fingertrouble | Isle of Skye, September 2001 (Reply)

While the world was going mad in September 2001, I was walking in the Isle of Skye taking pictures, mostly monochrome...seemed the safest place to be. This is shot of a rather disturbingly shot up PASSING sign on the top of the remote Quirang - well not so remote as it doesn't have a road, but after 5pm there was no traffic, and I decided to walk across it in late afternoon which yes, meant walking at night by the time I got over the top....where there was only sheep (including spookily dead ones - that shot I used for KLF Dead Sheep show is from this walk) and remains of ancient huts for company.

I lost my Smith & Wesson cap up there, too - wearing it ironically, was doing a sort of Unabomber/Crazy Gunman Chic thing which really wouldn't translate in the US and I wince thinking about that now (was trying to prove a point at work, freak them out, punk in a way...) a gust of wind took it off my head and I couldn't find it even though I saw it go. Just vanished....the feeling of place on the top was, odd. Very strange vibes and felt very remote - I mean after 11 years I can still see and feel that place, where people used to live a long time ago.

*Photo geeking alert! - I usually keep photogeeking to my blog Ragged Trousered Photographer but for the last para posting here*

This is scanned on my new 120 glass holder* for the Nikon Coolscan 8000 - one of the problems with the holders that are supplied is they don't always keep the negative completely flat - not usually a problem but with curved or bent negatives that's a real problem as those bits that curve drop out of focus.

I doubt any of you have noticed this, but it bugged the hell out of me that such an expensive scanner couldn't do edge to edge sharpness - which it can now, even with 35mm. The glass holder just has special glass in it that sandwiches the negative flat...less scary than 'wet mounting' which is what it sounds, it's applying a special alcohol based solution with a glass holder which keeps the negative flat in the same way that a piece of paper 'sticks' to the floor when wet. A lot of professionals use wet mounting, but the idea of putting liquids on my negatives and in my scanner, well, I don't really like that.

* What's the holder? Well negatives are held by a large plastic flat cartridge, which keeps the negatives from 35mm upto 120 size in place as the motor moves it around from negative to negative - probably different to scanners people have used, the idea the negative moves rather than the scanner head, rather than the other way round - but in professional scanners that's usually what happens (drum scanners I think also rotate the negative in a drum around the 'slit' where the scanner is). It also means you can batch scan negatives, Upto 3/4 120 negatives, 12 35mm and 6 slides.

It's a wonder of technology, anyway...

And thanks to Jeb

50poundnote for helping me ship it here, the taxes and shipping cost MORE than the holder, and of course you can't get it here, or if you can it's actually more than even $ = £ conversion which is crazy. Or Cray-Cray as the song goes.