The River Idle runs for 26 miles through Nottinghamshire, eventually discharging into the River Trent at West Stockwith. It’s source is a confluence of two smaller rivers, the Maun and the Meden near Markham Moor, just beside the busy A1 road.
While there are a number of suggested sources for the Idle’s name, the origin is not confirmed.
I took this photograph of the river where it flows through Retford, beneath the chesterfield canal, which crosses it on an aqueduct. On this day, the weather was very nice, and the light cast upon and through the waters, illuminating the riverbed and long streamers of gently twisting water weed.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
At a number of locations around the UK today, Analogue Wonderland organised a series of film photography photo walks – over forty of them! As they not only provided a roll of 36exposure Kodak Gold film, but also developing and scanning too, this was quite the deal, and it didn’t take much thought to decide to join in.
There was no event taking place in my home city of Sheffield, so I decided to join the Blackpool event. There were closer locations I could have chosen, but I fancied a trip to the seaside. In the end, the Blackpool photo walk took place in Stanley Park, which is about a mile or so inland from the seafront, but I engineered my visit to get to the town early enough to have at least some time to wander around the more seasidey part of the place.
Sadly, though not surprising for the UK, the weather was less than ideal today, with rain and heavy overcast skies through much of the day, and my time at the seafront mostly consisted of a walk along the beach, my camera hidden inside my waterproof jacket, only to appear when there was something worth photographing. Spoiler – trying to take photographs with a fully manual SLR camera while simultaneously holding an umbrella in the wind and rain is a challenge! Nevertheless, despite this, the grim weather actually made for some atmospheric looking scenes, so I’m hopeful these will look good when I get the roll developed.
After this I set of for the walk to Stanley Park to meet the organiser of this event (Peggy Marsh of Camera Go Camera fame) and the other photographers. In all, there were around 15-20 people taking part), so there was a mini crowd of analogue-camera-carrying-people that set of from the start.
The event consisted of a gentle ramble around the park – past the cafe, to the boating lake, through some woodland, and beside a golf course, amongst other sights. The rain, while never far away, did ease off to a degree in the afternoon – it was even almost sunny for a short while! – but the day remained mostly overcast. I usually favour black and white film in these conditions, but colour was the order of the day, so I tried to take care to find subjects that would suit the medium. Whether I’ve been successful will remain to be seen…
At the end of the walk, we all had to give out completed rolls of film back to Peggy to be sent to Analogue Wonderland for their Analogue Wonderlab to work its magic. I’ve never used Analogue Wonderland for developing or scanning before, so this will be a good opportunity to see what their results are like and compare them to my usual lab.
Although I shot a full roll of film today, I don’t yet have any pictures to share from the event, so instead here’s a picture of the stretch of the beach I walked this morning, although this photo was made way back in 2006. It’s interesting to note that, while the pier looks very similar today, the sea defences have changed quite considerably, with a curving (and photogenic) set of steps now running along this part of the seafront.
The picture shared today features a pair of adult swans and, if you look closely, their brood of cygnets.
The photograph was taken a few minutes after the swan at the front had gone into full blown protect-the-family mode.
A man was coming down the canal on a sit-down paddle board (he must have been fishing, as there were a couple of fishing rods attached to the back of the board). As soon as the swan noticed him heading in the direction of its family, even though he was still about thirty meters away, immediately launched into a threatening flight directly towards the man, flying inches above the surface, it’s wing tips making splashes on the water.
The guy on the paddle-board slowed himself to a stop and the swan dropped back into the water maybe seven or eight feet in front of him, it’s long neck coiled down into a tight number-two shape. The swan then proceeded to swim back and forth in front of the board, clearly prepared for any sign of hostility towards it’s nearby family. This continued until the guy gently and slowly passed downstream from the birds.
I took great care not to antagonise the swans when I took this picture. The thing about a swan being able to break a man’s arm is most likely an urban myth, but I felt it prudent to take no chances. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
A decent amount of my photography focuses on subjects that most would probably not find attractive – brutalist architecture, factories, modern office developments, rundown parts of town, even the odd dead pigeon and ashtray have featured.
But I like the picturesque as much as anyone else and will photograph it when it presents itself. We have an abundance of small towns, villages, hamlets and the like throughout the UK and, due to the relatively compact nature of our island, you’re never too far from one. Even the more humdrum of them will have plentiful opportunities for photograph hunting.
The National Parks, in particular, are jam packed with lovely little places to find and explore. The downside is that they can attract crowds of sightseers. While this isn’t a problem for the businesses that cater to them, it can mean that it’s difficult to get a photograph without someone standing in (or suddenly entering, just as you press the shutter!) the frame. For this reason, I prefer to visit such places mid-week if I can, or during the wintertime when tourist numbers are much reduced, but sometimes a crowded sunny weekend is the chance I get, and it’s better to make the most of it than grumble. There’s a certain charm to having tourists in a picture too, I suppose.
The scene below is in Castleton, a village in the Peak District National Park, famous for its castle and also a number of caves and caverns that have public entry and guided tours. Speedwell Cavern even features a subterranean boat ride!
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Back on the 26th September 2021, I wrote a post marking my one thousandth day of consecutive posting. Today, a little under three years later, marks the two thousandth.
I always find milestone posts like this to be difficult. They’re the sort of thing that would normally be celebrated – in that way that we humans seem to like celebrating things that reach a certain, nicely shaped, number. I’m quite a modest person though, so shouting out about my achievements isn’t something I relish or feel particularly comfortable about. I would probably have had greater success in some aspects of my life had I “bigged myself up” a little more, but I’ve always felt that my achievements should speak for themselves, and not be reliant on too much self promotion.
So here I am, having posted without fail for the last two thousand days, and instead of a party, it’s more of an acknowledgement. I reached a big number, and tomorrow I will surpass it (and why will my two-thousand-and-first post be less worthy of celebration anyway?).
It might be nice if I had some sort of special “2,000th post” image that I’ve saved for the occasion, but I don’t, so I’m going to use a picture I took on a trip to Castleton back in May. It shows a gap in a drystone wall part way up Cave Dale. It feels somehow optimistic in tone – a gateway to whatever might come next, I suppose.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Do you know that old Randy Crawford song, Street Life? Yes? Well, no matter how many times I hear it, I always sing it as “Street Light“. A bit like Neil Diamond singing about “The Reverend Bluejeans“.
Street light, you can run away from time Street light, for a nickel, for a dime Street light, but you better not get old Street light, Or you’re gonna feel the cold
Steel City Snapper photography 