35mm · Film photography · Photography

Norton water tower

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Norton water tower (or to give it its official name Oakes water tower) sits to the south-east of Sheffield. While you can’t really say it sits atop a hill, it’s still located at a more elevated position than much of the surrounding area and as such is visible for miles around.

Norton watertower

It’s one of those structures that is much larger than expected when you get close to it. It stands 109 feet tall.

Norton watertower

It was originally built to supply water to homes in the Norton district of the city, including the Gleadless Valley housing estates – around ten-thousand homes at the time. It cost approximately £90,000 to build and was officially opened in July 1961, so 59 years ago as I write this.

Norton watertower

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Pandemic scenes #13

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As the number of people buying face-masks and gloves has increased, so has the number of them I see discarded on the floor.

I try not to be all doom-and-gloom about the human race – we’ve achieved so many amazing things. Sometimes though, it’s hard not to think of ourselves as just a blight on the planet. Consuming that which we don’t need and polluting with what we don’t want.

It really isn’t that difficult to find a bin in most places, and if not, just take the rubbish with you until you do.

Pandemic Scenes - a new type of litter

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Kodak Colorplus doing the business

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A quick post today because it’s approaching midnight and I’ve just realised I’ve not written anything for the blog!

So, just a picture of a church I passed that was nicely lit by sunlight. It’s perhaps a shame about the bin bags, but the scene is otherwise attractive, and maybe the bags add a sense of real-life to the shot or something.

This roll of Kodak Colorplus has been giving me some particularly saturated colours, reminding me of the look I get (and like) from the Lomography Color Negative films.

Hopefield Evangelical Church

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Woollen Signs

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A couple of photos of the old Woollen Signs building in Sheffield. The company was bought out about twelve years ago and the site was permanently closed, having been in business since 1883. Some employees went on to form a new Woollens business trading on their expertise in traditional sign writing.

Woollen Signs (wider)

Woollen Signs

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Dot Cotton caged

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While wandering around Sheffield’s Kelham Island area recently I came across this piece of street art that I thought was deserving of a photograph. For those readers outside the UK, the person depicted is Dot Cotton, a long serving character of the British soap opera Eastenders. June Brown, the actor who plays the role, joined the soap back in 1985. She had a hiatus in the 90s from 1993, but returned again in 1997 where she played Dot up until January this year.

I don’t actually like Eastenders, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched a full episode (although my wife used to watch it and I picked up many of the storylines of the time via osmosis). Dot Cotton is, however, an archetypal British screen character and I really liked this small homage to her on this namesake street.

Dot Cotton caged

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

That’s torn it

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I’ll post one of my weird photos today that I like a lot but which I expect many people will just wonder what on Earth I was thinking when I fired the shutter…

It’s just an advertising hoarding. One with a torn advertisement. I don’t drive past this often, but have done so on a handful of occasions recently and each time I passed it caught my eye. Usually this indicates that I ought to make a photograph.

I’m not really sure what drew me to it, although it was the faded, half-torn Colonel Sanders that first caught my attention. I also like the way that the badly faded KFC advert is peeling away to reveal a still fresh-looking advert for (I think) Sky Sports beneath, where it emerges butterfly-like from it’s pale cocoon, still daubed with the remnants of paste, almost like the man is yelling the remains of the paper away. I like how the splash of blue in the otherwise overcast sky is mirrored by the blue on the billboard. I like the cluster of poppies giving a splatter of red to the dusty edge of the car-park besides which the billboard stands.

I like it.

That's torn it

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Artificial flowers. Real shadows.

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A shot taken back during full lockdown in April. I’d spotted that this vase of artificial flowers on the windowsill cast a nice shadow on the vertical blinds when one of the lamps was switched on. So, after a few nights of noticing it and thinking there might be a picture to be had, I decided to drag the tripod down into the living room, set up the bronica with a cable release, and make the photograph.

Shadow flowers

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 April 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Out near Thorpe Salvin

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A bunch of photos that I made on a big looping walk from Thorpe Salvin a few weeks ago. I’ve posted several photos from the same walk in previous posts here, here, here, here & here.

These are all from the second roll of film I started during the walk, some expired Fuji Superia 100. It expired 12 years ago but has been cold-stored and it still looks great. I sometimes overexpose it slightly, but it looks good shot at box speed too, as can be seen in the photos here.

It’s a bit of a random selection of some of the things I passed while walking and I’ll post them as they come, without any commentary.

The corner of Little Lane

Those bungalows again

Country airstrip

Fence and chain

More big daisies

Dove on a streetlight

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). The last shot was with my Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM lens.

Taken on 31 May 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Wellies

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On the day I started my street-portraits project, I parked my car on a street close to the city centre. My intent had been to use all twelve frames of the Portra 400 for the photographs of strangers I planned to make. However the first thing I saw was this corner cafe and I made a photo of it before I even came close to asking a person for their picture.

I’m wondering if a “corner shops” project might also be fun to do too. It has benefits of not being as stressful to pursue as asking people for their portraits, plus it has that social history angle of recording structures at a moment in time. I always enjoy looking at photographs of how things used to be and this will be my own small addition to the genre.

Obviously, most photographs I make that have recogniseable locations or contemporary objects in the frame do this to some extent anyway, but most of those are made randomly as a result of my particular eye for subject, not part of a more focussed project.

If I do pursue this, it will be concurrent with the street-portraits project, which I fully intend to complete.

Anyway, here’s the sort of thing I would envisage as part of the project…

Wellies

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 400.

Taken on 11 July 2020