Tag: Architecture

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Up on the roof

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Today’s picture is one of those occasions where I looked at an everyday scene and thought, “there’s a photograph“. It was taken from the rooftop level of a multistorey car-park and when I glances over the side there was something about the arrangement of buildings that just looked right. Part of it was due to the light (although I remember having to stand and wait a few minutes for a cloud to pass in front of the sun before it looked just as I wanted it to). Part of it is the different geometric patterns and textures on each of the buildings. I also like the way the road briefly appears at bottom left before vanishing amongst the architecture. It’s also a somewhat empty picture, with no signs of human foot or road traffic to be seen.

Up on the roof

Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 27 August 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Living in Tetris

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This interesting looking residential building is in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and it reminded me a little of Tetris. It might be the bright, sunny conditions, but it also reminded me of the sort of scene you might see in a European city, perhaps in Spain or somewhere like that.

Anyone for Tetris?

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Portra 800 (shot at 400asa). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 10 August 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Keeping the British end up

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So said James Bond at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me. I too am “keeping the British end up” at present, although in the somewhat less pleasurable sense of elevating my broken ankle (at the end of my British leg…) rather than Bond’s double-entendre allusion to a bit of hanky panky in a submarine escape pod.

Unfortunately, in order to type up these blog posts I need to sit at my computer with my foot on the floor (although I am tring to figure out if there’s any way to raise it while I work, even if for a short period). This quickly results in a dull ache starting in my ankle and it soon starts to look noticably more swollen. Luckily for me, my posts rarely stretch further than a few paragraphs, so I will suffer the twenty minutes or so it takes for my art.

I’m off work at present as there’s no effective way for me to keep the ankle raised at my office desk, but I’m hoping it might have recovered sufficiently for me to return next week, even if I need to take breaks. This is the first sick time I’ve had in years and I feel oddly guilty about it, probably because the reason is due to injury rather than actually feeling unwell.

Here’s a picture completely unrelated to what I’ve written above because, well, I suppose I have to post a picture in my so-called photography blog. 🙂

Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 18 July 2022.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A different point of view through the Olympus Trip 35

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A few days ago I posted another photo made at this same location. I was over to the right of the church for that one though, so it was completely out of frame with just the modern high-rise structure rising above the trees. I like this new shotfor the contrast between the two styles of architecture. That original image was shot with my Olympus 35 RC, this one with my Trip 35.

One thing that has struck me while looking at the photos from this roll of Kodak Colorplus is just how nice the lens is on the Olympus Trip 35. It’s a camera I’ve neglected – not having shot mine for a number of years – and then using it’s younger, more compact (and, for me, more recently acquired) sibling, the Olympus XA3 when I wanted a straightforward zone-focus point and shoot experience. The XA3 is a great little camera – truly pocketable – with a sharp lens, but I think the lens on the Trip 35 surpasses it. It’s amazingly sharp and doesn’t vignette either (which the XA3’s lens does to some degree). I shall have to ensure it gets more regular exercise from now on.

Construction through the ages

Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 18 July 2022.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Inbetween

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I was going to post different photos and maybe write a longer piece today but my broken ankle is aching and I don’t want to be sat at the PC any longer than I have to.

The picture I’ve chosen instead was taken while walking to the railway station about a month ago on one of the hottest days the country has ever faced (since records began, at least). The following day was even hotter, breaking the aforementioned records in more than one location.

The day was already very hot even at the time I made this picture, sometime between 7 and 8am, but the scene caught my eye and so I stopped momentarily to take the shot.

Inbetween

Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 18 July 2022.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A big white house

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I’m kinda eking out some of these Kodak Gold photos at present. This is not because I’ve run low on stuff to publish, but because most of the shots I’ve processed recently have been from a visit to a steam rally and I figured I might as well pop those on the blog all at once rather than via my usual drip-feed approach, so those should be up here tomorrow.

In the meantime though, heres a picture of a big white house looking resplendent in the summer sunshine.

White house

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Picture framing

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This quaint old building sits in the Attercliffe district of Sheffield and is the home of a picture framing business. In a past life it used to be a post office, something perhaps hinted at by the post box that still stands in front. I’ve photographed it before using black and white film, but these colour shots are much nicer.

This whole area used to be a busy shopping area with all manner of businesses catering to the local populace – which, back in the mid 20th century lived in row after row of terraced houses, many of them employed in the thriving steel industry or other trades that made up a huge part of the city’s economy back then.There are still shops and businesses there now, but it is massively changed and is a shadow of the way it once was, with much of the original population gone.

While much of the housing that once stood in the area close to this shop has now been demolished, a lot still remains not too far away and now provides homes to many of the migrants who settled in the city in the latter half of the last century. Shops still abound in the area where the housing stands, albeit many of them of new, different, and more multicultural varieties to what stood there before.

Momento
Framed

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 29 June 2022

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Chequerboard and Flickr Explore

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I guess that this is a similar picture to the one I posted yesterday. This one is overexposed though. It’s overexposed because I mistakenly set the 35 RC to an f/2.8 aperture instead of the A (for auto) setting that would allow it to meter correctly in it’s standard shutter-priority mode. As a result this picture (and a couple of others) got far too much light. The other couple I’ve discarded in terms of posting them anywhere but I still quite liked this shot so I did what I could to recover it.

The photo also appeared in Flickr’s Explore section today, which I was a little surprised by. I get pictures selected for Explore on a reasonably regular basis (probably one a month or so) but they are rarely the photos that I think are my best. In fact, they’re often the ones I like the least. I have no idea how Explore selects it’s photos.

Whenever I get a photo in Explore I always get lots of comments from people congratulating me on the achievement. I’m grateful if people like my photos, but these people rarely seem to then venture into my feed to look at the other (arguably better) pictures. It’s almost as though anything not in Explore is somehow sub-par and not worth bothering with.

I don’t tend to look at Explore very often – usually it’s only when one of my pictures is featured and I’m feeling nosey as to how far down the selction it appears. There are a lot of very nice photos featured, but there are also a lot of obvious pictures too, as well as some bizarre choices from time to time. However, if I do find one I really like then I will go and look at the feed of the photographer as sometimes this introduces me to new bodies of work I really enjoy.

Chequerboard pattern

Olympus 35 RC & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 7 May 2022