Graham Young

Old Brighton Pier 

We were spending a long week end, last November, in Sussex. Our final day had been spent around Brighton and it had been drizzling rain all day – the light being equally bad. The rain stopped when we got back to the hotel and I decided to give it one more go whilst there was at least some light left. I thought that I would pay a visit to the sea front and take some shots of the old pier whilst it still remained; at least I would then have a record of it. In the few minutes it had taken me to reach the sea, the light had changed

from a dull, uninteresting, various shades of grey to brilliant reds and yellows (still with some grey clouds I must add). I had with me an EOS5 fitted with a 50mm f1.4 USM lens and UV filter. I spent a fair time shooting various views of the pier whilst the light held and decided to call it a day but as I left I looked back and noticed the two lads walking along very close to the sea, I managed to set up a shot and tried another, but the camera was already rewinding so that was that - the light had lasted longer than my film.
I was shooting at a fairly large aperture, probably around F5.6 and at certainly no faster than 1/60 sec. The negative was taken on Ilford HP5+ rated at ISO 320 and developed in Ilford - Ilfotec LC29 1:19 for 7mins. The print was made on Forte Polygrade (Cold Tone Fibre Base) split between grades 0 / 5 and developed in Ilford Muligrade developer for two minutes (this developer is somewhat warm but it gives a great effect with Polygrade Cold tone).