The forge was hot, the banter amusing to the crude, yet always the focus was on the work.

My approach ws to shoot film, it was advised against at briefing but I needed this to be a success and something that could be used for the BHP. Fuji Neopan 400CN (C41) was my film stock, loaded into the Nikon F80 with a 35mm F2, and a Voigtlander Bessa R with a 50mm F2. The goal was to shoot mainly with the Nikon till it rewinds, shoot the bessa and go back to the Nikon with fresh film.

Today was a good day. After the late night drive back from Brighton (that last half mile was hard!) it was an early start to be at the Farriers. This was a stroke of luck, when I phoned round farriers in the week, my second call was to James, instead of going on call with him, I was invited to his forge on the farm where 4 farriers from around the country (Bristol, Forest of Dean, Yorkshire and local) were meeting to practice for a farrier competition at the end of the month. Working in pairs they would have hour and a half to shoe half a horse and make a shoe to represent an example given, before passing over to the other half of the team to do the same. The modern farrier works often with pre made shoes, and adapt them to fit on site using a small kiln in the van and a grinding wheel, but not here, for this competition is is the true tradition, taking cast iron rods and turning them into shoes to fit (in this case) a Masters horse for the hunt.

This of course didn't work, as soon as I started shooting, perhaps helped by the intense heat of the furnace, the batteries in the Bessa promptly died meaning I had to use educated guesses, ocationally double checking against the Nikon for exposure.

I was expecting to stay late at work this coming week to process but I couldn't wait, especially with some of the compositions of the shoeing of the horse, and my hope of a shot where sparks of iron come towards the camera. Instead I risked the high street lab, snappy snaps, process only, one hour is £3.99 per roll, results seem ok but some will need a rewash and looks like the bleach is mixed too strong in the machine. I will start scanning tomorrow, after hopefully shoot number two for this assignment.