Last year as part of a mini documentary project we were working on at work for Duncan Fearnley, me and my video guy at work James drove 200 miles (each way) to visit a company called Anglian Willow in Chelmsford.
Geoff, the man mountain in the blue shirt, is the current owner of Anglian Willow after inheriting the business off his father – as I understand it, the company has been a family business for 5 generation. Geoff makes a living harvesting the wood from willow trees belonging local land owners. He then drives them on the back of his truck to his little workshop where he cuts the rounds of wood into triangular segments.
These segments are then sawed into regular shapes and carefully graded depending on the quality of the wood. The straitness of the grain, the amount of grains, the colour of the wood, lack of knots are all being factors in this grading process. The saw cut regular shapes of wood are then dipped in wax at each end and stored in large drying cabinets to dry before being sold to UK based manufacturers of cricket bats.
These photos were shot with my Leica M3, with my all time favourite lens the Zeiss 50mm ZM Sonnar. They were then scanner with my Noritsu LS1100 scanner.
Hey H, good to see some pictures from this shoot. I remember you talking about the DF cricket bat thing ages ago on a podcast interview. Was it the Sunny16? I think it was but in the days when Gra treated you with some respect.
Anyway, I feel there is a certain synergy between cricket and analogue processes. Is it something to do with the time it takes? It’s years since I wielded a bat, but there’s a huge satisfaction when middling a thwack, much like the feel of a beautifully built camera or the creamy sound of an LP on a decent turntable.
As I write this, I’m listening to a cello suite by Bach on LP, which feels in keeping.
Haha, yeah it was – I’m not sure I have even had much respect… Well deserved lack of respect, if you ask me.. 🙂
I know exactly what you mean about the synergy – that was the hole idea behind shootrewind
Nice series…one of the best bats I’ve ever used was a DF…great work mate.
Cheers 🙂
You might want to recommend that man mountain at least wear some safety glasses.
I did say that – he said that it’s hiss own business, he won’t sue himself
Nice series of environmental portraits Hamish. Great to see the qualities of the Sonnar you love so much and the Noritsu functioning. How are you two getting along? Does it have a Digital ICE system like the Pakon F135?
It does have ice, yes. I’m getting there with it now – it’s been a steep learning curve, and it’s not without it’s odd traits. I also need to spend some time focusing it again, which is a pain in the ass without the special tool to do it…
Zeiss glass is still a league on its own I would always prefer it over Leica.
After the death of my gandfather I got his Contax 137 with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar 1,4/50mm
and compared it to a M50 and R50 which I owned in those days and found out for me
that it seems to be sharper with even better Bokeh !
Beautiful mini documentary, I would have liked few shots more though : )
Cheers fella! 🙂