Glasshouse

December 11, 2021 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

Today’s photo is of the greenhouse in the walled kitchen garden at Clumber Park. I’d hoped to go inside and make some photos but it was closed off (although I did manage to grab one sneaky photo through the barriers – I’ll probably post that tomorrow).

One of my son’s had his second Covid vaccination today, so that means we’re now all at least double-jabbed. He’ll have to wait until March until he gets his booster though. On the way home we stopped off to get him some shirts that he’s asked for and, as it was lunchtime, popped intot the Burger King that was nearby. I decided to try the meat-free Whopper to see what it was like. I’ve already had the McPlant from Macdonalds and have been impressed by just how close to a regular beef burger it is, so wanted to see how the Burger King alternative stood in comparison. Turns out, pretty well. Again I couldn’t really tell that it wasn’t meat and it tasted just as good as any other burgers I’ve had from fast food chains like this. While I’m not vegan (or even vegetarian), I’m more than happy to eat these meat-free alternatives if they taste as good as the real thing. In fact I’m happy to eat any vegetarian / vegan food full stop if it taste nice, not just those that are mimicing meat dishes.

When we arrived home, despite it raining, I put the Christmas lights up outside the house. It took longer than I’d expected – mostly because of my pernicketyness at trying to get everything lined up just right. They’re all up (and now lit), so that’s that sorted out for the next few weeks until they get taken back down again.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Lab developed in Xtol.

Taken on 6 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Behind an open gate

December 10, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I liked the look of this house as I walked past. I’m not sure that it’s used as a residential property as it’s in the bounds of Clumber Park, a National Trust property, so it may be used for administrative purposes.

The building is enclosed by a tall fence so my view was limited, but as I approached the gate began to open to let a van make its exit, so I quickly grabbed this shot. I’m a little disapointed that the white van at the rear of the building is in shot – if I’d taken a step to the left I’d have avoided it’s inclusion.

The photo (and most of the others on this roll) were made back in early November on the same day that I shot the roll of Ortho Plus from which I’ve already shared picture. It was about a week before we lost Stan, so this roll has sat undeveloped in my office for tha last few weeks. Normally I’d develop it myself, but I wasn’t in the mood so took it to my local lab instead and paid for the privilege of someone else doing it for me.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Lab developed in Xtol.

Taken on 6 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Alpine Lodge

December 9, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Another in my set of unseasonably snowy November photos. The last in the set in fact.

This temprary bar forms part of the Christmas Markets (or did – I’m not sure if they’re still there) and is situated in the Peace Gardens beside Sheffield town hall (the building at rear left). The other building is the Mercure Hotel, part of the St. Paul’s Square complex that was built on the site of the old town hall extension.

There’s a fountain beneath where the bar is sat, so I hope it didn’t get unexpectedly turned on!

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Christmas tree

December 8, 2021 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

My wife put up our Christmas tree and the trimmings on Monday. Normally I would help with this, but my input this year consisted mainly of carrying all the boxes downstairs. This was mostly because I had to travel into my local office on the day for my fourth attempt at getting my laptop upgraded to a new build. It fell through again, so there will now be a FIFTH attempt next Monday. I could provide details of the whole sequence of events, but they’re really not very interesting.

So, back onto the decorations, my main involvement this year will be to put up the exterior lights on the front of the house, which I think I’ll do this weekend. It’s not too difficult – we have a small first storey roof that runs across the front of the house, so it’s just a matter of using the step-ladder to attach some clips to the guttering and then attach the lights. Probably about a half-hour’s work. We shall see…

The photo today is of the big Christmas tree in Sheffield town centre outside the town hall. It doesn’t seem as tall as the ones I remember from my childhood, although whether this is just one of those misrememberings that you get when recollecting childhood memories, I don’t know.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Bronze women

December 7, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This sculpture stands beside the City Hall in Sheffield City Centre. It’s named Women of Steel and commemorates the women who took up roles in the city’s steel works during the first and second world wars. I’ve photographed the statues on a number of occasions and they’ve featured in the blog at least once before (here).

My OCD brain at first showed alarm at the fact that I’ve both chopped off a bit of the closest woman’s arm, and also not gotten her in focus (I was shooting at quite a wide aperture), but my rational brain overrode the concerns because, frankly, it looks just fine.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Festive wheel

December 6, 2021 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

The Christmas market is in Sheffield this year again – I don’t think it was there last year due to the pandemic lockdowns that were in place. The market has had quite a lot of complaints on local social media apparently (although I’ve learnt to try and avoid local social media lest I gnash my teeth to powder at the ignorance and general crappy attitudes that prevail). Apparently it doesn’t compare favourably to previous years, or in comparison with the markets in some other places around the country. Too many food stalls and not enough gifts and other non-edible gifts are amongst complaints I’ve heard.

