Spring is well and truly upon us and Motorcycle Shows are happening again. The weather is warming up and folk can bring their pride and joy out to play afer tinkering and polishing over winter. I enjoy a good Bike Show and I recently attended an event organised by the National Association for Bikers with a Disability, (NABD), here in the UK. A Charity I am proud to be involved with. As part of our annual fundrasing activities we have a party in a field with our friends and it's a chance for folk to bring their bikes out and show them off whilst enjoying great entertainment a good company.
I hoped Saturday would be bright and sunny, but it was a cloudy day with the odd sunny spell and I thought my choice of an orange filter may not have been the best idea I have had lately. However, I sallied forth with wanton abandon. I was at the event to take digital photos, but I like to take a film camera with me for my own personal enjoyment. This year I took my Nikon F801s and AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D and fitted it with a Cokin A filter holder and Cokin A orange filter.
An orange filter will boost contrast and reduce red, orange and yellow to lighter shades, it also makes black go even blacker. Nice! I knew there would be a couple of shiny gloss black bikes there and I fell in love with a 125cc BSA Bantam that had been beautifully restored. There are usually a few clues that a bike has been kept clean and ridden or has been polished within an inch of it's life, only coming out on sunny days. This was in the first category.
It had been done properly, but not over done. You can go too far when restoring bikes, but this one was done just right in my humble opinion. Polished where it was needed and painted where it wasn't. Stainless nuts and bolts held it together and it looked the business. It was also ridden to the show (we dont accept entries that have been trailered in) and it's owner declared it to be a lot of fun to ride and hoped for nice weather on the following day so he could take a couple of detours on his way home.
There were plenty of other bikes and trikes on show, from a kids bike and a Honda C90 to a huge V12 Jaguar engined monster, with some shiny British, American and Japanese marques in between. There was also a couple of Rat Bikes, they're kind of bike you fix with whatever you have in the shed and polish is a dirty word. My mate Billy won the Rat Bike trophy with his Suzuki he lovingly named BinBag. Check out the digital photo of it at the end.
Bank Holiday Monday is traditionally wet here in the UK so I saved my developing for that afternoon and was helped by my grandson Ethan who had come to visit. He is still buzzing about developing his film and it was good to talk about it as I did mine. I chose to develop my roll of Ilford FP4+ 125 in Kodak HC110 dilution B (1+31) for 8 minutes at 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I scanned it with my trusty Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and removed dust spots and scratches with Affinity Photo 2.
Here's a few favourites from this roll and as always I have placed them and more in an album on Flickr for you to enjoy in full resolution via the link below. I had fun shooting this roll of film and with more sunshine on the way in the days and months ahead, I hope to shoot more of it. I hope you enjoy them.
Nikon F801s - FP4+ 125 - Orange Filter
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