Month: April 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A glut

fishyfisharcade3 Comments

I seem to have quite a backlog of photographs to post at present. This is mostly a good thing, and far preferable to having nothing new to put on the blog, but at the same time it can become a little overwhelming.

White Lodge, Chatsworth

While film, by it’s nature, will always have some delay between shooting and being able to publish the results (I think I’ve only once shot, developed, scanned, and published a film photo on the same day), sometimes it feels like everything I post is out-of-date. I’m always posting stuff that I photographed weeks, if not months ago.

Steps
Chatsworth bridge

Part of this is due to the way I blog. Posting at least one picture every day means I need to keep up a ready supply of images, something I’m usually ok to do – I enjoy making photographs, and enjoy seeing them revealed even more, so taking a lot of them is enjoyable and something I feel compelled to undertake. At the same time, often due to time constraints (there never seems to be enough of it!), I’ll often only post a single image at a time, meaning a roll of film can result in weeks of blog posts is I’ve had a good hit rate.

Car park attendant's hut
In the courtyard

Pretty soon I’m going to start posting pictures shot with a Kodak H35N half-frame camera – which gives at least 72 photos from a 36-exposure roll – so I’m going to have to clump those together or it will be autumn before I’m done.

Aqueduct

I think some of my perceived problem arises from the fact that I have a tendency to collect (hoard!) things given the opportunity – maybe some ancient instinctive mammalian behaviour coming through – and this includes photogrphs. Whatever the case, I think I’m going to have to fight my instinct to save things, and push out more photos when I’m in this situation, which is why this post contains a bunch of pictures all taken during a hike from Baslow to Chatsworth house. Ideally I would have written a post about the hike, but instead I’ve spent the time on this outpouring. 😀

At the edge of the pond
Hunting Tower
On the path to Chatsworth House

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

Taken on 25 January 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Chatsworth trees

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A quartet of trees I photographed while hiking around the grounds of Chatsworth House a couple of months ago.

I like the first of the four the most as it stands out against the sky and background. The second has a miniature fungal forest to add interest, although the light is pretty contrasty. Not as contrasty as the next shot though, where I deliberately metered for the highlights to throw the shadows into darkness. The final tree caught my attention as it looked like it had an old man’s face in right-hand branch of its trunk, although it’s a little difficult to see in the photo and looks a bit like the face of someone with Proteus Syndrome (the condition that afflicted Joseph Merrick, made famous by the movie The Elephant Man).

Lone Chatsworth tree
Hanging on
Chiaroscuro treetrunk
Beside a woodland path

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

Taken on 25 January 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Dark arch

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Just up the road from the houses featured in the blog yesterday is a bridge which crosses Bar Brook, a small river (or, I guess, a brook!) which originates on the moors to the north of Baslow before it joins the River Derwent a little further downstream. The sunlight was casting deep shadow beneath the bridge, which I attempted to capture in this picture.

Bridge of light and shade

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

Taken on 25 January 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Baslow houses

fishyfisharcade3 Comments

Nice oblique sunlight and some interesting houses made for a nice shot at the beginning of a walk to Chatsworth House I undertook back in January.

I was umming-and-ahhing about going out with my camera today. The weather has been nice (it’s been nice for the last couple of weeks, in fact), but I wasn’t sure where to go, and I had some other stuff to do around the house but, in the end, I gave myself a kick up the backside and took a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I shot an old roll of Tmax 100 with the Yashica Mat 124G and (hopefully!) should have some nice pictures to share. I do have a backlog again though, so they might be a little while appearing here.

In Baslow

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

Taken on 25 January 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A trip to Saltaire

fishyfisharcade7 Comments

In the early days of the new year, before I returned to work, I had a day free to do some photography. The world was my oyster (well, maybe not the world) and I was beset by the angst of choice paralysis – lots of places I might go, but a major struggle deciding on which one to choose. Quite often in these situations I just end up going to the same places I’ve been before – often into Sheffield city centre, or Kelham Island, or somewhere else close but familiar. However I was able to grasp the mettle and make a decision, and pulled Saltaire out of the, er, air.

Saltaire is somewhere I’ve never visited before. It sits to the north west of Bradford which, while not too far away, is still about an hour’s journey in the car. The village (although it’s now kinda merged into the wider Bradford conurbation), was built and named after Titus Salt to house workers employed at his mill, aptly named Salt’s Mill. The streets in the village are named after Salt’s children and other family members.

The mill and village sit beside the River Aire and the Leeds to Liverpool canal and the buildings are built in an Italianate style, which is very photogenic. As well as the mill and the houses, there are a number of other civic buildings, including a church, hospital, school, and others. The village was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2001.

The mill contains art galleries, shops, and a restaurant, and was a very nice place to wander around.

It’s a place I think I may revisit at some point as there is much I didn’t see, and lots to photograph.

Salt's Mill
Through Salt's Mill
Saltaire United Reformed Church
Around the side
Gatehouse
Back to t'mill
Helen St.

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

Taken on 2 January 2025

35mm · Film photography · Photography

I finally photographed this derelict farm building

fishyfisharcade2 Comments

I’ve seen this building on numerous occasions when driving through the area and on this day I finally found myself well placed (and equipped) to photograph it.

It might look like it’s out on the open plains somewhere remote, but is right on the edge of Whitwell and it’s only the gentle curve of the land that allows this illusion of space.

I took a number of pictures of the building (and the tree to the right of frame – which featured in yesterday’s post) using different focal lengths and am happy with all of them. I did have another shot which is zoomed out a little further than the third shot below which I think I liked best of all, but I managed to beat the lens’ vibration compensation and introduce some camera shake. A shame.

One thing I didn’t notice until I processed the scans is that there is a solitary figure sat on the corner of the wall of the structure. You can make them out better if you click on the images and view them larger in Flickr. They were some distance away, so I wonder if they noticed they were being (unknowingly) photographed?

Out on the plains
Derelict
Beneath a cirrus sky

Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°

Taken on 8 March 2025