A closed pub (but probably now re-opened)

May 7, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This is the Yellow Lion pub at Aston. I think I’ve only ever been inside once, and that was decades ago, mostly because it’s out of the local area. On the day I made these photos it was closed, the second tranche of lockdown easing that would allow pubs to open for customers in outdoor seating yet to arrive. Now, I expect it will be serving people outside and, unless the situation changes, probably for indoor service later this month.

Some disappointment with my Plustek scanner has arisen. I’ve spotted it might have developed a fault as I’ve noticed feint vertical bars on some of my photos. While they are only noticeable on shots with areas of low contrast (clear skies and so forth), and not immediately visible unless you’re really looking for them, now I’ve noticed I can’t un-notice the problem. Oddly it only seems to be affecting colour negative scans – slides don’t seem to have any sign of the issue, and neither do B&W negatives. Whatever the case, I’ve sent a message to Plustek to see if there’s a way to fix the problem, but in the meantime I’ll just have to put up with it.

I’m feeling concerned
My scanner has a problem
I hope it can be fixed

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A dog-leg in the path

May 6, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I already posted a shot of this path in an earlier post – that one shot with my OM-2n on Delta 100. This was made shortly afterwards and a little further down the path.

These clear skies show how the Sure Shot Supreme tends to vignette – something I’ve found to be the case in a number of compact 35mm cameras – but it’s not an unpleasant effect.

Penny Hill turbine
Stands rotating in the breeze
Making clean power

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Forlorn caravan

May 5, 2021 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Another photo from back in the wintertime – there’s even some snow on the ground! Again, it’s from the roll of Colorplus shot with the Sure Shot Supreme. I’m not sure when this caravan last took an outing, but it looks like it’s slowly being claimed by the undergrowth.

My second zine was sent off to the printers last night ready for the next round of the zine-swap I’m participating in. There are fifteen people involved this time so I might have to scratch for coins to find the postage! 🙂

Lonely caravan
Nestled in the foliage
Thoughts of holidays

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 12 February 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

After the parade has gone

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

An impromptu image for today’s post. A few weeks ago when the local signalbox was being demolished, my wife and I walked down to see what was going on – it would have been the last day the box was standing and I wanted to get some farewell photos in case I wasn’t able to withness its removal the following day. On the way there I glanced upwards and saw this forlorn strand of bunting hanging from some lights, probably left over from the last local community fun-day which takes place in the summer (but which didn’t happen last year due to Covid, and which similarly won’t take place this year either). I liked the way it looked against the blue sky and high-altitude clouds.

Dangling from above
Lone triangle of colour
A Fun-day remnant

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 13 March 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Out of town industry

May 3, 2021May 4, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I’ll be stepping back in time a few months for the next batch of blog posts as they’re all shots from a roll of Kodak Colorplus that was in tha camera I’ve been carrying in my coat pocket. Often these rolls are spread out over a few weeks or months before I complete them and get them developed.

Today’s photo was from a walk along the Trans Pennine Trail back in February. I shot a couple of rolls of black and white film with the Yashica Mat on that same day AND finished some Fuji C200 that was in the Sure Shot Supreme. The roll of colorplus was loaded after the C200 but took a while longer to be used up.

On the edge of town
Industry in the landscape
New Topographics

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 12 February 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Map and compass

April 27, 2021 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

The film photography competition I partake in each month has “Accurate” as its theme this month and my entry is the following shot of my Silva compass sat atop an Ordnance Survey map. It was a pretty rushed shot if I’m honest. I shot two frames and the whole exercise took less than five minutes including digging the map out of a cupboard. Of the two photos, I like this one the best.

Although I favour Ilford HP5+ over Tri-X – especially now that the latter costs almost twice as much! – I had a roll of Tri-X Pan in my OM-2n so that had to serve the purpose. The film is almost 20-years expired and I shoot it at 200asa (I have a few rolls of it still) and it produces decent results. In this case I think the greater contrast from the Kodak film has resulted in a better photo than I might have had from HP5+.

The biggest downside with the film is how much it curls when developed and dried. It coils up like a spring AND has a longitudinal curl as well. This makes it pretty difficult to get into the negative holder for my scanner – it’s easier to get my cat into his box for visits to the vets!

A map of contours
Like my roll of Tri-X Pan
Twisting and curving

Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 & Kodak Tri-X Pan (expired 2003) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 24 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Over the M1 and past a barn

April 21, 2021 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

This follows on directly from my post a couple of days ago about my walk over the fields near Aston. Another four photos from the middle(ish) section of the walk.

It was dry on the day of the walk and the ground was firm, but there were reminders of how the conditions can change when wet weather has occured, both in the shape of these tractor tracks, and also the signs of footprints in the dried surface of the footpath.

