Author: Balders

Passionate hobbyist, restoring the past, one old camera at a time. iPhone14 Max Pro - Sony A7II and about 80 others from the days of silver halide 📸 Main aim in life - Retirement

Why Foxes Den

I’m starting to ask why I even chose the name. To be honest I’m from the East Midlands of the Uk and Foxes are rampant around this area, I support a football team who are known as the Foxes (Don’t hold that against me 😂) and to top it all during lock down we built a pub in our garden that is also called the Foxes Den.

Our garden pub with the same overused name..

As I have very little creativity in thinking up suitable names I tend to stick to what I’m familiar with, looking at the number of Foxes Den sites on the web though I think the chances of me getting noticed are next to zero. Lesson of the day guys is to do your research before you take the leap, don’t just jump in gung ho like I did. The word idiot comes to mind ….

First steps

So most of my adult life I have convinced myself that despite having a hatful of interests there was nothing that I was particularly any good at. It’s strange really how you always knock yourself back if you don’t have that much confidence. In truth it really is quite the opposite. I started out in Photography way back in the days before digital when you had to get your hands wet to produce results, for me the old Silver halide era of photography cannot be matched or equalled and personally I think anyone can be a photographer these days, however give them developing tanks, print dryers developers and fixers an enlarger and then ask them to dodge and burn prints and then retouch them and the result might be slightly different. I remember days when I used to photograph weddings and shoot maybe 6-8 rolls of film, a friend of mine in the digital arena shoots maybe 2-3000 exposures per outing! Wow, she will never experience the fear of having a blank film post processing.

On top of this I’ve had an interest in electronics from an early age, I used to visit jumble sales as a kid, buy old radios and repair them and sell them on to get some pocket money. I obtained a city and guilds in electronics back in 2000 as well as an “A” class Radio Amateur qualification (M0ESB) so yes I’m a Radio amateur as well. I could have ventured into a job role utilising this however I preferred to maintain it as a hobby as I didn’t want to fall out of love with electronics.

I also enjoy arty stuff, I love painting both pictures and stuff, tarting stuff up – you know what I mean. I have recently had lessons in the Bob Ross method of painting with a local tutor and I really enjoy this. I’ve always enjoyed making models and painting them and I like building small dioramas as well so I can be quite crafty when I put my mind to it.

So to return to the start when I was searching for my worth as such, I have decided to combine a number of these hobby/experiences and I will be purchasing old unloved equipment, making it good “Tarting it up” and hopefully moving it on either for decorative purposes, for use as props or even returning it to its original purpose.

The site is new and I’ve kind of jumped the gun by getting this up and running before I have any projects on the go or even stock to use in those projects. Hey ho, that’s the way I roll is anyone else as ass about face at doing things as I am?

Hopefully I can record my progress through this site that is a new venture for me as of Feb 2023.

Maybe you as a visitor will follow my journey, maybe you will pass on through, however please feel free to feedback any constructive advice as we can all learn from that.