What feels like an age ago (it was actually the first week of March), the year’s first Emulsive film party rolled around and we broke out our favourite mid-speed Ilford film with a blue logo for shoot week of the #FP4Party. Films were processed the week afterwards, before being shared on Twitter the week after that. As usual, there was some wonderful stuff submitted that showed the true versatility of the film.

In what would turn out to be the final couple of weeks before the Coronavirus lockdown, I took two trips on consecutive days during shoot week, and shot a couple of rolls through my Mamiya C330f along the way. I offer 50% of the pictures I took for your enjoyment below.
First up, I headed to North Clare for the usual sights of a 5,000 year old tomb, some grey skies and the Black Head lighthouse at the mouth of Galway bay.

During the same week, I also tried a couple of shots with my new-ish LED light panel. We had a vase of flowers that were past their best and seemed the ideal, if slightly cliched subject for a quick shoot with the light and a Nick Cave tour poster backdrop. I also drafted in my heavy-breasted angel of love and Leica M6 as props.

The other trip was the well-trodden path south to Ballyvourney. It’s a Catholic pilgrimage site that I’ve photographed before (although not as well as Alys Tomlinson) where the well, shrine and graveyard are often covered with offerings, or Ex-Voto from the faithful.

And finally, on the way home, I made a cheesy long-exposure of the Torc waterfall near Killarney.

As usual, FP4 performed perfectly and gave predictable results, something that I look for in my film stock, having spent enough years being disappointed by expired or unsuitable films. I processed these rolls in Ilford’s DD-X in the kitchen and scanned them at home.