Across another field the path splits – turning right and heading south along the western edge of the mortorway, or left where I walked up an incline to the bridge across the M1. Just before crossing the bridge I made a photo of a farm track where it ran through a stand of trees.

Crossing the motorway in the crisp spring light, I made another picture, this time of the road heading north. A little further up is the junction where the M18 splits to take drivers north-east to Doncaster, Robin Hood Airport, and on to Goole. The M1 itself bends westwards to split the gap between Sheffield and Rotherham, crossing the River Don over Tinsley Viaduct close to the Meadowhall shopping mall, before turning back north to Barnsley, Wakefield and Leeds.

After crossing the motorway, the footpath cut to the right and south towards a nearby farm. The farm had a large open-sided barn which made opportunity for another couple of pictures.

I did make one final photo on this roll of Delta 100 a little further on where a line of poplars framed a nice wooden door and cottage. Sadly the film snapped while loading it onto the spiral and so that frame was lost.

I’ve more photos still to come from this walk, but they’re colour pictures so I’ll post them another day.

A big wooden barn
It’s sides open to the wind
Contents blown away?

Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 | G-Zuiko Auto-W 28,, f/3.5 + orange filter & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 12mins @ 20°.

Taken on 5 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Down a lane and up to the wind farm

April 19, 2021 fishyfisharcade3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk along a previously unexplored path. The route took me from Aston, a village / district on the easternmost edge of Sheffield, north over the fields towards Penny Hill Wind Farm, then cuting to the east to cross the M1 motorway on a farm bridge. From there, back towards the south, across the M1 at the busy Junction 31 roundabout, and through Aston again to where I began.

There will be a number of photos to come from this walk in the next few days and I shot both black-and-white and colour images. Today’s post features a quartet of photos from the first half of the walk.

This first image is the lane from Aston down to a farm at the bottom of the dip. In the distance, at middle-left, one of the large wind turbines at Penny Hill can be seen peeking above the trees.

Climbing the hill past the farm up to the top of the ridge brings the turbines into more prominence, as well as a mobile transmitter and another antenna of some sort over on the left of the frame – at night this one can be seen lit with red aircraft warning lights.

Approaching the mobile tower, the turbines now take prominence along the top of the ridge, although they are still quite some distance away.

Heading east across the fields towards the nearby motorway, I turn and make a photo of the path along which I have walked.

Out across the fields
Feeling the bite of the air
Crisp and cold and bright

Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 | G-Zuiko Auto-W 28,, f/3.5 + orange filter & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 12mins @ 20°.

Taken on 5 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Miner’s strike graffiti

April 18, 2021 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

I used to live not too far from Orgreave when I was younger and still lived at home with my parents. Orgreave was the site of a coal mine and coking plant and was a location made infamous when, during the 1984-84 UK miner’s strike, it was the site of clashes betweek striking miners and police – an event that bacame known as the Battle of Orgreave.

Some of my friends witnessed the events that took place, watching from the vantage point of the railway bridge above where the clashes took place. I missed it all by dint of me being on a week-long school trip.

During the whole period of the miner’s strike, a variety of industial action took place across the coalfields of the UK, and graffiti appeared in support of the striking miners. So it was with some amazement to find a few weeks ago, while out for a walk with my dad, that some of the graffiti I remembered seeing back when I was a teenager is still present and highly legible.

If anyone could be said to be at the head of the conflicting sides during the dispute, then it would have to be Margaret Thatcher, then UK Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party – also known a The Tories – for the government, and Arthur Scargill, leader of the powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). It is these opposing forces celebrated and denounced in graffiti form here.

I’m not sure what paint was used, but it has certainly stood the test of time!

Back when we were young
Youthful adventures happened
In places like this

Olympus OM-2N, G-Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 + orange filter & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 12mins @ 20°.

Taken on 4 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

New Topographics

April 17, 2021 fishyfisharcade3 Comments

In 1975 an exhibition named New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape was held in the International Museum of Photography in New York City. It featured works by a number of photographers – the Americans Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel, Jr., and the German couple Bernd and Hilla Becher. Each photographer exhibited 10 photographs.

New Topographics presented a different way of photographing landscapes, eschewing the traditional natural environments and instead presenting images of scenes with a clear human footprint, such as industry, suburbia, gas stations, parking lots and the like.

While I only came across the term in recent years, and at no point set out to be a “new topographer”, it’s clear that many of my photographs fall into the style. I’ve no doubt found influence in the works of photographers who were in turn influenced by the works of the artists presented in the original exhibition, although of the ten, I only have photobooks by Stephen Shore (though there are undoubtedly works by the others collected in other books in my collection).

It’s a style that doesn’t appeal to all. For many, the subjects of such photographs are ruinous blots on the landscape, detracting and imposing on the traditional bucolic scenes more often considered as landscape photography. But I have a place in my heart for both.

Grass fields and blue lakes
Overlooked by new homes
It was once a mine