Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Coastwatch revisited

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This is the Coastwatch building which sits atop the dunes at Mablethorpe’s north shore, tucked away in a corner of the visitor car-park. On the day I visited, it was still a couple of days before the state funeral of the queen and the country was still in the official period of national mourning, so the flag is being flown at half-mast.

I’m quite pleased with how this image turned out. The structure itself makes an interesting focal point, but it’s helped no end by the cloud detail, the light, and the colour rendition of my scan which has rendered the Fuji Pro 160NS very nicely to my eyes.

It’s not the first time I’ve shared pictures of this place on the blog and you can see some earlier images in this post.

Coastwatch

Yashicamat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed, home scanned, & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 17 September 2022

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Crazy golf

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One of three crazy gold courses at Mablethorpe. When I was younger, this was part of the Arnold Palmer chain of courses. The Arnold Palmer course had a hazard in the form of a windmill with ball-blocking rotating blades (which, for all I know, is still present on this new pirate-themed course, but it was closed so I couldn’t take a look). The trick to beating the windmill was to bounce the ball from the sides of the course, bypassing the rotating sails completely, and still allowing for a skillful hole-in-one if you were good enough.

The final hole was a sloping contraption with a single hole in the centre and a set of traps. Missing the hole would result in your ball rolling back into one of the traps and being lost (or, as I suspected, conveyed back to the hut where you payed and collected your club and ball via some sort of underground channel – you could hear the balls rolling back when you were paying for your game). A successful shot however would cause a bell to ring and allow the lucky player to claim a gift and a free pass for another game. I still have a free game pass in my wallet, despite it having being rendered useless decades ago. It’s worth more for the memories than the free game ever was.

Crazy golf

Yashicamat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed, home scanned, & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 17 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Beach football

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This singular football goal stands on the north beach at Mablethorpe. I think the sand and blue skies are a nice contrast and make for a nice photo. I decided to use if for my competition entry for the “cloudscapes” theme.

North Sea cirrus

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned, & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 17 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Empire State Human

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I liked the juxtaposition between the foreground statue and the background building in this scene. The figure looks defiant, as though holding back the looming structure in some way. The low angle makes him look larger than he might otherwise appear.

Brick by brick, stone by stone, build him till he’s fully grown.
Fetch more water, fetch more sand, biggest person in the land.
Empire State Human – The Human League

Behold!

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Stairway to heaven (or the location of a little man)?

fishyfisharcade4 Comments

It’s in a catherdral, so maybe the former? Most likely just a stairway to the upper gallaries and the clock-tower though.

This picture instantly brings to mind the poem, Antigonish:

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!”

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…

© William Hughes Mearns

As I was going up the stair

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Popping into a cathedral

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On my last trip to Birmingham, the train got me to the station with plenty of time to spare before I had to be at my meeting, so I wandered around and took some pictures with my Canon Z135 compact. It’s not the smallest compact I own, but it’s proven that it can produce reliable point-and-shoot results and the images are plenty sharp, although with perhaps a bit of softness right at the edges.

The cathedral (St. Philips) was open, so I popped inside to see if there were some photos to be had and I made the three you can see below. While the cathedral interior wasn’t too dark, the Z135 doesn’t have a particularly fast lens – f/3.5 at its widest – so I was pleased I was still able to make these three pictures handheld with no noticeable signs of camera shake.

Aisle
Altar
Candles

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Light and dark in the underpass

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On my last visit to Birminghm I had an hour or so from getting off the train to when I needed to be at my meeting so I did what any self-respecting photographer would do – I took photos.

Just outside the station I found an underpass with a reflective ceiling and a number of cylindrical columns which looked like it might make a good location to catch a picture or two. Noting the reflections that pedestrians were casting in the mirror of the ceiling I waited for a couple of people to walk through the scene.

For this first shot I metered for the interior of the tunnel.

Approach

For this second image I waited for a person to appear at the far end of the underpass, the camera metering for the bright opening and casting the tunnel into a starrk, low-key light. This is the one I prefer.

Man on the ceiling

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Everything is different today

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Maybe not everything, but some* things at least.

On the downside, our new prime minister and her chancellor seem to have tanked the entire economy with their so-called mini-budget last week which cut taxes (marginally for the average person, but at a much higher rate for the wealthy, who are now in line for a windfall to further increase the disparity in incomes and wealth). The Pound is plummeting against other currencies, continuation of high inflation will push up prices further and, if the Bank of England decides to react, there’s likely going to be a significant rise in interest rates that will increase the cost of mortgages and borrowing for members of the public as well as businesses.

On the upside, I heard today that I’ve been successful following the job interview I attended a couple of weeks ago, which I’m very happy about. I wish the country wasn’t taking it’s licks, but I’ll grab a bit of good news where I can.

*Actually many, many things. An uncountable number of things even. But still not everything. Probably.

Everything is different today

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 September 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Cleaning up some mess

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I mentioned recently that my local film processing lab has gone out of business and that I’ve had to find somewhere else to carry out my C41 and E6 development. I’ve had a couple of rolls of C41 developed last week by my local camera store (they do E6 as well, but this is sub-contracted to another lab with a slightly lengthy turnaround, so I sent my roll of Velvia to another place fot quicker results).

The camera shop cut and sleeve 35mm in film into strips of four frames, as opposed to the strips of six that the old lab provided (and to which I cut my home-developed B&W negatives) so I opted to receive the developed film uncut and sleeve it myself at home. The roll of 35mm they developed was tucked into a 35mm film canister, as was the roll of 120 film, the main difference being that the width of the 120 roll meant the cannister was uncapped with the film poking out the end. I think this was the cause of the significant amount of dust on the 120 negatives when I scanned them. While imperceptible to my naked eye, once imported into Lightroom there was an entire galaxy of small white spots apparent on the resulting scans!

So this afternoon has been spent painstakingly cloning out the spots in Photoshop. I’d estimate it took a good 20-25 minutes to deal with each of the ten frames that are worth processing further. I really hope that the 35mm roll is not similarly afflicted!

Here’s a photograph that feels apt in the circumstances.

Hardware

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 3 September 2022