Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Standing a short distance from the rest of the structures at Magpie Mine is this replica horse gin. Horses were harnessed to the structure and their motion would turn the large wheel in order to winch material up from the mine-workings below.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.
Taken on 16 March 2020
I went for a walk before work again this morning and shot a few more frames with the Bronica.
One of the things I always find a little tricky with medium format cameras is focusing – specifically those with focusing screens as opposed to rangefinders. I find it easy to get the focus looking good on the screen at initial glance, and for medium / long / infinity distances, especially at smaller apertures, that’s usually fine. But when it comes to close subjects, particularly if I’m shooting wide open, then it’s a different matter.
I find that I’m second guessing myself, twisting the focus ring back-and-forth by marginal amounts, never quite sute if a fraction of a degree one way or the other is the setting that will nail perfect focus on my subject. Flicking up the magnifier, squinting at split prisms and sparkling polygons of ground glass until my eyes ache. I think it stems from a number of images where I was feeling confident of my focusing only to discover later that the negs were soft in the places it mattered.
It’s not too bad with a tripod, where I usually have the gift of time to get things spot on, but on situations like today where I was shooting handheld and at wide apertures, it’s trickier (my fault for loading 100asa film I guess). Even a slight momentary sway of my body is easily enough to spoil a shot.
Will today’s shots suffer from bad focusing? I guess I’ll have to wait until I finish the roll and develop them, but I’m certainly looking forward to the days where I’ll be able to leave the house purely for photography, carry a tripod if required, and not have to bolt the attempt to make photographs onto an exercise outing.
Today’s photographs come from Magpie Mine again. If you’ve followed my blog over the fast few months, you may find the first of the three familiar – some of the compositions are very close to those I shot on the same day with my Zeiss Mess-Ikonta and a roll of 30-year expired Kodacolor Gold.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.
Taken on 16 March 2020
I got up early this morning for a pre-work walk. The weather has turned nice again, although at the time I went out it was quite chilly and at points on my route there was frost on the ground in shaded areas. I decided to take the Bronica ETRSi with me in case there was something worth photographing as the camera has a part-used roll of Fomapan 100 loaded and I though I might grab a few more frames as I walked.
I took a few shots – one of the local signal box, one of some wildflowers beside a tree, and then some dew-coated cobwebs in the vegetation next to the river. After taking this last shot I checked the frame counter to see how many shots remained and was surprised to see that it still said 5, the same number that had been displayed when I set out on my walk.
Puzzlement, and concern that there was some problem or fault causing this quickly turned to realisation as to the true cause of the issue.
A couple of days ago I’d used the camera to make a still-life of some ornamental fruit that we have in a display bowl in the kitchen. As the light was dim in the kitchen, and as the film is quite slow at 100asa, I’d mounted the camera on a tripod, inserted a shutter-release cable, and then locked up the mirror before taking the shot. Or so I thought. What I’d actually done is switched off the camera’s multiple-exposure protection. The switches for this and mirror lock-up look practically identical and sit next to each other on the side of the camera body, and I’d obviously forgotten which was which.
So, as a result of my mistake, I now have a frame that has (I think) four shots exposed upon it. Maybe it will reveal some sort of wonderful happy accident, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
After rectifying the situation I managed to grab a couple of extra shots on the remainder of my walk, although I suspect the better ones are on the ruined frame.
Today’s photo is from my trip to Magpie Mine in March. It has little to do with the content of today’s post, but was shot on a roll of the same film.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.
Taken on 16 March 2020
On Saturday I wrote a little about how there seems to be some sort of landscaping work taking place in the trees and scrubland close to the Trans-Pennine Trail. One of the things that seems to be a part of this is the clearing of undergrowth from an old brick-built bridge. Until a few weeks ago, and despite my having walked past not fifty yards form where it stands, I had been completely unaware of its existence.
Well, I say completely, but there was a clue to it’s existence – a ridge of earth mostly covered with large shrubs and small trees was visible from the nearby footpath. I’d noticed this before and on one occasion even battled part way through a field full of brambles to try and see if it was an overgrown spur of the path or something. However, after getting scratched by the undergrowth, I retreated, the mystery unresolved.
