justice i'm afraid)
(The scans dont really do the prints justice i'm afraid)
