Today was a desk day spent re-scanning old negatives on the Nikon Coolscan V ED scanner. The picture below was meh when scanned with the Epson Perfection V200 but is pleasing to me now.
Although the focus is off, I love this picture.
P and I had just checked in to our room at the Waldorf Hilton in London, and as she always does, P jumped on the bed and used the remote to browse the TV channels. It is memorable because it was taken at the end of a death march week at work in April 2010. I remember starting this holiday weekend all stressed and P being extremely supportive and trying her best to give us a good time.
I’m using up my remaining holidays for 2024, taking every Monday off until Christmas so that I have long weekends to enjoy for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been great, which has ruined our plans for hiking. On Saturday and Sunday, we actually had Storm Darragh sequestering us at home, and the weekends before, we had Storm Conall and Storm Bert.
Our last walk, going up Caesar’s Camp from Claycart Bottom, seems a distant memory now. The climb was difficult for P, but we still enjoyed the view from the summit. I took pictures on our way up and down. We were greeted by a beautiful view of the sun beaming through the colourful trees at Claycart Bottom, so I am hoping that the pictures from my film camera come out good. But I have to wait until I can finish the roll of film to develop it and see the results.
I installed Nikon Scan software to replace VueScan and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the scans. Right off the scanner, the colours are good and require little correction. Here are some images from one of our walks along Basingstoke Canal.
We started today’s walk at Basingstoke Canal in Mytchett and progressed to Pirbright where we crossed Curzon Bridge into the MOD managed land to head back to our starting point.
Along the way, we stopped at Frimley Lodge Park for pictures and for feeding the birds. P had a lot of fun throwing bread scraps at them and having them follow her up and down the towpath. We then continued to Pirbright, stopping at every lock, including the one where this picture was taken. We came across a lovely cottage, which seemed abandoned and got P fancying about cottage living.
The walk through the MOD managed land was a workout, the ground going up and down. It didn’t help that a mist developed and we increased our pace to avoid the rain. With more time, we would have gone through the woods instead of following the sandy paths, which didn’t present much to photograph. P and I joked at the insane number of portaloos we came across in seemingly middle of nowhere. I think they’re put there for soldiers to use during breaks in their training, but they could also have been used by people who manage the woodland.
The end of the hike was disappointing as we walked through an area where people bring their dogs and allow them to foul the ground. I think the next time we do this walk, we’ll avoid the last bit of woodland and take the roadside instead. Going that way will not be as picturesque, but it will spare us the nastiness.
