The Alders
When we went to visit our daughter and her family just before Christmas we stayed at The Alders, a resort comprised of small cabins on the beach at the end of the same road our daughter lives on. A few photos were included in an post Not Solstice Shots made on another roll of film.
All of these have been shot with an Olympus XA2. More of this roll can be found at The Last of 2015 and Zip Line.
This film was commercially scanned, twice. The first time it had brightly coloured stripes through most of the images. I took it back, but even though they scanned at a higher resolution and with more care, there is still a lot of banding in some of the scans (especially after I adjusted some of the levels in Lightroom to get them closer to what I would have done with a scanner). I guess I will have to rescan a few of these myself when I can find the time – the bottom shot here is worth some more attention I think.
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Olympus XA2, ISO400, Kodak Gold, commercially processed and scanned.
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burnt embers 
The banding – have had the same when using old chemicals and it can be quite hard seeing it with a lupe. In fact posted one from a Shams visit 19/02/16: if you look carefully you can see that I got exactly the same results as you have on your last image (only really visible with the scanned image) almost like bromide drag but wider than the sprocket holes. In my case, I think it was were the film touched the reel edges and inhibited the flow of already weak chemicals.
Best of luck with post processing – it took me ages !!
David.
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Thanks for the info David – here is the shortlink to the post you mention in case anyone wants to look at it: http://wp.me/pVRZc-2Oi
You are seeing some pretty subtle things in your images which I guess is a trained eye that comes from years of processing your own film and prints. As to post processing – some thing like this last image rather defies correction. But I do have it set aside for another try (by set aside I mean the negatives are sitting, still uncut, on my light box, waiting for me to get a better workflow for scanning, and I hasten to add all my negatives are in sleeves in a binder unless actually in process somehow).
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i like all of these especially the third one as it is! where is this? what an awesome cabin and place.
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Hi Peter – nice to see you in these parts. I still intend to rescan the third one to see what else is in there and how it looks without stripes 🙂
The Alders Resort is on the east coast of Vancouver Island, just north of Comox in the Merville area. It is at the very end of Williams Beach Road. I am guessing that this is Williams Beach. http://aldersbeachresort.com/
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The subtle atmospheric feel of the last shot is very attractive – shame about the banding.
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What a lovely spot – I’ll have to add it to the list of places to see on my next visit!
For the record, I actually like the third shot they way it is – it seems ephemeral, somehow, with the “flaws.”
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I think you would like it – its is quite rustic accommodation but the location is stunning, with a nice big horizon to settle your Texas self while away.
The third shot is likely to feel flawed and ephemeral even when rescanned – it is pushing the negative to its limits to get something out of it I think. Lots of grain will be the order of the day I expect.
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Grain’s not always a bad thing. Right?
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Grain is often a good thing in film. In digital, perhaps not so much. I think these days if I had a noisy digital shot, I might well run some film “filters” past it to get it to look like grainy film, then it would be more pleasing to my eye.
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Great view of these old cabins made by logging families in the 1920s to escape the fire hazard inland.
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Hi richard, thanks for dropping in a bit of historical information about the Alders. It is an interesting spot, though we did not make good use of it as all that we really needed was a bed for the night and did not have time to enjoy the setting. Also, did not really have the time to deal with a rather temperamental (and totally different from my own) wood stove and thus were either fiddling with relighting the stove, or leaving for good or off to bed just as the cabin got warmed up. I probably won’t stay there again as for my needs it was not worth the cost, but it sure is a beautiful spot.
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The cloudscape over foreshore with dark greenish reflections appeals to me a lot in a sombre sort of way.
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Hi Val, it appeals to me as well. I will be trying to get a better scan of it so that I can work it up better than this. Keep your eyes peeled, that will show up around here in the next week or two I expect.
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I certainly agree with you on the final shot here! (Is there a chance that the lines are a fault in the original processing, being a physical presence on the negs as opposed to an introduction in the scanning process?)
Happy New Year to you!
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Hi Stephen – thanks for the comment, and it’s great to see your images – some strong minimalist photos there!
I looked at the negatives and there is no sign of these faults with a 8x lupe. I think it was the scanner – this shot is very thin and it was probably quite a stretch for them to get anything out of it. Even so, I suspect I can do better with my scanner and quite a lot of time!
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Scanning is not the most exciting occupation!
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You have that right! I usually do my own, but with other time pressures over the holiday I had the local lab do a couple of rolls. They have done a better job for me in the past, but this time it seemed a bit much for them.
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