Wiltshire Towns + Villages

We have often taken a drive out to one of the surrounding villages one of the best is Castle Coombe.

History of a Garden

At the begining of March 1973 Dave took possession of the keys to our present home, in Chippenham.  We were not gardeners.  My Dad had looked after our garden in Perth and had supplied us with fresh vegetables from his and my grandad's garden out at Luncarty.

I had done a bit of weeding but two small boys and the house took up most of my time.

So I moved down two or three weeks later and found this huge back garden.  At the bottom was an entrance into a lane across a ditch, the ditch was for the run off in wet winter weather from the field at the top of our road.  The boundary at the bottom ran left to right and consisted of a hedge of, we thought at the time, elder.

A concrete block path led from the side of the house down to the entrance into the lane.  In front of the back of the house was a grass patch a third of the way up the rest of the 60' was garden!

Weddings

Dave has been a Wedding photographer for a long time. In these days or as the phrase goes now back in the day, it was a far more complex way of working.

You started with a roll of film which only took 20 maximum black and white images.  You had to be extremely careful when you loaded it into the camera to avoid getting any light in.  In fact you used either a darkroom with red light or a changing bag.  You then took your pictures went back into the darkroom transferred the negative film onto a spool making sure the surfaces were not touching and loaded the film into a tank with a tight fitting lid, in the dark!  Mixing the chemicals was an art in itself, you were required to make sure you had both the ratio correct and the temperature. First the developer, pour away then rinse, and finally the fixer.  All to a strict timetable or you took the risk of over or under developing your film.  That took a few hours, you then had to wait for the negatives to dry.  

To get your pictures you again needed a dark room and equipment.  You carefully mixed your chemicals, developer, clear water and fixer in separate dishes at a set temperature.  Your paper was in a light proof black container and again you could only unwrap it in a darkroom with a red light.  The key to this procedure is knowing when the time was right to tke it our of the developer!! 

  One of Dave's early wedding images

Using wi-fi cards straight from your camera to the laptop in comparison is MAGIC!!