Another shot made with my 28-300mm zoom lens that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve before. Actually, that’s probably not strictly accurate – my Zuiko 75-150mm might have done a decent job had I been shooting with one of my Olympus SLR’s. Still, I wouldn’t have been able to make this shot previously with my other Nikon gear, the longest lens I have for that format being a 105mm macro lens.
The conditions could have been better for this picture. Although it was still quite early in the day (before 9am) the sun was already beating down and there was a lot of haze and otherwise clear blue skies.
I like how Peveril Castle is perched up on the hillside in the background though.
Mam Tor is a large hill that sits at the top of the Hope Valley above Castleton. It translates as “Mother Hill”, and is so named because frequent landslips have resulted in a series of smaller hills on its slopes. Another name for the hill is “The Shivering Mountain”, which I like because it sounds like some place in Middle Earth. Mam Tor is 1,692 feet tall and forms part of a line of hills known as the Great Ridge which separate the Hope Valley from Edale.
I took this photo on my recently acquired Tamron 28-300mm superzoom, which I bought as a useful all-round lens for hikes in the countryside. I’ve found that compact cameras, while being convenient to carry, tend to limit my ability to photograph more distant subjects. This outing to Castleton was a bit of a test outing for the lens, and I’m happy with the results, especially the vibration reduction which works perfectly with my Nikon F80. Any zoom lens with a focal length range as large as this will have some shortcomings, but they’re not too noticeable on 35mm film.
For some reason, this particular shot of Mam Tor has ended up very grainy – much more so than the other frames from the same roll.
After yesterday’s post about the sad story of The Marples, here’s another Sheffield pub with a point of interest.
The name probably gives away the fact that there is a connection with the mail service, but the interesting fact is (and I’ve not verified this) is that it is the only pub in the country that is built into a Royal Mail building, in this case the Sheffield City Delivery Office. I once went into the delivery office as a child (my nan was a postwoman) and was fascinated by the sight of hundreds of bags of mail moving around the plave on a suspended rail system. How much fun it would have been to ride around the place in a mail bag, I thought.
The building in today’s photograph houses a pawn broker and a self-storage facility, but it was once a pub called The London Mart, although known as Marples by regulars (after it’s owner, John Marples). It is possibly the most famous bar in the city due to the tragedy which befell it during the Second World War.
On the night of Thursday December 12, 1940, the pub received a direct hit from a high-explosive bomb dropped by the German Luftwaffe. The building was destroyed, collapsing into a pile of rubble, killing 70 people from the estimated 77 who were inside at the time. It was initially thought that no-one could have survived the attack, but when rescue activities began the next day seven people were pulled from the wreckage of the building, including two who walked away unaided, never to be heard from again!
Following the destruction, the site lay derelict for 19 years until, in 1959, a new pub was built on the site, this time officially named The Marples. The pub remained open for the next 44 years until it closed for good in 2003, the building taking on a number of different uses in the following two decades. While the space previously occupied by the pub is now the Cash Shop pawn brokers, the upper floors have revived The Marple’s naming and are to become a housing co-operative.
This is a somewhat unassuming picture of the building that currently houses Heron Foods, a frozen foods store, on Haymarket in Sheffield. The structure managed to survive the ravages of The Blitz that destroyed much of Sheffield’s old city centre architecture during World War Two.
What I find more interesting is the faded sign that can be seen in the middle first floor window. This advertises The House of Curls, a hairdressing salon that was in business during the 1970s and 1980s, but which has been closed now for the best part of forty years I believe. Apparently, the salon housed a number of booths on the upper floors which were rented out by the operator to individual hairdressers.
It pleases me that the signage remains after this time. There’s something strangely comforting about ghost signs such as this. Things change, but the memories remain.
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.
Do you know that old Randy Crawford song, Street Life? Yes? Well, no matter how many times I hear it, I always sing it as “Street Light“. A bit like Neil Diamond singing about “The Reverend Bluejeans“.
Street light, you can run away from time Street light, for a nickel, for a dime Street light, but you better not get old Street light, Or you’re gonna feel the cold
While walking around town during my lunchbreak one day, I noticed a considerable traffic-jam had formed. Climbing one of the pedestrian bridges that span the network of roads affected, I discovered some sort of incident had occurred. Multiple police vehicles were present as well as an ambulance and a paramedic car.
While I could see a couple of civilian vehicles where the ambulance was, there was no obvious sign of any serious collision and no debris was visible on the road, so I have no idea what had happened to merit the presence of so many emergency service personnel, or the significant hold up of other traffic.
Steel City Snapper photography 