Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
I found this scene to be somewhat sinister, perhaps a hangover from growing up under the shadow of a potential third world war during the 80s. The mannequin with its gas-mask and rubber gloevs reminiscent of a scene from countless post-apocalyptic dramas.
The title of today’s post is nicked from the 2000AD comic strip, ABC Warriors.
The place I grew up
Was the scene of the film “Threads”
‘Twas scary as hell.
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
I think the flag really makes this picture. Without it it would have been much of a muchness, especially with the uninspiring sky.
Fly the Stars and Stripes
From a Jeep in a green field
Wartime memories
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
For the last few months I’ve had a notification from WordPress about my “streak”. As of today I’ll be told “You’re on a 1,009-day streak on Steel City Snapper photography!“. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but it was probably a month or two before I hit one-thousand consecutive posts. I expected it to stop when it reached the 1k figure, but it hasn’t. Instead I get a little system-generated reminder that I haven’t had a day off posting in nearly three years. There might be some way to turn it off in the site settings, but it’s not yet gotten quite annoying enough for me to be bothered to find out.
Anyway, with no connection to my ramblings whatsoever, today I’ll share a picture of the back-end of a Mk II Ford Escort. Enjoy!
I once nearly bought
A Mk II Escort in blue
With black vinyl roof
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
The owner of this little Fiat 500 has added a few humerous signs to their vehicle.
The car and the “Parking for Italians only” sign remind me of the time my wife and I (well, it was still before we were married back then) visited Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy. It would have been the best part of three decades ago now, which seems incredible!
Anyway, one of the things I noticed when there was the number of cars with dents, scrapes, and prangs of one sort or another. It seemd not a sigle car remained unscathed, like they’d been used as bumper-cars.
So the “Parking for Italians” sign conjures an image of some driver nonchalantly ramming his car into a space at the side of the road, shunting aside other vehicles in order to fit.
I can’t say I noticed many damaged cars when I visited Sorrento a few years ago, so maybe it was just the drivers in Rimini.
This tiny Fiat
Has escaped the scrapes and dings
Witnessed in Rimini
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
A couple of photos showing wider scenes at the vintage rally I attended last month (I can’t believe it’s October already!). If you like making photos of vintage and classic (and some not so classic) vehicles, then these are great places to visit to do so.
It’s one of those days
Where I wish I’d not started
Writing these haiku’s
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
Google has been my tutor again here, filling in my lack of automotive knowledge. If I’ve done my job right, I think that this is a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner. As always, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Kneeling on the grass
Getting face-to-face with this
Vintage Roadrunner
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
As ever (it seems) my plans of finishing earlier than normal on a Friday have been thwarted. Today thanks to my errant laptop that has decided to eat all the available disk-space on its C drive, thus rendering almost all activities unachievable or vastly more time-consuming. I now need to rebuild the machine back to a fresh state so I can actually run applications and (gasp!) view webpages.
The weekend awaits, but I’m already booked up tomorrow helping my son and his girlfriend move to their new apartment, so I doubt I’ll have much time to relax. Perhaps Sunday will give a little of itself?
So, today, a couple of pictures from the Smallwood Vintage Rally as I’ve finally gotten around to scanning the last roll that had images on from that occasion.
Here are two tractors
In a movie these would be
Driven by actors
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
The towers of the City of London loom above Southwark Bridge. The most distinctive is probably 20 Fenchurch Street, popularly know as the “walkie-talkie” seen to the right of the image. There are a number of other towers planned, including 1 Undershaft, a blocky-looking tower almost as tall as The Shard on the opposite bank of the Thames.
Working in the sky
Will people in future be
Working from home?
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 19 August 2021
On London’s South Bank, not far from Southwark bridge, lies this small beach beside the River Thames. Downstream, St. Paul’s cathedral can be spied, and then the modern towers of the City of London.
Imagine yourself
Wavelets lapping at the shore
Standing on a beach
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 19 August 2021
Alice’s looks like it would be an interestig shop to browse around. I didn’t get chance to go inside, but from what I could see, and the items presented outside and in the windows, it looks like it will be full of all maner of interesting and esoteric bits-and-bobs.
I see the queen’s face
She’s peering through the window
As a girl walks by
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Lab developed in Xtol.
Taken on 19 August 2021
