35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
I’ve been in London all day today, so don’t have much time (nor inclination) to write much, so I’ll keep it snappy. Pun intended. 🙂
Here are a couple of people sat waiting for a train. One of them has brought some knitting to keep themselves occupied.
Pentax Espio 140m & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 7 September 2019
I saw this lady as I was walking back to the railway station with my family after meeting my son. It was her reflection in the large puddle that caught my eye, so I quickly stopped and took the photograph.
Pentax Espio 140m & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 7 September 2019
As an adjunct to yesterday’s post about the old Chesterfield Magistrate’s Court building, today I’m posting some photos of Chesterfield market, which is a mere stone’s throw away from the court (with a good arm, at least).
Chesterfield’s markets cover two outdoor areas with covered stalls, and a market hall with indoor stalls that sits between the two (the hall, with its clocktower, can be seen in the first picture in today’s set). Thursday morning features a flea market, from which I’ve had a camera bargain or two in the past. I’m not sure which days the markets are busiest, but there were a noticable number of unoccupied stalls on the day I took these pictures.
Again, these are shot on the Lloyds Paharmacy 200 expired film, so the colours are a little off and the contrast is pretty high, but it hasn’t turned out too badly all things considered.
The first and final images are my favourites.
Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired).
Taken on 30 September 2019
A few months ago I was given a couple of rolls of film by one of the ladies at the local photographic society. Both were Lloyds Pharmacy 200, with an expiry date of 2008. You can’t get much more “drugstore film” than this, I guess. Some research suggests that it is actually Solaris Color FG Plus 200 that has been rebranded.
Both rolls have been sat in my freezer since then, so I decided last week to shoot one of them. Given the age of the film and the fact that I didn’t really know it’s provenance, I decided to rate it at 80ASA and loaded it into my Nikon F70. It turned out to be in a pretty good state, and rating it at 80ASA was probably too much – most of the images are a little overexposed, although I’ve recovered them pretty well in Lightroom. Otherwise, while there are some minor colour shifts, and the shadows are not the best, it’s not too bad. I’ll have much more confidence when I shoot the remaining roll.
I’m always a little wary of putting too much effort into making photographs with expired film, at least unless I’ve already had satisfactory results from a roll from the same batch, and this was very much the case with this roll. Most of the frames were shot on a walk around Chesterfield town centre, and the ones shown in this post are of the old Magistrate’s Court building.
The building was constructed in the early 1960s and was in use until the 2000s when a new building was constructed about half a mile from the old site. Since then the building has fallen into disrepair. As it is Grade II listed, it cannot be demolished, but there are apparently plans afoot to convert it into residential use.
It’s an interesting structure and one I’ve photographed on more than one occasion, so here are a few of the most recent pictures. I think the fourth photo, with the roosting pigeons, is my favourite.
Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired).
Taken on 30 September 2019
Two swans await riders in the boating lake at Queen’s Park in Mablethorpe.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
A couple of shots of Mablethorpe Rock, a shop that has been there as long as I can remember (or perhaps mis-remember).
Rock is one of those great British seaside traditions that is still going strong today –Â although, personally, I don’t really like the stuff – it’s overly sweet, sticky, and feels like it will rot the teeth right out of my head as soon as I touch it.
For those not in the know, rock is basically sticks of boiled sugar. It traditionally has the name of the resort you buy it from cleverly running through the length of the stick – something that is done by adding pieces of different coloured sugar to form the individual letters during the manufacturing process while the substance is still soft and malleable – as can be seen in this film from 1957. As well as sticks, you will also find it shaped into all manner of other things – a cooked English breakfast formed out of pure sugar and served on a paper plate is another firm favourite.
Rock comes in a variety of flavours, but plain sugary-sweet, and peppermint are probably the best sellers. The fruit flavoured ones are best in my opinion (if forced to choose), but you can now find all manner of exotic varieties, including such culinary horrors as Tikka Masala flavour!
My favourite part about receiving a stick of rock – it was a traditional gift brought back when someone had been on holiday – was the little black and white photo of the resort that would be inside the clear plastic wrapper. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, these photos are now in colour.
As you can see from the bottom picture, the shop also sells ice cream, so I had one of those instead.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
Sometimes I make photographs that I like for obvious reasons. Maybe it’s the composition, the light, the subject, place or whatever. Sometimes though, I make a photograph that I like for reasons that I can’t quite put my finger on. Obviously there must have been something about the scene that caused me to take the image in the first place – these aren’t just random, shot from the hip accidents.
Todays photo is one such picture. I like it a lot but can’t put my finger on the precise reason(s) why. I guess it could be the way the scene is lit – there are plenty of shadows in the scene, but they’ve been lent a subtlety by the white painted gable-end of the house acting as a giant reflector and this has created some nice lighting. Maybe it’s the colours – it’s got a bit of that blue and orange thing going on, which is nice. The composition is ok – the tree in the background is nicely placed and the green pops in the scene. Or maybe it’s just little details – the satellite dish, the plants in the window, the garden shed with the barely-visible bins in front of it, or the flag.
Or maybe it’s just a combination of all these things that appeal specifically to me and my brain just said “Yep! That’s a nice photo!” and so I clicked the shutter.
It’s one of those images that I suspect many others won’t really take to, but it fires some circuits in me, and I’m even wondering what it would look like as a print.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
It was mid-morning when I took this photograph and the fish and chip shop had not yet opened for business (although there was a man off shot to the right who appeared to be making preparations to do so). Prior to opening some maintenance was taking place, giving rise to the gloriously saturated red doors in the image. These reds, along with the morning light (and subsequent shadows) and the lone painter busy at work, are what attacted me to make the photograph.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
These chalets sit along the promenade, just south of Mablethorpe town centre and behind Queen’s Park – which is where I stood to take this photo. It’s almost the same spot where I made the photo of the crazy golf course that I posted about a few days back, which is behind where I was stood when I took this shot.
I’ve got an older, digital photo of these chalets on my Flickr stream too – that one shot on my Nikon D3200 and 18-55mm kit lens back in September 2015.
I shot this whole roll of Portra 400 at 200asa and really like the way it’s handled the tones, with lovely cornflower blue skies while still keeping a good deal of pop in the primary colours.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
After yesterday’s lengthy (for me) post, it’s a quickie today. So here’s the tail-light of a black car, which I believe is a Ford Zephyr.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 13 September 2019
