Following yesterday’s photos of Ford Capri’s, here are a couple of shots of it’s stablemate, the Cortina. If the Capri was the British equivalent of a US fastback, then the Cortina was probably it’s muscle-car brother – most particularly, I think, in the Mk III version.
The one shown here is a Mk II, which while still a nice looking car, lacks the sculpted shape of it’s descendant.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
If there was one car that most teenage boys yearned for when I was such an age, it was the Ford Capri – Britain’s version of the fastback coupes and saloons from across the pond. It was obviously smaller than it’s transatlantic cousins, and was supposedly a bit of a pig to drive – stories abound of having to put a bag of cement in the boot to improve the handling – but it looked cool and Bodie, from the popular TV show The Professionals drove one.
Ford recently brought back the Capri name in a new model, but it really doesn’t have the same appeal, being a boxy, squashed-looking design nothing akin to the sleekly desirable air of the original versions.
Here are a few old Capri’s at this year’s Classics on the Moor event in Sheffield.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I’ve photographed St Peter’s church at Elmton on a number of occasions before, and posted the results on the blog here, here, and here.
I decided to drive past again to finish off this roll of film, with a plan to shoot the church building with its low, squat tower, from a different angle. Ala, it wasn’t to be – the light wasn’t great and the fixed prime lens on the GW690 introduced limitations on how I could frame a shot, essentially meaning I’d have had excessive converging verticals, or the tips of gravestones poking into the bottom of the frame. In the end, I decided to take a picture of this small outhouse affixed to the rear of the building. The weathered door, and caretaker’s paraphernalia served to add a little interest.
I thought I’d treat myself to one of those clickbait titles similar to the ones I see on YouTube from time to time. You know the ones, where the person titles their video “My final post” or “That’s it. I’m finished.” or something else that gives the impression that their video making days are at an end but, upon viewing, it turns out that it’s “My final post… of November!” or “That’s it. I’m finished… Putting together this year’s calendar which you can buy from my SquareSpace site.“.
So in the spirit of that annoying tradition, today’s post is just about what I found at the end of the road I drove down in Whitwell, Nottinghamshire one day. In this case it was Whitwell railway station. The station today is a pretty simple affair – a couple of platforms, a footbridge, and some shelters for passengers. There used to be a selection of buildings at the station, but these were removed when the line was closed to passenger traffic sixty years ago (although passenger services would resume in the 1990s). The buildings were not lost however and were rebuilt at Butterley on the Midland Railway – Butterley heritage line as they were almost identical to the buildings that had originally stood there.
As to why I drove to the end of the road, it was mostly to see if there was a good composition of the chimney at the nearby Steetley Dolomite works (you can see it just above the Whitwell railway sign to the right of the first picture). I think a longer lens might have led to a more dramatic photograph but, alas, a long lens the GW690 does not have. Instead it’s a shot of loads of things poking up into the sky. A bit mundane, but I kinda like it anyway.
The second picture was another reason I drove down here. The lamps on this footbridge are just about visible peeping over the bridge crossing the railway tracks that I’ve driven across on a number of occasions, and I’d wondered if there was a picture to be had of them. This was the picture I got, although I think there may be better ones to be found if I revisit the place, possibly (again) with a different focal length at my disposal.
The chimney of this dolomite works is visible from a long way away. I’ve driven past on a couple of occasions and taken photographs of the buildings, which are impressive and crusted with white dolomite deposits, although I’ve not attempted to see if the actual quarry workings are visible from the roadside.
The road and verge is also covered in a faint white sugaring of dust from the works’ activity.
This made for quite a quaint scene, I thought. I like how the house has a post box embedded in its wall (there’s a phone box right across the street too – although I’m not sure if it’s still operational, or been converted into a library or defibrillator or something).
I came across the field of corn in the village of Holbeck when I went to photograph the church with my large format camera. I made note of its location and a short while later returned with my GW690.
Corn fields aren’t a rarity in the UK, but it’s far from a common crop, so finding a field where I had a good view of the stalks was a happy find.
There’s something distinctive about the architecture in British seaside towns, particularly those that came to prominence in the Victorian and Edwardian periods – rows of grand villas abound.
As the traditional British seaside holiday declined (mostly due to the availability of low cost trips to continental Europe – where guaranteed hot sunny weather replaced the risk of a week in the rain, potentially trapped in a caravan, or a hostile Bed & Breakfast), so a lot of the beautiful and traditional buildings have similarly fallen into disrepair. Without the tourism, the money to run and maintain such places was lost. The building in the centre rear of today’s picture has become home to both pigeons and gulls, but with no sign of human occupancy (or window glass, for that matter). It’s a shame that these places are not in use, but I don’t think a lot of UK resorts currently attract the people who could afford to renovate such properties back to glory. Perhaps in time they will.
It’s odd to think that, if you could uproot these buildings to somewhere in central London, they would probably be worth millions.
Steel City Snapper photography 