Month: May 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The Grey Ladies

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The pictures today show The Grey Ladies, a stone circle that stands on Harthill Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District between Youlgreave and Elton.

Also known as Nine Stones Close, the circle dated back to the Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and is likely at least three thousand years old. It’s an odd thought to think that, over thirty centuries ago, people stood where I did and built this.

The Grey Ladies #4
The Grey Ladies #3

Although named Nine Stones Close, there are just four stones present in the arrangement today (although in the mid 19th century there were still seven – one of these now stands as a nearby gatepost while another lays in a field some distance to the north.). The site was excavated in the 19th century, and some consercation work took place in the 1930s to re-stand two of the stones which had fallen.

Folklore says that the stones will sometimes dance at midday and midnight, and the “Nine” in the name Nine Stones Close may be a corruption of “Noon”, when fairies were said to gather to dance at the site.

The Grey Ladies #2
The Grey Ladies

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Derelict cars

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Finding old, abandoned cars isn’t that easy in the UK. Anything unroadworthy (which includes most old cars) is, well, off the road. In most cases this will mean scrappage of the vehicle. Even scrap yards seem to be a thing of the past. All the old yards, where you could wander between aisles of teetering wrecks piled atop one another, looking for a spare wing mirror or replacement windscreen wiper motor for your own, still functioning, ride, seem to have disappeared. They’ve been lost to tightening of laws and regulations and, to some extent probably, online sales of used parts.

While this isn’t a junkyard, finding these old cars (including a couple of Vauxhall’s – A Chevette, and a Nova) by the side of a footpath, was a pleasant surprise. These scenes may not be pretty but they’re certainly photogenic.

The meaning of life
Nova

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Hilltop farm

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Today’s photo is from a hike I took back in March. There will be a post or two about the full hike coming soon, but before then I’ll share some medium format pictures I made with my Yashica Mat 124G alongside the bulk that I shot with my Olympus XA3.

This farm sits in the hilly Peak District countryside between Elton to the south and Youlgreave to the north.

Powerlines and farm

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Boats at West Stockwith

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The first two boats in this scene – Willow and Trisantona – look best suited to the adjacent River Trent, although I suppose they can also traverse the River Idle. I’m not sure if boats like this venture onto the Chesterfield Canal, and I expect that their wakes would cause quite a commotion if they did. That journey is probably left to narrowboats, like the ones moored in the background.

Willow at the marina

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Pictures without words

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Occasionally on this blog I will post a photograph without saying anything about it. I could try and bluff my way through this and claim that “the picture speaks for itself“, or something similar, but that would be – pardon my French – bullshit.

What it actually means is, usually, one of two things:

  1. I have writer’s block and can’t think of anything to say.
  2. I don’t have time to write anything.

Option 2 is the usual culprit. I’ve either been doing something that has kept me from the computer, or I’ve been doing something else on the computer (or PlayStation…) and the time has gotten away from me. Either way, the result is the same, a picture without words.

Today was going to be a similar thing, but then I wrote this.

So here’s a picture that has words, they’re just not connected to its contents whatsoever…

Across the road in front of the trees

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Getting it wrong – push processing film shot at box speed

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Over the last few weeks I’ve posted a whole bunch of photos taken with my Olympus XA3 on Ilford HP5+, which I pushed a stop to 800asa.

Or so I thought…

After receiving a comment about one of my posts using this setup, where I was asked if there was a reason I was shooting the film at 800ASA, I replied that it was to aid me during the low light conditions that are prevalent during the UK winter. Given that the camera has no manual control of shutter speed or aperture, this is a logical thing to do to get faster speeds and avoid camera shake.

But after replying, a small exclamation mark began to flash above my head. So I took a look at the camera manual and, lo and behold, it turns out I’ve not actually been shooting at 800ASA at all, but at 400ASA – HP5+’s box speed. Although the XA3 allows the ASA setting to be changed, it turns out that it will automatically override this if a DX code is present on the film being used. The manual control is just for non-DX coded films!

So in actual fact, I’ve been overdeveloping my film by push processing it!

Fortunately for me, the shots are all perfectly usable, and it’s a testament to Ilford’s HP5+’s resilience to these sort of damn fool mistakes that this is the case.

Anyway, here’s a random shot of one of the impacted frames, proving that if you ever accidentally push your HP5+ by a stop in DD-X, you will likely be forgiven your mistake…

Firework shop

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 20 January 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

A nice doer-upper

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This is the same house that I shared a picture of yesterday. It definitely needs some TLC, but I imagine it will be worth a fortune when renovated.

Those two black specks at the top of the picture are birds. I ummed and aahed about painting them out, but decided they were there when the picture was shot, so there they can remain.

Derelict house

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024