Pegs

This simple image kind of intrigued me when I stumbled upon it.  I only shot one sheet of film of this composition, and fortunately it was not lost in a recent darkroom mishap.  I mixed my developer incorrectly while running a batch of Tri-X Pan 320 in PMK and lost ten images.  I had shot doubles of them all, with the exception of this one.  But it did survive, and ended up getting processed in the next batch, on December 5th.

This is the wall of the blacksmith shop at the Nordegg mine site.  I was on a private guided tour of the site on August 20th last summer when I photographed this.  The wall panelling here is sheet metal, as it was in close proximity to the forge.  Whatever hung on that nail must have been there for many years, to wear that swirled pattern into the steel.  Perhaps it was the wind blowing in through the open windows, or maybe earlier, is was the blowers of the forge.  In any event, it is now a mystery, as only the marks remain.

This was 4" x 5" sheet film, rated at 400 iso and given plus development in PMK.  The shot was taken with my Ebony view camera and a 125mm lens.  The exposure was F41.0 and a shutter speed of 30 seconds.