The City Life church sits on a back street in the Kelham Island / Shalesmoor area of Sheffield. It’s a multi-cultural church although, not being a religious person, I know little about the place other than what I’ve read online before typing this post. What I do know is that it is housed in an attractive building, more akin to a mock castle than a church in some ways. On the morning I made this picture, the low sun was casting some lovely shadows across the masonry and features of the building, setting it into sharp relief.
After yesterday’s post about how I really don’t enjoy the process of developing film, and how I’d put off developing a roll for a somewhat weak reason, today I pulled my finger out and got the job done. It wasn’t urgent, so I could have left it another week – after a period where I was running out of new photos to use in the blog, I now have three full rolls of stuff, two of which were waiting to be scanned even without developing this new roll – but if I’d left it, then the job would have been hanging over me like a cloud, and I might even have ended up with a backlog if I shoot more stuff in the interim.
Anyway, it’s done now. All developed. All cut and sleeved. All the equipment washed and tidied away for next time.
I got rid on my stop-bath and fixer today too. They’ve had 15 or 16 films through them and the stop-bath was starting to change colour slightly. I might have eked a few more rolls out of both batches but I’d rather not risk a ruined roll, so I’ll need to make some fresh solutions next time.
I also managed to drop the freshly washed roll onto the shower cubicle floor while squeegeeing the moisture off it, necessitating my re-dousing it with the remaining wetting agent. Thankfully the shower floor was pretty dry and not covered with soap bubbles or anything like that, and the negatives look ok on first glance now they’re dried. I said some profane words when it happened though. 🙂
I have a roll of film to develop and had half a mind to get that done today. But then I spent the time watching TV and playing videogames instead. I normally develop my film in the utility room at the back of the house which is the same room where the washing machine and tumble-dryer live and, as there were several loads of clothes to be washed and dried, it would have been quite cluttered and noisy in there today, so I decided to put the job off for another day.
It wasn’t a hard decision to make though. I really don’t enjoy the process of developing film. I find it a chore. I’ll keep doing it because a) I invested in all the equipment to do so, b) It saves me a noticeable amount of money and, c) amazingly my home developed negatives hung to dry in the shower cubicle have notably less dust on them than the ones I get back from the lab, which is a bonus.
Despite these benefits, I don’t enjoy the process, and the thought of having to get all the stuff out, get everything measured and at the right temperatures, carry out the process of developing the film and then, the most tedious part, washing everything out. It’s basically housework.
Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow…
With zero connection to the rest of the post, here’s a photo of a door, window, road-sign, and a decorated telephony cabinet which I photographed because I liked the way they were lit.
In the Neepsend area of Sheffield there is a skate park – The House Skate Park. I’ve never been inside the place – I couldn’t balance on a skateboard when I was a kid, much less now, although I did used to go to the local ice-rink as a teenager where I managed to get around on a pair of blades at high speed, so maybe I’m not completely useless at such activities (that was a long time ago though. I’d probably just bust my hip or something now…).
Despite never having ventured inside the place, I’ve walked past on more than one occasion. It has some nice street art adorning the outside of the building, and there used to be a tree outside upon which were hung numerous pairs of sneakers, presumably those that had reached the end of their natural life. It was certainly odd-looking fruit.
The tree is no longer there, but at least some of the sneakers have found a new home in the shape of the railings that run in front of the car-park. And theye they dangle, gradually forming their own miniature ecosystems as the weeks, months, and years roll past.
This picture was taken on the bridge carrying Rutland Road over the River Don immediately to the left of the building that featured in yesterday’s post. The brightly coloured objects behind the Gardener’s Rest pub caught my eye with their reflections in the water. They don’t have as much of an impact in the photo unfortunately, but I like the overall composition nontheless.
The view is looking upstream on the stretch of the river that flows through Neepsend. Further up it passes through Hillsborough where it is joined by two of its tributaries, the River Rivelin, and the River Loxley.
This is another of those locations that I’ve photographed on a number of occasions. Something about it draws my eye.
I’m not sure if any activity currently takes place in the corner shop here. It has the look of a cafe, but I don’t think it is, although maybe it was sometime in the past. I had a look on Google Maps which allows me to see how it looked at a number of points in time from 2008 to the present. It has housed at least two businesses in that period: and IT repair shop, and something called “Amazing Cave“, which looked to be some sort of vintage / antiques / brik-a-brak- type place.
Amazing Cave looked to have opened in the autumn of 2012 (there’s a picture from July that year where it looks like the stock is inside, but the store is not yet ready for customers). Sadly, in the next available image from October 2014, it looks like the place might already have gone out of business or, to be more positive, perhaps moved to a new site. The website address of the store can be seen above the windows but is now listed as being available.
The upper floors of the place appear to be in use as flats now.
Down at the bottom end of Woodhouse Washlands there is an oxbow lake. It’s actually not much of a “bow”, more a strip of water which lies maybe fift to a hundred or so metres from the current course of the River Rother.
A tree stands at the edge of the water – a willow, I think – and is the subject of today’s photograph. The fog masks so much in this scene which, in clear conditions, would reveal houses and other structures on the valley side in the distance beyond the tree. Thank you fog.
Steel City Snapper photography 