It’s a bit of a hot day here in the UK today – with temperatures where I live nudging past 30 degrees. That’s not very high compared with other parts of the planet, but it’s high for me and the only consolation is that the humidity isn’t too bad. The forecast is for cooler weather through the rest of the working week, but then it’s predicted that it could soar to potentially record-breaking highs again next weekend.
This big barge of a car was at the Sheffield Steam Rally when I visited. I’m not sure what year this dates from – I would guess late 70s, but I could also be out by some margin thanks to my relative ignorance of such things. It looks nice in a photograph though!
I wrote a few days ago about how I’ve been having difficulties scanning a roll of Velvia 100 that I shot at the steam rally last weekend. I’ve scanned Velvia 50 before and was similarly granted with the same red-cast that I got this time, although on this occasion I’ve also had problems with the actual exposure of the scans – some images looking under-exposed in comparison with the physical transparencies. The under-exposure issue is something that I’ll have to atempt to rectify in Lightroom, but at least I seem to have found a working solution to the red-cast problem.
After carrying out all my post processing in Lightroom, I always open the final image in Photoshop to add a white border. This time, as well as adding the border, I also used the Auto-colour option in the Image menu. I don’t usually find that this does a great job – it tends to be hit and miss on the occasions I’ve used it in the past – but for these Velvia 100 scans it works a treat. Hopefully this will mean I’ll get much more satisfactory images from the roll than I’d feared.
This picture of a slightly rusted Ford Popular has come out very nicely. I used a polariser for most shots on the roll, and it’s really deepened the sky for this photo.
If there’s one thing that there are a lot of at a steam rally, it’s traction engines. Sure there are vintage vehicles of all types also on display, but I think it’s probably these coal-fired mechanical marvels that draw the crowds more than anything.
Yashicamat 124 G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I think that the car featured in the photographs today is a Mercedes Benz 190 SL. I have worked this out by my usual detective pathway of looking at pictures online until I find one that appears t match. This means that I could be wrong about the model – sometimes there are subtle differences only apparent to an enthusiast (something which I am not). But, while not a car enthusiast, I do think they can make fine subjects for a picture of two, as usually becomes apparent around this time each year when I visit vintage rallies on the hunt for such things and subsequently flood my blog with the results.
Yashicamat 124 G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
The annual Sheffield Steam Rally returned this summer after a two-year gap due to the pandemic, so I headed out to take some photos. I was blessed with some nice weather that really suited this roll of Kodak Ektar I shot with my Yashicamat 124G.
As well as the traction engines, vintage cars, tractors, motorbikes etc., there were a few old caravans on display too. I have a bit of a fondness for caravans as they bring back happy memories of staying in my grandparent’s caravan several times each year when I was younger. Their caravan was much larger than the one in today’s photograph – a six-berth – whereas the one here was (if I remember correctly) a three berth model. The caravans in the picture are also “tourers” that can be towed from place to place by a family car, whereas my grandparent’s was a static caravan that remained on the site permanently. Given their small size, seeing how beds are somehow conjured almost from thin air by converting seating and other parts of the interior fittings is quite impressive.
The pastel colours of the caravan on this sunny day really work well with the Ektar, I think.
Yashicamat 124 G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Three horses on a carousel. I’m very happy with the colours I got when scanning this roll of Ektar. It’s the first time I’ve shot this film in a while and, based on the images I got, I hope to shoot more.
I’m less happy with the Fuji Velvia 100 that I’m attempting to scan this eveneing however. Despite having satisfactory results with this film scanned on my Plustek in the past, tonight the scans are a disappointment. Compared with the actual transparencies, the scans look dull and underexposed in comparison. I normally have a good success rate scanning 35mm E6 transparencies using this method, but something is off-kilter.
I usually use Vuescan when scanning slide film, but am resorting to Silverfast this time to see if I can get something I prefer using that method instead. Fingers crossed…
Yashicamat 124 G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I wonder what this wooden groyne looked like when brand new? And when it actually was brand new? It would be interesting to know how many years of being pounded by waves, pebbles, and sand it took to reduce it to this somewhat broken-toothed appearance.
I like this photo. It has a clean, minimal feel to it. The sky is clear of cloud (bar a couple of barely discenible whisps) and the lines of the horizon, fence, and bench add an element of structure. The man sits slightly off-centre, adding a small sense of discord to the picture.
I wonder what the man was thinking about as he sat there, looking out across the North Sea? When I see picture that I have taken such as this, I sometime wonder if I should have spent more time taking in the view myself, rather than trying to photograph it. I sometimes feel that I’m spending too much time trying to capture a moment to be enjoyed later when the reality is right there in front of me. But the camera, it draws me…
At Hornsea, where the wooden groynes meet the sea wall, concrete steps have been placed to allow people to bypass the wooden structures. The sun was bright and contrasty by the time I made these pictures and, as I had a roll of Fuji Acros in the camera at this point, I thought that these steps might make for decent subjects.
Steel City Snapper photography 