At the junction of Squires Road and Station Road, Marston Moretaine is a rectangular flower box on the left as one enters, and on the other a fire hydrant; this morning a large multi-purpose vehicle pulled up close by the latter. Since in an earlier life I had worked at a Photographers in Weybridge who had one very frequent user of our services for photographing their various body conversions to standard chassis, the sight of this vehicle seemed to be calling me to bring out a camera and take some photos. That company from my earliest days in commercial photography was Hawson Garner.
We would drive to the client and follow in our own vehicle, or be collected from our studios in Weybridge High Street, in the vehicle to be photographed, either way we would be given a brief for the shots needed, if there were more specific details to be highlighted we might meet up with the client or take the brief from their driver, the most frequented site for the pictures was at a spot by the banks of the Thames. I just tried seeing whether using Google Earth I could find the spot after all these years — I failed! Perhaps after the length of time that has passed perhaps I should not be too disheartened!
Back to the present; I just felt that as the sun was shining, despite being from the wrong direction, I just had to get out there and get some shots. I did wonder how many shots I might get before the man had finished his task, and helpfully the Stop cock attachment was the wrong size which forced a delay before one of his colleagues came by with the correct-sized key, giving me a few extra minutes. Eighty shots was not too shameful in the time.
Back in the day, I was shooting those shots on 5x4 sheet film with a Sinar, and on a tripod — these images are in full colour and have been tweaked, and available the same day, whereas I would be in the darkroom to unload the slides, heat the tanks to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, clip them in frames and stay by them in the dark for the Development time which was around eleven minutes raising and lowering the frame each minute, before transferring them via quick rinse into the Fixer for another ten minutes, they then had 30 minutes wash and twenty or so minutes in the Dryer — that only got us to the Negative! The printing of the half- dozen or so shots would take probably another hour or two to get exposed, developed, and printed also in the dark before being washed and generally glazed on a heated stainless steel drum. With other work going through in the same time frame our regular turnaround would be three days, though obviously if needed more quickly this could be reduced, though not the price! Rush fees were the way to allow us the time to work efficiently rather than in mad bursts!
Today’s images taken in the morning, reach the blog in the same day and they possess both quantity and quality. And I am not even being paid for these!
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