Now, however, a freshly raised fence has become visible, so I decided to take another look. I was pleasantly surprised when I founf the aforementioned bridge. The bridge has a fair bit of graffiti applied, and there’s a significant number of beer cans beneath the central arch, so I’m obviously not the first to come across it (and I doubt the people who erected the fence were the ones to have thrown all the beer cans under there – the fence is way too straight for that! :)).
The bridge is almost certainly a remnant of the coal mining activities that once covered this area, and it would be interesting to dig out an old map of the area to see how he lay of the land was presented in the past. For now though, here’s a view of the bridge looking from the south-west.
Holga 120N & Ilford HP5+ – Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins
Taken on 9 April 2020
Today has been a somwhat uneventful day. I haven’t left the house, and the only photography-related activity has been reading my Portraits of America book, reading some blogs, and loading a roll of Fomapan 100 into my Bronica ETRSi (but not, so far at least, making any photographs with it). I did also upload a couple more shots to Flickr from the roll of Hp5+ I developed on Friday, one of which you can see in this post.
Yesterday, while not exactly exciting, was more eventful. My wife needed to pick up some things from the hospital and, as she was unsure if she’d be able to find a parking space outside the ward (and would otherwise have a lengthy walk), asked if I would drive her there. This was a reason for me to both drive the car – something I’ve barely done in over a month – and also, because we took our small car (which has been sat on the drive for weeks), give it a run to get some charge in the battery and get some movement in it’s parts. While hardly the trip of a lifetime, it was nice to be able to venture further from home for once.
Then, yesterday afternoon, I decided to combine a walk with picking up some things my wife had been been unable to buy during the weekly supermarket shop. I decided to get some decent exercise by taking a circuitous route around the area, looping around to the shopping centre, and then back home. At around 3.5 miles it wasn’t a really long walk, but I kept up a brisk pace throughout and got some good fresh air and exercise.
I also had the Sure Shot Telemax in my cargo-pants’ pocket, and managed to finish the roll of Delta 400 that it contained. Just a few snapshots as I walked, but maybe something worth a second look when I get around to developing them. The roll ended rather abruptly at frame #32 because I think the camera’s frame-counter has developed a fault – it sometimes jumps back to a lower number, or (in this case) miscounts how may shots have been taken. It’s done it before, but I don’t think it’s actually lost any images, still producing the expected 36 or 37 photos.
Today’s photo has both railway lines and power lines, and is the sort of composition that the Holga seems to eat up for lunch.
Holga 120N & Ilford HP5+ – Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins
Taken on 9 April 2020
One of the routes I sometimes take while out for a walk takes me past an incineration plant. This was built recently and is an EfW (Energy from Waste) facility which produces electricity from the burning on non-hazardous waste. I recall there was considerable uproar when the plant was first proposed – one of the concerns being that nearby residents would suffer from the smell of burning. As it stands, I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed any odours from its operation (although the usual prevailing winds probably blow it away from where we live most of the time anyway).
It makes for quite an imposing structure, both from the road that runs beside it, and from the marshy area of land that lies across the road to the east. I’ve walked through (or rather around) this area on many occasions as there is a public footpath that skirts the edge. However, on a recent walk, I noticed that there has been some significant work done – both here, and also in the woodland around the nearby Trans-Pennine Trail. There has been some tree felling, but the most noticeable change is the appearance of what seem to be a number of small ponds.
The marshy area used to be a large, open reed bed, but now has a number of more clearly defined ponds with footpaths snaking amongst them. My assumption is that this is some sort of improvement programme intended to aid wildlife and also make for more pleasant and interesting walking activities. I’ve not seen anything official to back up this theory though.
