jeudi 28 octobre 2004

More Scenes from Wiltshire... The Spirits of Lyneham Banks I wrote the following some time ago as one of a series of short fillers to describe the many interesting places to visit in Wiltshire. Writing it was not difficult... illustrating the article with only one image was somewhat more so. "The spirits of Lyneham Banks have probably borne witness to more changes in transportation methods during the 20th century than anywhere else in Wiltshire. The route from Swindon to Chippenham has descended the hillside the steep way between the hamlets of Bradenstoke-cum-Clack and Dauntsey Lock, traversed it with a snaking trunk road and then skirted it in 1970s with the extension of the M4 motorway westward to South Wales via the Severn Bridge. (Find maps here) But it was the building of the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal under an Act of 1795 that placed Swindon firmly on the map. This narrow man-made waterway, used mainly for the haulage of coal, joined the Kennet and Avon canal at Semington to the River Thames at Abingdon and hugging the foot of the Banks at one point required seven locks to progress further. In 1833 Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed to engineer the Bristol & London Railroad - the company name was changed that same year to the Great Western Railway - and a route to the north of the Marlborough Downs with almost level track except for two notable inclines and with minimum curvature was adopted. By 1841 his infamous "broad" gauge line was completed with Swindon as one of the stations. But that was not the only change. During the Second World War an aerodrome was built on the top of the Banks between the villages of Lyneham and Bradenstoke which has hosted an R.A.F. fleet of over fifty C-130 Hercules cargo planes used to carry troops, equipment and relief supplies dropped-off to countries thousands of miles away. Despite the intermittent drone from tyre, train and turboprop, Lyneham Banks is a place for peaceful outdoor pleasures. The view across the north Wiltshire dairy land towards Gloucestershire is a patchwork of fields - most still reasonably small in this age of modern farming although the hedgerows are now devoid of the English Elm that was once common here. On other days Mother Nature quietens everything under a blanket of fog and stillness prevails... except perhaps for the munching of a black mare enjoying her refreshing, dewy breakfast." Original thoughts on illustrating the article ranged from images of a High-Speed 125 train, motorway holiday traffic jams, pretty thatched cottages and gardens, lumbering cargo planes... all of which I had in stock. But it was of course the emotional last sentence that made the choice easier... although it was much more difficult printing it! I asked Les McLean, fellow photographer, author and printer, for his interpretation... and the following are edited extracts from his article which I published in my 1997#6 issue of "Darkroom User" magazine. "I printed two versions of Ed's negative to capture the different aspects of of the early morning light and mood of the landscape." "The thinking behind this fairly dark interpretation was to capture the glow of light through the tree left - in addition to showing the damp conditions, full of the decay of early autumn. Ed admitted to me that he photographed the scene forgetting to remove a red filter from the lens... consequently the negative is not the best I have worked from but, nevertheless, all the information needed was there. "I used Sterling Signature variable contrast paper splitting the total exposure into two - 7 seconds with the softest and 5 seconds with the hardest filters in the enlarger. However, there was very little detail in the sky and trees. A lot of manipulation was needed including an extra hard filter exposure of eight times the original for the tree and shaft of sunlight. "The print was processed as normal and post-treatment included selenium and gold toning to bring out the delicate tones even more. The lighter version print (below) was made on Fotospeed Tapestry, a textured fixed grade paper I particularly like working with. A basic 12 second exposure produced the foreground tones cleanly plus there were other manipulations as well as an additional minute given to the problem tree! Further gold toning after processing produced a suggestion of cold blue coloration which enhanced the feeling of a raw, damp autumn morning." After Les McLean sent his versions from my negative I made several attempts at printing it on different grades of paper from full of harsh contrast to delicate and soft so that I could see how the image translated in nostalgic terms to appeal to the reader of my article. I settled for a print midway between the two Les had decided on (ah, the benefit of hindsight) printed using a harder grade 4 filtration in the enlarger... with much burning-in and dodging of difficult parts of the negative. My post-processing was a simple Fotospeed Sepia Tone bath for my warmer interpretation of an autumnal morning. 8:41:21 PM    comment []