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

Les studying form

I spotted Les sitting in this recess and asked if it would be OK to take his photo. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time’ he said cryptically.

He used to work for a small specialist photographic dry mount company (dry mounting is the use of a dry tissue adhesive that is activated by heat from a heat press or an iron to bond artwork or a piece of fabric to a mounting board *).

Getting the exposure right for these photos was extremely challenging. The midday sun was directly behind us overhead, reflecting brightly from Les’s light coloured jacket. He stood out like a beacon against the matte-black painted shadowed interior, framed by the full sun on the brickwork arch. I hate to think what a reflected light meter reading would have suggested, the contrast was really harsh.

I was further challenged by the fact that the viewing screen of the Rolleicord, dark at the best of times, was completely washed out in the bright sunlight so I more or less guessed the framing of these two shots. I think I’m able to visualise the square format quite well now, though I wish I had taken several more bracketed shots.

Les was not just any old craftsman. He reeled off the names of most of the prominent Fleet Street photographers from 1960-1995 (he retired in 1995) that he had done work for, as well as artists such as Gilbert & George.

He helped prepare the huge panels for Gilbert & George’s Postcard Sculpture exhibition, using a massive 20 foot by 8 foot dry mount press.

He had a few stories about the Daily Mirror snappers too. On Mondays they would come in with hundreds of rolls of film they had shot over their weekend ‘off’ to get them developed. Most of these rolls were from their sidelines such as weddings and portraits. ‘They weren’t nicking though, or at least I don’t think they were. The film was all free so I suppose they just used it’. Les sounded quite moral on the subject.

On leaving him, I photographed this pair of sunglasses (with a Rolleinar I for the close-up):

The funny thing was, as I was focusing I heard Les’s voice behind me. ‘Are you taking a photo of them sunglasses?’ he asked slightly incredulously. It turned out he had found them several days earlier, sans arms, and had hung them on the nail on the fence in case somebody should come back to look for them. ‘Why would anybody want to wear a pair of glasses like that?’ he said. Exactly my thoughts. I thought they looked more like an alien butterfly than sunglasses anyway.

And just to round it off, I found a pukka pair of 3D sunglasses, fully functional, on the way home!

* More information about dry mounting at http://www.trueart.info/dry_mounting.htm

Mr Vader has left the house…

One that paid off!

It was being auctioned by somebody who was selling a dead relatives belongings*. He had a 100% rep though nothing camera related. The images on eBay were a bit crap and normally I’d avoid like the plague but the auction included 3 Rollei Bay I filters, a Bay I Rolleinar II (3 section with Rolleiparkeil), a Rollei Bay I lens hood, a Rolleicord Focal Press manual and an original 1954 hardcover edition of the ‘Rollei Handbook’ by Alec Pearlman.

I wasn’t expecting too much from the camera to be honest, I was interested in the accessories.

Shadow of a lamp post

What arrived was a Rolleicord IId in extremely good condition, with case. The optics are superb – fungus free, no separation and unmarked. The focusing is smooth and the viewing screen clean. I opened it up as soon as it arrived and the mirror is like new, just some dust. No pitting or silver loss. Somebody has obviously looked after this camera well.

The accessories were in their original bakelite Rollei cases complete with little chamois wraps! Oh yes. It gets better though. The camera even had the original hard-to-find single piece solid aluminium double lens cover (not the hinged burnished one though lol). None of this was even mentioned in the auction.

Cosmetically the Rolleicord has some paint wear, but no dents and dings. All very nice!

Galvanized iron fishies on a galvanized iron fence

So how does it perform?

The first thing I noticed was the comparatively flimsy build compared to the ‘Flex. The ‘Cords were built as a ‘cheap’ alternative to the pro ‘Flex so that amateurs could get their hands on them at a reasonable price. Flimsy is of course a relative term because any camera from 1949 that is surviving as well as this one is obviously robust.

The next most obvious difference is the weight – it is approx 850g compared to the 3.5F’s hefty 1120g. It feels really light. The Super Ikonta weighs in at about 1200g but that is a brick. I’m used to the heavier cameras so from a shooting POV I didn’t find this an advantage because I found it harder to keep the camera stable. Easier to carry though.

This model Rolleicord has the Triotar f/3.5 taking lens. While it doesn’t compare with the Planar and the Tessar, the Triotar isn’t nearly the ‘dog’ you might be led to believe if you read all the elitist crap in the forums. I think the term ‘dog’, like ‘flimsy’, is also relative in this case. Darth Vadar’s helmet above is super sharp and the background blur is not unpleasant (IMHO). 1/100s at f/5.6 I think. Funny thing is, as I lined up a second shot, the helmet fell into the Creek as if zapped by a light sabre. So no more shots of that!

Here is a photo that is a bit soft though:

Bath time

This was the first shot to be fair, and it is a lovely subject so I’m including it. It taken was through a small gap in a fence, the light was poor and I couldn’t brace the camera as well as I would have liked for the slowish shutter speed (1/25s). I was also getting used to the ergonomics which are very different from those of the 3.5F and the Automat – much worse if you coming from those models to the Rolleicord:

• there are no shutter speed and aperture dials, just levers
• the aperture and film speed windows are hard to read from above
• the focus-knob is on the ‘wrong’ side (the right side)
• there is no winding crank, just a winding-knob next to the focus-knob (easily confused with each other by feel)
• having to press the button inside the winding knob before being able to wind the film on (doesn’t prevent double exposures though)
• having a relatively dark viewing screen (notoriously dark on this model)
• having to cock the shutter after winding the film
• confusing the shutter release lever with the shutter speed lever (I’m right handed and the shutter-speed lever is in exactly the same place as the shutter-release on the 3.5F and Automat)

Once used to all of that (about 3 shots I reckon, I have a functioning brain after all) all was hunky-dory in ‘Cord land. The only real bummer is the dark viewing screen, even with the super clean mirror etc – something these models are notorious for. It is fairly easy to get around this with the magnifier though and use the screen for ‘guessing’ general composition. It didn”t really cause any problems and the light wasn’t that great yesterday evening.

Razor wire

Nice and sharp at the edges too, not just the wire hehe.

Of course, I had to shoot my favourite gantry for comparison

All of these were ‘test’ shots, but I’m fairly happy with the way they have turned out. This Rolleicord is a real bargain. Sometimes it is worth going with the gut feeling. There again, sometimes it doesn’t turn out so well

Ben, are you reading this? That is the ‘Lose’ part of the post title. But that is a future post and may ultimately turn into a ‘win’…

* I emailed the seller after the auction and he replied that he found the camera while clearing out his recently-deceased Great-Aunt’s belongings. It was eBay or landfill… She was a photographer, bought the ‘Cord new in 1949, and used it until her death. There were comparatively few women using Rolleis in the 1950′s and 1960′s (we know one famous one, and I’d do quite alot to get my hands on one of her cameras). I wonder if there is a back-story here?