Today’s photos show both the marshy area and the looming incinerator and are from the first roll of 120 film I’ve home developed. I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Holga 120N & Ilford HP5+ – Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins
Taken on 9 April 2020
Today has been somewhat disconcerting. While I’ve not, as yet, looked at the news at all today to see what’s been happening, I was nonetheless personally reminded of the current pandemic situation when I found out that my wife will be seconded onto a ward containing COVID-19 positive patients from next week. While the secondment is not unexpected, the thought of her coming into close contact with people infected with the virus is not a pleasant one.
I know that, for most people, the symptoms are mild (and even undetected in some cases), and that the percentage of people developing severe symptoms is pretty low, but that doesn’t make me any less concerned knowing how seriously it can affect others.
There isn’t a great deal that can be done to avoid the situation though, beyond taking the greatest care that we can, so it’s important to make sure I don’t worry about this unduly. Worrying about things I can do nothing about isn’t good for anyone. No-one in our family has contracted the virus (thatwe know of) and certainly no-one has become sick, so I shall continue to hope that this will remain the case.
Another photo of the Humber Estuary and bridge from back in 2017 today. Again, this is a photo that’s been sat on my hard-drive unpublished since I took it.
Yashica Mat 124 G & Ilford FP4+
Taken on 30 August 2017.
Got tied up with something tonight that took waaay longer than I had planned, so just a quick upload today. A shot I took three years ago but didn’t really do anything with until yesterday. I’m quite pleased with it. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124 G & Ilford FP4+
Taken on 30 August 2017.
The road-sign depicted in today’s photo feels pretty apt at present. As the news of the coronavirus pandemic hit and became widespread last month there was an upsurge in panic buying in the shops. Some of these things seemed logical – hand-sanitiser, for instance, is a useful substance to help keep you safe from inadvertently contracted viruses on your hands. Soap and water is similarly effective, but I guess not as convenient for carrying in your pocket or in your car. Paracetamol was another item that soon found itself in short supply and, again has a logical basis for being so – namely it’s use in reducing temperature during a fever. And while I can undestand the benefits of having dried pasta given it’s long shelf-life, the quantities that some people were buying was over-the-top – unless your family eats pasta every meal of every day, you don’t need that much.
Other items seemed less logical (or at least to a degree). The number one thing here was toilet-paper. I’m not quite sure where this particular panic originated, but I first saw it mentioned by my nephew. He lives in Australia and he posted an image of empty shelves where the toilet-paper once sat in the supermarket. Before long the phenomena had reached the UK and spread around the world – panic buying of toilet-paper seemingly has a faster and more effective transmission rate than the COVID-19 virus! While I can understand how no-one wants to be left short of toilet-paper, again the volumes that some individuals were buying were ridiculous, some people buying dozens of rolls at a time. It’s not even as though a primary symptom of the virus is diarrhea or anything, in which case I might have understood.
The result of this panic buying was that stocks that should have met the needs of all instead became scarce, with some unable to source any at all. It even began to generate black-market activities (reports of stores being broken into and their stocks of toilet-paper stolen), and price-gouging as unscrupulous traders hiked the cost of in-demand items.
The result here in the UK has been a complete change in the way that people have been allowed to shop, firstly by stores limiting the quantitiy of items shoppers have been allowed to purchase, but also, because of the lock-down, implementing strict people-control measures to limit the number of shoppers in stores at any one time. This has led to large queues in the car-parks outside supermarkets as people wait for their turn to enter. In some parts of the country these have been boisterous (and, significantly, meant lots of people lining up in close proximity). Thankfully, in the stores close to us, the queuing has been orderly and well spaced and these measures have resulted in better access to produce as well as a losening of the restrictions on quantities (though some items are still excepted).
We’re into spring, and will be coming up to summer soon, so queuing outside is probably not that much of a hardship. That said, here in the UK the weather can be somewhat “changeable” to say the least, so it will be interesting to see how people fare in queues if the weather takes a turn for the worst.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Tmax 400.
Taken on 29 January 2020
Three more photographs taken at Magpie Mine from the same thirty-one years expired roll of Kodacolor Gold 200.
A friend commented that they looked like faded 1970s postcards.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodacolor Gold 200 (expired in Feb 1989).
Taken on 16 March 2020
