Month: April 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Beer and chips (and a lazy Easter Sunday)

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Although the weather has been nice today, I’ve spent most of it sat on the sofa with our cats, browsing the internet on my phone and reading a photobook (England Observed by John Gay. You can see a selection of his wonderful and evocative photographs here).

My dad visited this morning and we agreed to visit Newark Air Museum this week while I’m on leave – we attempted a visit last autumn, but when we arrived they had had a water outage and were unable to admit visitors!

I also checked in with my son on WhatsApp to see how our daughter-in-law was getting on in the 5k run she was doing as part of the Leeds Running Festival (which she admitted she was doing largely to get the medal that all participants receive 🙂 ).

Now I’m sat here attempting to digest the large Sunday dinner I’ve consumed (featuring a very large leg of lamb). I didn’t receive any chocolate eggs, although I don’t think I could manage any chocolate after the dinner.

I slept better lat night, thankfully. I’m not sure if my mind was just in a bit better state, or if it was a result of my tried-and-tested “eat a banana before bedtime” method of combating anxiety-caused insomnia, but I’ll do the same again tonight. Getting a decent amount of sleep makes a lot of difference to your day.

Kelham Island Tavern
Hicks Street Fish & Chips

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Beer kegs

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If you look closely at this shot, you will see a partly obscured sign with the word “raw” printed upon it. It was my intent to include the full sign in the shot, and it was completely visible in the viewfinder but, because the Yashica Mat 124G is a TLR camera, with the taking lens a couple of inches below the viewing lens, the parallax was sufficient to drop half of the sign below the top of the foreground wall. I was quite surprised that the parallax effect would have been noticeable at the distance I was from the subject.

It was out daughter-in-law’s birthday this week so we’ve been round to her and my son’s house this afternoon to celebrate, and it was nice to have a get-together with them, ours, and her immediate family. I felt pretty gloomy this morning after another poor night’s sleep, but the party has cheered me up a lot. Families are very important.

Beer kegs on Percy Street

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Dusty red car

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Of the shots from this roll of film that I uploaded to Flickr, this one receive by far the fewest likes. But I like it.

I like the bold red of the car against the graph-paper wall of the building. The red fire alarm that matches the car’s colour. The parking signs. The plant behind the frosted glass window.

Photographs are a subjective topic, aren’t they?

My anxiety persists. It’s causing difficulty with my sleep (not stopping me from falling asleep, but preventing me from going back to sleep when I wake early) It’s leaving me feeling fatigued and I keep catching myself almost nodding off while watching TV in the middle of the day. I need to find some techniques to keep it at bay but, in honesty, I think the only thing that will remove it is resolution or acceptance of the thing that’s causing it.

Red car

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Reflected factory

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I’ve finished work now for the Easter weekend and the whole of next week, which is nice. Unfortunately, I’m also feeling pretty anxious about some stuff going on in my family. I wish I was better at dealing with anxiety. My wife worries about things too, as does everyone – especially their children’s wellbeing – but is able to avoid the worry consuming her. It’s something I envy.

I tend to be ok through the daytime, but early mornings seem to be worst, where I’ll wake with panicked thoughts that prevent me from getting back to sleep.

It’s perfectly possible that I’m being over-anxious and that I will look back and wonder what I was fussing about, but my brain has a tendency to catastrophise and I really need to find some way of dealing with this.

Sorry for the slightly gloomy post!

in partial reflection

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Entrance arch

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After the last few days of B&W images shot with my Yashica Mat 124G, I’m moving over to a splash of colour. These we taken on the same outing as the B&W photos.

Sometimes I have to spend some time tinkering with the colours when converting C41 films in Negative Lab Pro (yes, Kodak Gold, I’m mostly talking about you), but others often look great straight off the bat, like these vibrant Lomo CN 400 images that I’m going to share in the coming days.

Arch

Yashica Mat 124G & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

New developments

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A new cluster of office and accommodation buildings is under development close to West Bar at the edge of the city centre. The buildings at centre, and centre right are two of the first ones to take shape, but more are being built (the foreground buildings are older, though still quite recent, developments).

It will be interesting to see the area when the work is complete, and I expect there will be new photographic opportunities that arise, replacing the older, run-down industrial building that once held the location.

The way through

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

Taken on 2 February 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Wharf buildings

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The canal basin at Victoria Quays is another place I’ve photographed on multiple occasions. This is because 1) There are many interesting subjects to photograph, and 2) It’s right beside a car park with cheap rates that I often use if I’m exploring this part of town.

There are probably other pictures of these buildings on my blog already, but these are two new(ish) ones, which turned out nicely.

Grain warehouse
Wharf

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

Taken on 2 February 2025