Over the sea to Skye

A week ago, had someone asked me if I had ever visited the Isle of Skye, I would have probably said, "I don't think so". In a more adamant mood, I might simply have said "No". I would have been wrong.

Leaving aside the questionable use of photo editors and artificial intelligence, actual photographs don't lie. So, while revisiting some of my Kodak slides from the early 1970s, I came across some pictures that caused me to wonder, 'Where was that taken?'

Where was that taken?

Fortunately, there is Google. A reverse image search told me that this was a view of Uig on the Isle of Sky. Really? Sure enough, a bit of playing around with Google Street View, allowed me to see Uig from close to the spot I must have stood to take the photo:

Google Street View looking over Uig

There have been changes in the last 50 years: The wharf at Uig has been extended, grass no longer grows in the middle of the road, and barriers have been erected to protect the careless.

The revelation of a Skye visit also made sense of some other photos, like a picture of churning water, taken from a boat - the Skye ferry (before the current Skye bridge was built) and the view from Duntulm Castle (apparently now fenced off from the public).

View from Duntulm Castle

Many photographers travel the globe looking for unusual places to photograph. Of course, that inevitably leads to others following in their footsteps and the uniqueness of those photographs soon fades. 

I'm just back from a virtual visit to Skye in the 1970s. The 1970s was pre-internet, pre-Instagram, pre the explosion of digital photography. If you want a picture of Uig without Armco barriers or the view from a now-inaccessible castle, then I'm sorry; you're a bit late. Isn't time travel wonderful? 

I like the 1970s, "Over the bridge to Skye" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Lockdown travels

Lock-down, level 4 - check. Lock-down, level 3 - check. Lock-down level 2 - in progress. 

Looking on the positive side, these lock-downs have provided the opportunity to catch up on scanning the pre-digital photo archive and engaging in some present-day virtual travel. I find it quite fascinating to visit places that I photographed decades ago, to see what they look like today. Lock-downs or not, a 12,000-mile distance means this type of travel is best done on Google Street View.

This last week, three pictures from the mid-1970s, had me stumped. They were in a box of slides with pictures of Portugal and a couple of shots of a cross-Channel ferry, but I couldn't place them at all - they were certainly UK pictures, but where? I drew a blank at all the known ferry ports, and my memory was equally devoid of clues. The second two shots were clearly in the same town, but the first could have been anywhere.

There was one clue - "MURDINS", sign-written on the side of the parked van. Google took me to the Companies Office and a typewriter repair company based in Kings Lynn. I couldn't recall ever having been to Kings Lynn, but it was worth a shot. After a couple of hours on Google Street View, I came up with these:

It would have been cool if some of those 1970s shops had still been in the same locations, and way too impossible that the modern, white, van could have had "MURDINS" written on the side, but I suppose that there's not much call for typewriter repair companies these days. Still, a nice trip down Memory Lane (almost literally, but without the 'memory' bit!)

On to the past

It’s likely to be a long job; getting a few hundred 35mm Kodachrome slides digitised. It’s not making the digital file that takes time (just a few seconds for each slide) but it’s the time spent making the file presentable afterwards. Take this 1970s image of the Sacre-Coeur in Paris for example - a few seconds to copy, but two hours to clean up. I’m pretty happy with the result but it’s shown me one thing - our equipment today produces results hugely superior to that I used in the film days.

We might worry about digital noise today, but that was nothing compared to the grain that was omnipresent on every 35mm Kodachrome slide. The DSLR I used to copy this picture was more than capable of enhancing every bit of grain on the slide - and don’t dare sharpen the image until you’ve dealt with it. Then there is the dust (and other nasties); if you thought sensor dust was a problem, then you’ll be amazed at what accumulates on a slide that is forty years old. Yes, I used a dust blower and a lens brush but there is stuff on them slides that don’t want to leave home! Fortunately, Lightroom and Photoshop have the tools required to take the image to a place that makes it look better than the original slide - provided you can supply the time.

Long hair, beards and wandering around with a guitar slung over your shoulder; yep, that was the 1970s.