I think this building is a barn, but my understanding of farm architecture is limited. It stands in the small village of Eaton, right beside the main road through the settlement. A phone box stands in front of it, although it’s now been converted into a mini-library. I missed the focus on the phone box shot slightly (the point of focus ended up on the planet just behind it – I love the photos I can achieve with the GW690, but it’s rangefinder patch is not the easiest to see), which I’m a bit miffed about.
Fujica GW690 & Kentmere 100 (@400) Rodinal 1 hour semi-stand development. 1+100 in 500ml of water, with a couple of extra ml of developer added.
Two subjects (which conveniently stand next door to one another) that have featured on the blog a number of times before (here, here and here, for instance). Sometimes subjects just demand further photographs, I find.
I have a batch of photos I made during a visit to the countryside surrounding the West Burton power stations, and will be posting some over the next few days.
These two seemed to work well as a mini set though, with a view of the distant cooling towers serving as the backdrop to a farm near Sturton le Steeple.
I’m claiming this to be a barn, but I really don’t know. I guess, looking at the doors (and also at the taped -electric? – fence) that it could be also be a stable or something?
What it definitely is, is photogenic. Old, weathered, buildings usually are.
As a city boy I know little detail about farming beyond the basics – the sort of stuff that I imagine most people will know. I pick up additional knowledge from watching TV shows like Countryfile on BBC One (although I don’t watch that nearly as much these days), or Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video which, despite it’s host’s tomfoolery, has a surprising amount to say about the challenges facing farmers in the UK today.
The structures in today’s photos then are slightly mysterious. There are silos in both shots, and I expect that these will hold harvested crops or possibly silage or animal feed. But I don’t know for definite.
The second image shows a structure that wouldn’t look out of place in a chemical plant, and is to my ignorant eye, even more mysterious. There are a whole host of pipes and ducts, some connected to the barn, and a huge vent poking out the side. What is this for? I’m guessing that perhaps it treats harvested crops in some way, perhaps drying them, or perhaps helping to ferment grass into animal feed. Againthough, I really don’t know.
What I do know is that they can make for interesting photographs.
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
This is an old barn in the village of Elmton. I was out shooting the remaining frames of film in an Olympus Sure Shot 160 I got as a freebie along with my XA3 when I made this picture. I wasn’t expecting too much from the camera – it has a pretty slow lens, especially when zoomed, and the last Superzoom model I owned, a 105G, made photos which were a little soft – but it’s surprised me with nice crisp results.
I shall drip-feed further images from the camera over the next few days.
Old barn in a field Providing shelter for trees An odd crop I think
This follows on directly from my post a couple of days ago about my walk over the fields near Aston. Another four photos from the middle(ish) section of the walk.
It was dry on the day of the walk and the ground was firm, but there were reminders of how the conditions can change when wet weather has occured, both in the shape of these tractor tracks, and also the signs of footprints in the dried surface of the footpath.
Across another field the path splits – turning right and heading south along the western edge of the mortorway, or left where I walked up an incline to the bridge across the M1. Just before crossing the bridge I made a photo of a farm track where it ran through a stand of trees.
Crossing the motorway in the crisp spring light, I made another picture, this time of the road heading north. A little further up is the junction where the M18 splits to take drivers north-east to Doncaster, Robin Hood Airport, and on to Goole. The M1 itself bends westwards to split the gap between Sheffield and Rotherham, crossing the River Don over Tinsley Viaduct close to the Meadowhall shopping mall, before turning back north to Barnsley, Wakefield and Leeds.
After crossing the motorway, the footpath cut to the right and south towards a nearby farm. The farm had a large open-sided barn which made opportunity for another couple of pictures.
I did make one final photo on this roll of Delta 100 a little further on where a line of poplars framed a nice wooden door and cottage. Sadly the film snapped while loading it onto the spiral and so that frame was lost.
I’ve more photos still to come from this walk, but they’re colour pictures so I’ll post them another day.
A big wooden barn It’s sides open to the wind Contents blown away?
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.
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.
This somewhat dillapidated farm building is marked on the map as “Hollins”. Although the sun was already rising quite high in the sky by the time I took this, there was still plenty of side-light and contrast and it’s probably my favourite shot from this roll. It’s been cropped to remove a section of largely featureless sky.
Steel City Snapper photography 