At a number of locations around the UK today, Analogue Wonderland organised a series of film photography photo walks – over forty of them! As they not only provided a roll of 36exposure Kodak Gold film, but also developing and scanning too, this was quite the deal, and it didn’t take much thought to decide to join in.

There was no event taking place in my home city of Sheffield, so I decided to join the Blackpool event. There were closer locations I could have chosen, but I fancied a trip to the seaside. In the end, the Blackpool photo walk took place in Stanley Park, which is about a mile or so inland from the seafront, but I engineered my visit to get to the town early enough to have at least some time to wander around the more seasidey part of the place.

Sadly, though not surprising for the UK, the weather was less than ideal today, with rain and heavy overcast skies through much of the day, and my time at the seafront mostly consisted of a walk along the beach, my camera hidden inside my waterproof jacket, only to appear when there was something worth photographing. Spoiler – trying to take photographs with a fully manual SLR camera while simultaneously holding an umbrella in the wind and rain is a challenge! Nevertheless, despite this, the grim weather actually made for some atmospheric looking scenes, so I’m hopeful these will look good when I get the roll developed.

After this I set of for the walk to Stanley Park to meet the organiser of this event (Peggy Marsh of Camera Go Camera fame) and the other photographers. In all, there were around 15-20 people taking part), so there was a mini crowd of analogue-camera-carrying-people that set of from the start.

The event consisted of a gentle ramble around the park – past the cafe, to the boating lake, through some woodland, and beside a golf course, amongst other sights. The rain, while never far away, did ease off to a degree in the afternoon – it was even almost sunny for a short while! – but the day remained mostly overcast. I usually favour black and white film in these conditions, but colour was the order of the day, so I tried to take care to find subjects that would suit the medium. Whether I’ve been successful will remain to be seen…

At the end of the walk, we all had to give out completed rolls of film back to Peggy to be sent to Analogue Wonderland for their Analogue Wonderlab to work its magic. I’ve never used Analogue Wonderland for developing or scanning before, so this will be a good opportunity to see what their results are like and compare them to my usual lab.

Although I shot a full roll of film today, I don’t yet have any pictures to share from the event, so instead here’s a picture of the stretch of the beach I walked this morning, although this photo was made way back in 2006. It’s interesting to note that, while the pier looks very similar today, the sea defences have changed quite considerably, with a curving (and photogenic) set of steps now running along this part of the seafront.

Canon PowerShot S2 IS.

Taken 13 September 2006.