A LOT OF BULL
By Bill Broadhurst
Sometime ago my wife and myself were on holiday in some remote part and were out for a stroll. Not going anyplace in particular we found ourselves wandering across a small deserted beach. Suddenly there was a drumming of hooves behind us and a herd of cows and one magnificent Charollais bull were enjoying the same beach with us. I do not know if someone had left a gate open or if, like us, they were on holiday.
Now pure bread Charollais bulls are not common and knowing that "cattle breeds" are a subject of interest to one of the libraries to which I contribute I put in to practice one of the often repeated bits of advice. Always carry a camera preset to an approximate exposure, and I was quick enough to get off one shot of this bull.
Now he was, like most cattle, quite curious about me and my efforts to get in close for a portrait, merely wanting to lick me. Having kept cattle for more than 25 years I know that being licked by one is to be avoided, for cow's tongue is like a very rough grade of sandpaper and will leave a red face for a couple of days. After the pair of us had pranced around for quite a while I only managed the one grab shot of this particular bull.
When I got the transparency it was a disappointment in that it was underexposed and a bit washed out. I almost threw it away, but second guessing as Agency, who have to second guess the buyers is a tricky business, and I decided to submit the picture and let the Agency decide. They accepted it on file, but more to my surprise, when I got their print-out it showed two pictures of the bull. This I queried as I was sure I had only got off one shot. They had liked it so much that they had had a duplicate made. So much for my judgement of the worth of a trannie. So far it has sold twice and each time my share of the loot has been £100. Always carry a camera!.
Now if you look closely at this picture you will see that there is another defect. The poor animal has only got three legs. So I contacted the farmer and asked about this. "Well" he said, "you will find difficulty believing this, but one night my wife and my self were in bed when there was a tremendous noise downstairs and this bull had broken out of his pen and into the house to warn us that the house as on fire. We slid the bannisters and onto his back and he dashed outside with us and saved our lives".
"What has that to do with him only having three legs" I asked. "Well", he said we could hardly eat a brave beast like that all at once, could we?"
A Couple of Tips
No.1 The RAYCO formula book is available in a new condition. No.4 The formulae offered are not lot different from those in edition No3, but there is much more information in the way of tips and hints. Particularly I like the conclusion for the first time of pH values. RAYCO also now sell a pH meter but I have no experience of it.
No. 2 Mounting prints. The old dry mounting tissue method will not work with resin coated papers, they will not tolerate the heat. Years ago I had some wallpaper paste left over after a decorating session, so why not see what would happen? It worked perfectly well and prints mounted years ago are as good as the day they were done. Also I found that if I store the paste in a screw lid jar it seems to keep indefinitely. This is ordinary cold water wallpapering paste.