Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Two photographs of Peveril Castle which sits above the village of Castleton. Or, to be more specific, the remains of the keep at Peveril Castle. The first was shot within the castle grounds, the second taken looking up at the same location from Cave Dale.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 18 May 2024
Today has been a tiring day. Not because I’ve been busy, but because I decided to pull an all-nighter and watch yesterday’s General Election results as they came in through the night. Apart from a short nap at about 1am in the morning for an hour or so, I have been awake since 7am yesterday morning.
I feel like the towel in this picture, and I’ve caught myself nodding off while sat upright a number of times now!
Luckily the election result was favourable!
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 18 May 2024
The River Idle runs for 26 miles through Nottinghamshire, eventually discharging into the River Trent at West Stockwith. It’s source is a confluence of two smaller rivers, the Maun and the Meden near Markham Moor, just beside the busy A1 road.
While there are a number of suggested sources for the Idle’s name, the origin is not confirmed.
I took this photograph of the river where it flows through Retford, beneath the chesterfield canal, which crosses it on an aqueduct. On this day, the weather was very nice, and the light cast upon and through the waters, illuminating the riverbed and long streamers of gently twisting water weed.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
The picture shared today features a pair of adult swans and, if you look closely, their brood of cygnets.
The photograph was taken a few minutes after the swan at the front had gone into full blown protect-the-family mode.
A man was coming down the canal on a sit-down paddle board (he must have been fishing, as there were a couple of fishing rods attached to the back of the board). As soon as the swan noticed him heading in the direction of its family, even though he was still about thirty meters away, immediately launched into a threatening flight directly towards the man, flying inches above the surface, it’s wing tips making splashes on the water.
The guy on the paddle-board slowed himself to a stop and the swan dropped back into the water maybe seven or eight feet in front of him, it’s long neck coiled down into a tight number-two shape. The swan then proceeded to swim back and forth in front of the board, clearly prepared for any sign of hostility towards it’s nearby family. This continued until the guy gently and slowly passed downstream from the birds.
I took great care not to antagonise the swans when I took this picture. The thing about a swan being able to break a man’s arm is most likely an urban myth, but I felt it prudent to take no chances. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
A house I passed while walking the Chesterfield Canal a few weeks ago. The light was nice and I thought it would look good framed centrally.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
Taken on 8 June 2024
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
Taken on 18 May 2024
A decent amount of my photography focuses on subjects that most would probably not find attractive – brutalist architecture, factories, modern office developments, rundown parts of town, even the odd dead pigeon and ashtray have featured.
But I like the picturesque as much as anyone else and will photograph it when it presents itself. We have an abundance of small towns, villages, hamlets and the like throughout the UK and, due to the relatively compact nature of our island, you’re never too far from one. Even the more humdrum of them will have plentiful opportunities for photograph hunting.
The National Parks, in particular, are jam packed with lovely little places to find and explore. The downside is that they can attract crowds of sightseers. While this isn’t a problem for the businesses that cater to them, it can mean that it’s difficult to get a photograph without someone standing in (or suddenly entering, just as you press the shutter!) the frame. For this reason, I prefer to visit such places mid-week if I can, or during the wintertime when tourist numbers are much reduced, but sometimes a crowded sunny weekend is the chance I get, and it’s better to make the most of it than grumble. There’s a certain charm to having tourists in a picture too, I suppose.
The scene below is in Castleton, a village in the Peak District National Park, famous for its castle and also a number of caves and caverns that have public entry and guided tours. Speedwell Cavern even features a subterranean boat ride!
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 May 2024
Just a pair of brown leather boots, for sale outside a shop in Castleton. Think of this as product photography. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 May 2024
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 May 2024
Back on the 26th September 2021, I wrote a post marking my one thousandth day of consecutive posting. Today, a little under three years later, marks the two thousandth.
I always find milestone posts like this to be difficult. They’re the sort of thing that would normally be celebrated – in that way that we humans seem to like celebrating things that reach a certain, nicely shaped, number. I’m quite a modest person though, so shouting out about my achievements isn’t something I relish or feel particularly comfortable about. I would probably have had greater success in some aspects of my life had I “bigged myself up” a little more, but I’ve always felt that my achievements should speak for themselves, and not be reliant on too much self promotion.
So here I am, having posted without fail for the last two thousand days, and instead of a party, it’s more of an acknowledgement. I reached a big number, and tomorrow I will surpass it (and why will my two-thousand-and-first post be less worthy of celebration anyway?).
It might be nice if I had some sort of special “2,000th post” image that I’ve saved for the occasion, but I don’t, so I’m going to use a picture I took on a trip to Castleton back in May. It shows a gap in a drystone wall part way up Cave Dale. It feels somehow optimistic in tone – a gateway to whatever might come next, I suppose.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 May 2024
Steel City Snapper photography 