Saturday, February 08, 2014

Razu Welding #527


  Razu Welding, Sooke, BC, Canada, October 2013

  This final image concludes my series from Razu Welding made in 2013. I visited the working shop on three occasions, June 24 and June 25 where I shot a total of 32 sheets of 4 x 5 film ( 12 one day and 20 the next ) and again on October 21 where I shot 26 sheets of 4 x 5 film. All of the film images were made on Ilford HP5 black and white film, developed in Kodak HC-110 film developer, the images you see here are scaled down from scans made with my Microtek F2 scanner. The camera I used was an Ebony RW45, lenses used was mostly with my Schneider 120mm semi wide lens, a few images were taken with my Fuji 180mm and my Schneider 270mm , a medium telephoto.

  This has been a most interesting project, although I have driven by the shop many times on my frequent visits to Sooke, BC, where I have family, I had never seen the main doors open, when I drove by that day in June, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a very interesting place with its big old windows, so I turned around and stopped in and introduced myself to the owner, Rasmus I expressed a heart felt interest in photographing his shop, he agreed to let me do so. Each of my "photography sessions" lasted from 2 to 4 hours, I felt it was a privilege to be able to photograph in this working shop, that seemed to me like like walking back in time with all the vintage but still functioning equipment. There are no computers in the shop, none of the equipment is computer driven and that is getting harder to find these days, where the microchip is in nearly every device mechanical or otherwise. The machine shop has long time history in Sooke starting out as a black smith shop.

   A note about my number system, the tile in this post "Razu Welding #527" is my file number of the original negative, the number #527 is number of the negative that I made in the Month of October of 2013. The 527 number doesn't actually mean that I have shot 527 negatives at Razu Welding ( which would be a lot ! ), at the beginning of each new year I start the numbers from #1 and on with the month and year, regardless of the subject matter, landscapes, still life or portraits. 

  Next up will be some new images, fourteen to be exact , from the Cowichan Bay Shipyard, on Vancouver Island, I have been visiting this historic shipyard for over a ten-year period, a selection of my images were featured in the May/June 2013 LensWork #106. After the shipyard I have another long series from another old shipyard I discovered on Vancouver Island. Eventually I will get back to my landscape series in the months ahead.

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