Flotsam and Jetsam

      

Dead birds and rubber gloves, pouches of Chinese fresh drinking water, sections of discarded fishing nets strewn across the tourist beach, stinking of rotting carcasses and seaweed. I think this might be what they call pollution or maybe the destruction of one of the finest surfing beaches in North Devon.

Photographs taken on Woolacombe beach May 2013.

In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict describe specific kinds of wreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposefully cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore. Lagan (also called ligan is cargo that is lying on the bottom of the ocean, sometimes marked by a buoy, which can be reclaimed. Derelict is cargo that is also on the bottom of the ocean, but which no one has any hope of reclaiming.

Pentax P30 - Woolacombe Beach

   

With the demise of Jessops in Barnstaple I thought I was going to struggle to get my 35mm colour film processed – I found a place in South Molton so the panic is over.

The image above was taken with my trusty Pentax P30 35mm camera (no 3702885) using an out of date roll of Kodak Gold film (Kodak GT 800-4). There is something sad about motionless swingboats.

These are on Woolacombe Beach and I always look forward to them being re-erected after the long winter – their colours and painted swirls bring the promise of  hope to the desolate beach.

The winter population of Woolaconbe is very small (around 1,000), but during the summer large numbers of people come to the village for their holidays. Many are motivated to visit because of the excellent surfing conditions found locally.

Swingboats Woolacombe Beach, a photo by 35mm_photographs on Flickr.

Related articles

• Morgue Gallery is a top blog for design in the Uk
• Stolen post from Morgue Gallery
• #seo – marketing the brand
• Call for artists
• Topless = Garden = Nude = Pentax Spotmatic

The Pentax P30, 35mm film camera  has a semi-automatic mode, which chooses most of the settings but allows for more creativity.

Pentax P30 has shutter speeds from 1/1000 of a second to 1 second. The automatic mode on this film camera chooses the best shutter speed and aperture setting for the natural light available.

In 1952 Asahi Optical introduced its first camera, the Asahiflex (the first Japanese SLR using 35mm film). The name “Pentax” was originally a registered trademark of the East German VEB Zeiss Ikon (from “Pentaprism” and “Contax”) but, as all Germans patents were annulled with the country’s defeat, the name “Pentax” was taken by the Asahi Optical in 1957. Since then the company has been primarily known for its photographic products, distributed under the name “Asahi Pentax” (equipment was imported to the United States from the 1950s until the mid-1970s by Honeywell Corporation and branded “Honeywell Pentax”). The company was renamed Pentax Corporation in 2002. It was one of the world’s largest optical companies, producing still cameras, binoculars, spectacle lenses, and a variety of other optical instruments. In 2004 Pentax had about 6000 employees.

---

Jessops Europe Limited

Jessops Europe Limited, trading as Jessops, is a British photographic retailing company. It was founded in Leicester in 1935 by Frank Jessop and traded under the name of The Jessop Group Limited. The business entered administration on 9 January 2013 and all Jessops retail stores ceased trading on 11 January 2013 until the British entrepreneur Peter Jones invested several million pounds into the company and formed Jessops Europe Limited.

Six stores opened on 28th March 2013. The re-launch at Oxford Street in London on 28th March 2013 received a huge amount of media interest & was attended by celebrities including actor James Corden.