35mm · Film photography · Photography

No ice cream today

Not for me, at least. Seeing this photo has made me long for a nice Mister Whippee 99 with some raspberry sauce, but all we have in the house is a brick of vanilla that our freezer has probably turned into permafrost.

On hot summer days
An ice cream treat is fun ’till
It drips down your hands

Everybody's favourite

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 9 May 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Ball Street bridge

The Ball Street bridge crosses the River Don a little upstream from Kelham Island and is immediately adjacent to Kelham Weir. The bridge dates to 1856 and was built by Milton Iron Works at Elsecar. The bridge holds grade II listed status.

The bridge is now only open to non-motorised traffic (although maybe motorcycles too). I believe that this is to manage road traffic around the area.

Red and green iron
Spanning the flowing river
Now blocked to traffic

Riding across the Don
Across

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 9 May 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Capri in colour

Apologies to anyone hoping to see the beautiful island of Capri in this post. Instead you are going to get an infinitely cooler Ford Capri instead. It may not have the designer stores, millionaire’s residences, or crowded funicular railway, but who wants any of those when you can have a cool old car?

It’s the same car I portrayed back on 28 May, and these were taken at the same time with my Canon Sure Shot on a roll of Kodak Colorplus. I much prefer these colour photographs.

If you really want to see some colour photos of the isle of Capri, I have some of those too. 🙂

Orange paint fading
But not dulling the appeal
Of classic beauty

Capri
Capri
Capri
Capri
Capri

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 9 May 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

As wide as the Wicker Arches

The Wicker Arches is a railway viaduct on the edge of Sheffield city centre. It was built in 1848 and the 41-arches span the Don Valley. Most of the arches are now blocked, with various businesses occupying the spaces, but the main arch across the Wicker, with decorative pedestrian arches to either side, remains a busy route into the city, and Effingham Road also passes beneath the viaduct further east. The arch beneath which the River Don passes now forms part of the Five Weirs Walk with the route taking the form of a suspended metal walkway named the Spider Bridge (it’s even decorated with large silver arachnids with illuminated eyes).

Passenger rail services across the viaduct ceased in 1970 when Sheffield Victoria Station, which was situated atop the viaduct, closed, and all rail traffic had stopped by the 1980s.

The phrase “as wide as the Wicker Arches” has been regularly used by people in Sheffield to denote someone who was a bit crafty or a smartarse.

When I was cheeky
“Wide as the Wicker Arches!”
Would come my mum’s cry

As wide as the Wicker Arches

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 9 May 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The remains of the Farfield Inn

Another victim in the declining pub trade in the UK, the Farfield Inn stands at the western end of Neepsend Lane at the bottom of Hillfoot Road, not far from the busy route that is Penistone Road. There used to be pigeon lofts on the steep hillside along this stretch but those, like the Farfield Inn, have fallen into dereliction, their skeletal remains vaguely apparent in the brush that has grown to take their place.

“Fancy a nice pint?”
Would once have been said by those
Who visited here

Abandoned hostelries
Abandoned hostelries

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 9 May 2021

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Finding a Ford Capri

Finding old cars here in the UK isn’t easy, at least outside of car shows and museums. The MOT system means that most vehicles get sent for scrap before they gain too much age; the cost of keeping them road-worthy a barrier to long-term posession. Add to this the large-scale scrappage schemes that were brought into place when the use of leaded petrol was outlawed a few decades ago and the number of older-model vehicles is low. So, when I come across something like this Ford Capri parked on a street-corner, a photograph or two is almost obligatory.

The Capri was introduced as a Eurpopean equivalent of the Mustang apparently and it, along with the mark III Ford Cortina, always give me a sense of their being our versions of the American fastbacks and muscle cars.

Sometimes you can find
Old treasures left to be seen
On our street corners

Home of a professional?

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 9 May 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Cricket ground

This is the cricket ground in Queen’s Park, Chesterfield. This photo was made on my first ever visit to this location, early one Sunday morning (the same Sunday when I took the picture of the Austin A90 featured in yesterday’s post). It’s quite a nice park, with a pond, bandstand, a glasshouse (seen to the middle right of this photo), as well as the cricket ground itself. I believe that the park extends with sports fields beyong the trees you can see in this picture. It’s pencilled into my mental list of interesting places to make photographs, should I be in the vicinity again.

Unexpected park
On a Sunday morning walk
Pleasantly perceived

Cricket pitch

Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 & Kodak Tri-X Pan (expired 2003) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 25 April 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Austin A90 Six Westminster

A few weeks ago (well, a month to be accurate) I wend to a local car-boot sale early one Sunday morning on the lookout for old camera bargains. There were none – one stall had an old digital compact, and another had one of those cheap 35mm film panoramic cameras – the ones that use a mask to basically crop a 35mm frame down to a thinner output – but nothing I was interested in spending any money on.

As I’d planned to go somewhere afterwards and shoot some film, I had my OM-2n with me. As I walked through the cars parked on the field beside the boot-sale area I noticed this old Austin rally car, so made a photo.

Today my wife and I visitted Knaresborough, an attractive market town in North Yokshire, about sixty miles or so north from where we live. It’s not a place I’ve visited before but it was a lovely location to wander around, looking in the local shops, having a bite to eat, and making some photographs (which will appear here on theblog in due course). Having just started to scan the first roll I shot through my recently-acquired Olympus XA3, I’m very pleased with the results – no signs of any faults and the photos are lovely and sharp – so I decided to take it with me on the trip. It’s tiny size is a definite boon! I did have another camera in she shape of my Canon Sure Shot Supreme – that one mostly because I have a roll of expired Fuji Sensia loaded that I’m wanting to test (I have a few more rolls of the same film so this is the guinea-pig roll to see how they look shot a box speed). All told, and despite some gloomy, if not unexpected for the UK, rainy weather, we had a nice day out.

In amongst the cars
Of people looking to bag
A bargain or two

Austin A90

Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 & Kodak Tri-X Pan (expired 2003) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 25 April 2021