Well, there is nothing wrong with 4 x 6" prints in my view. They
show the whole picture without having to move back 6 feet and they do
not demand hugely fine grain film to enjoy. But we *can* enlarge our
photos if we wish and I enjoy doing so now, whether in the darkroom
or on the Mac. I have just printed on A3 a photo of the Alhambra
Palace (in Granada, Spain) on my Epson 1290. Although there is some
curvature on the photos (it was a 35/2 pointed upwards to include the
new moon), the overall effect is pleasing. The quality of the lens
is such that the enlargements is good. It is picture no 407/17 at
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko/PhotoAlbum3.html. The print is on a
wall in my house, but so are a number of 4 x 6 prints in smaller
frames.
While I am on the .Mac site, I must recommend it to Mac users out
there. It is easy to use and there is 100Mb of storage available for
the fee. You can access it from OS9 or OSX using the iDisk system
which means you network to the server. I was a little sceptical
about the whole marketing effort by Apple, but it works well and is
fun to use.
Travelogue:
We went to Spain, Andalucia, for our "Summer" holiday at the
beginning of October. It is a beautiful area and the weather was
still quite warm. We visited the El Torcal National Park, a Karstic
Landscape, while we stayed in Antequera; after a few days there we
travelled to Granada and stayed in a Pension in the Albaicin, an
ancient Muslim district, and visited the Alhambra on 2 days. We
finished the holiday with a couple of days on the coast at Nerja.
In Antequera and Nerja we stayed in Parador Nacionales, a luxurious
set of hostelries in Spain which serve *excellent* food. Most are
set in stately homes or other famous buildings. The Nerja Parador
had a white balustrade about 50 feet above the beach with a lift down
to the beach. The Pension (Casa del Aljarife, it's on the www) in
the Albaicin had a great setting and we had a view from our bedroom
over the Albaicin and towards the Alhambra Palace.
The Alhambra Palace is a stupendous place. My photos do not do it
justice of course, but the shots of the Carlos V Palace and of the
whole Palace from the Mirador opposite give an idea of how large and
beautiful it is. I have still more shots, but I have not scanned
them yet. I have some mono shots as well. The inside of the Nasdrid
Palace is wonderful, and the gardens of the Generalife (situated
further up the ridge from the (Alcazaba) castle part and Nasdrid
Palace. In some shots it has the snow-covered Sierra Nevada in the
background.
Granada is lovely: the food is great and varied, the buildings old
and beautiful and the people extremely friendly. I speak a little
Spanish, but the dialect was sometimes a little difficult. I wish
that I had hitched there in my journey around Europe in 1971 when I
was 16/17 (we were tempted North to the (unfounded) prospect of free
love in Denmark ;-)). It is a great place for adults and for
rebellious youths to visit, albeit perhaps a little pricey for the
latter. And to wander about the Albaicin on my own with a camera was
just bliss! There are no real streets, although the scooter riders
try to use the steps as such, and the houses are all tiny, but for
the "Carmen" properties which seem to be little oases of garden next
to a large house. You can see the view into the Albaicin on some of
my photos. The green areas are Carmenes.
About the only bad part of the holiday was the "cheap" flight to
Malaga on Easyjet. It cost £300 sterling return (!) and the seats
were so close together that the emergency instructions (on how to
brace in the event of a crash landing) were impossible to comply
with. I don't think I will take a "cheap" flight again. I now have
no compunction in saying that they should be abolished and that
aircraft fuel should be taxed along with other fuels, especially in
the USA. They operate below capacity, they pollute the atmosphere
and the spoil the world with tourism (what do you mean I'm a tourist?
;-)).
I must now get around to printing, in my darkroom, my mono shots. I
used my OM4 (the one I dropped on cobblestones in Trieste a few years
ago) with an earlyish 50/1.4 for mono film, and my OM4Ti (I love the
colour of the LCD panel in the viewfinder) for slide film. I also
had an XA with colour print film and my Bronica RF645 with mono and
colour print. I took a limited selection of lenses: 21/3.5, 35/2,
50/1.4, 90/2, 50-250/5. The zoom was very useful, but the 90.2 I
used for only a few shots. It all fitted into 2 Billingham bags, a
Photo Packington for the Bronica and travelling documents, and a 206
for the remainder. Those bags can carry a great deal of kit and they
can get heavy. But at least I was allowed to take them both in the
cabin of the 737.
Chris
--
?
~~~~~ ><>
Chris Barker
Gamlingay, England
mailto:chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
mailto:cmib@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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