Sometimes a pinhole camera is a must!
This is Sevendroog Castle. Designed by a Mr. Jupp, this folly was built in 1784 by Lady James in the grounds of what was then Park Farm Place.
She built the tower following the death of her husband, to commemorate his capture of the pirate fortress of Severndroog on the Malabar coast of India on the 2nd April 1755.
Once more the double exposure pixie strikes. Oh for exposure locks! It is just a question of workflow, but I use several cameras and it is taking a while to get used to the quirks of each one.
I wonder what Lady James would think of Severndroog now.
We were visiting the area I thought was Oxleas Woods which I know now is made up of Oxleas, Castle and Jack Woods. Sevendroog Castle is in the eponymously named wood.
These negatives were stand developed in Rodinal 1+100 for 1 hour. From my point of view, a very satisfying and lazy way to develop. 1 minute of gentle inversions (about 25) followed by 59 minutes of nothing at all.
For closer in I used the Rolleicord, the Rollei photos are all done in Rodinal 1+50, 15 minutes with the usual 30 second shuffle.
This is a grand folly (aren’t they all) and really brings home to me that at a time when large sections of the population of the UK were starving or living in semi-feudal conditions (particularly as a result of the taxes to raise money for the war with France) some families had the money to spend on structures like this. Even in 1784 it must have cost a fair bit of money. Paradoxically though, if Lady James had been more of a benefactor we wouldn’t have this wonderful architectural heritage. Tough call…
From a photographic point of view, the graffiti adds bucketloads to the scene, a contemporary counterpoint to the folly and the fact that whoever is supposed to take care of it can’t… There are iron grilles on the windows, tags all over it and from a ‘heritige’ perspective it fails badly.
There is more graffiti elsewhere in the woods too, including the trees.
Another nifty self portrait, more like ET though
Further along the wall.
It is difficult to see the tags on the tree below, but I like the light and shade
by skinnyvoice
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