I think we should be grateful that the current situation is allowing the market to take place at all. It might not be at it’s best (although it looked pretty much like every other UK Christmas market I’ve visited) but maybe let’s give it a bit of leeway given the current global situation.

It’s very rare to see these markets with snow present (apart from the fake variety) as it’s unusual that we get any before Christmas. Even though it was wet and slushy and mostly gone, it was definitely a little bit festive to see these seasonal (not really) weather conditions.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Numbers

December 5, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

We managed to get out today for out family meal, my son having recovered from yesterday’s hangover. We chose an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant in the town centre and, while I didn’t eat too much, I still feel quite full now as I’m typing this. The plates in the restaurant aren’t huge – perhaps to reduce the amount of waste coming from people overestimating just how much they can eat – but I still managed four platefulls of food. The first was a plate of turkey and vegetables – a small roast dinner basically. The next two contained a selection of Chinese food, and the final one some dessert in the form of some apple crumble and custard, and a piece of pineaple pie.

After the food we went to a nearby pub for a drink, and there I tried some mango cider. I don’t normally go for sweet, fruity ciders, but this one was very nice and we might try and track dome down to guzzle over Christmas. Even my wife, who generally doesn’t consume any alcoholic drinks at all, thought it was very good too.

Somewhere we didn’t go was the Mecca Bingo hall seen in the picture in today’s blog post. This is another one of those places that I’ve photographed a number of times before, mostly because I think the chequerboard of numbers on the sides of the building make for an interesting picture.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Park Hill flats in snow

December 4, 2021 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

This is the second version of this post. The first one was about how the short and gloomy winter days are getting me down somewhat this year, but it made for somewhat depressing reading, so I scrapped it.

The days can be very gloomy during the winter though – it’s just after 4pm as I write this and it’s almost fully dark outside. Normally this wouldn’t be the case for another hour at this time of the year, but we’ve got some heavy rain today and the clouds have blocked what little natural illumination we might otherwise have had.

We were due to go out shortly for a family meal, but one of my boys went out with friends last night and had a few celebratory drinks too many so we’ve had to cancel and re-book as he has had a hangover all day. With the wisdom of age I can easily preach to him about the foolishness of drinking too many beers and the price that comes with them, but I’ve got plenty of hangovers of my own under my belt from when I was young which prevent me getting on too high a horse. So the meal will take place tomorrow instead when hopefully we will all be in a fit state to enjoy it.

My other son will now be having some takeaway pizza instead which, from the look on his face when I told him, I think he prefers anyway. Not sure if the rest of us will have the same (or if Mister Hungover will want some – pizza is great at the end of a night out drinking, but I can’t remember if it maintains its allure the following day), but we shall see shortly.

Today’s picture is of Park Hill Flats, a sheffield architectural landmark that has featured here on the blog on a few occasions previously. I made this photo after the shot of the magick studio, and before the picture of the pigeons I posted yesterday. It was taken from the footbridge over the road and shot through the railings.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The birds

December 3, 2021 fishyfisharcade5 Comments

I knew I had to get a photo of these pigeons as soon as I saw them. If I’ve counted right, there are one-hundred-and-eighteen of them perched on the overhead cables (including the two in flight). Normally when I see something like this they’ll all fly away before I get chance to take the picture, but on this occasion I was blessed with a flock tolerant of my presence. I guess city pigeons are generally quite accepting of people though, and they were pretty much out of reach up there on the wires anyway. I suspect that, had I dropped some fod on the floor, the whole lot of them would have descended!

The tram has a slight blur as I wanted to maximise my depth of field, so had to use a slower shutter speed (I think it was 1/125s, but it might have been 1/60s.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Too much fish

December 2, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I’ve just eaten my tea not too long back. Tea in this case, for those unfamiliar with the term outside the drink, is vernacular for evening meal, or dinner, if you like. I think it’s a largely working class use of the word, but it’s what I grew up with and what I continue to use. I don’t think I’ve ever used the term dinner. To confuse matters further, dinner is what I call the midday meal – lunch to posher folks than I – again a standard working-class thing I think (although I do use lunch sometimes too).

Anyway, I had fish for tea today, and got a couple of pieces out from the freezer this morning. Normally I would only have a single fillet, but these felt somewhat small, so I got out two of them.

I should have just gotten one.

While not huge, there was definitely more fish there than I needed (although not too much to eat!). Anyway, I made some batter and shallow fried them and had them with some mushy peas. Very tasty they were too.

Anyway, on to today’s photo – another frame from the roll of Ortho Plus. This one took a bit of post-processing to get it looking how I wanted as it looked very dark and drab on the initial scan. I think the editing has introduced some noise, and it looks almost digital if you zoom right in. It looks better than it did though.