Tag: Beach

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

A wet morning in Blackpool

fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Back at the end of June I spent the day in Blackpool for The Big Film Photowalk, a series of events around the country that had been organised by Analog Wonderland, the UK based film stockist. I posted about the events of the day here.

While the photowalk in Blackpool took place in Stanley Park, about a mile or so from the seafront, I parked near the town centre as my wife and her sister had accompanied me for the day and were planning on wandering round the shops while I went to take photos. As I was early for the photowalk, I took the chance to go and shoot some photos on a second camera I’d brought with me – my OM-10 – loaded with a roll of expired Fuji C200.

As I said in my other post, the weather on the day was not what I would have chosen. And while the photowalk had its share of drizzle and gloom, the beginning of the day along Blackpool’s seafront was worse, with bouts of full rain and a stiff breeze to contend with. I wasn’t confident of success, especially as I would usually prefer black and white for these conditions, not expired C41 film. Thankfully though, I was wrong, and I really like these colour pictures. They certainly capture the mood, and where there is colour in the scene, it really jumps out of the frame.

I managed to get pictures of the central and north piers, some (unused!) deckchairs, the sea defences, and obligatory shot of Blackpool tower, a shelter, a slightly pitiful looking crazy golf course, and some hardy metal detectorists on the beach.

Sheltering deckchairs
Curving to the pier
Central Pier
North pier
North pier (partial)
Beneath the North Pier
Gimme shelter
Blackpool Tower and reflection
Detectorists
Overgrown crazy golf
The Regent

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm C200 (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa) . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 29 June 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Pictures made on a holiday stroll

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I already posted a picture of this yacht when I was uploading “on location” during our holiday, but the photo below (and the other shots in this post) was taken earlier that day when my wife and I took a walk along the coastal path that led from our hotel to an area of restaurants, bars and shops.

Yacht
Diving board
Below Velika and Mala Petka Forest Park
A line of buoys
Path to a whole new world
A place beyond the trees

Olympus Trip 35 & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken 28 May 2024.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Grebeni rocks and lighthouse

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I’ve already posted some photographs from our holiday in Dubrovnik at the start of the summer (a summer that is almost at a close!), but not any that I shot on film. I have quite a lot of them!

There will be more to come, either in blocks, or dribs and drabs, and I might break them up with other stuff, but here’s one to start. These are Grebeni Rocks, a small chain of barrier islands not far from the hotel where we stayed. Just visible on the rightmost island is a structure. That is Grebeni lighthouse. While the light is still active, the lighthouse keepers house can be rented as holiday accommodation apparently. A boat is probably handy.

The seas were mostly calm while we were at the resort, but there was one day when a storm had caused heavier conditions and waves were breaking on the rocks with considerable splashes.

Islands in the sun

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

Taken 25 May 2024.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Bright or dull, which is best?

fishyfisharcade4 Comments

I quite often try and pick days with nice light for photography. Alas, living in the UK, dull weather is never to far away, particularly through late autumn to early spring when it can persist for days on end. There’s nothing that puts me of going out with my camera more than a flat grey sky. But should it?

The two pictures published here today were taken on the same day in Cleethorpes at the end of December last year. When I arrived the sky was bright and clear and strong contrasty light was present. However, as the day progressed, clouds began to gather until they pretty much filled the sky. By the time I set off for the drive home the light had diminished considerably and it was raining.

Sunny helter-skelter

Yet, despite this and my normal preference for good light, it’s the second photograph made in the supposedly worse conditions that I like the best. It just has bags more atmosphere. I guess the different composition of both could be having some effect, but I don’t really think that’s the reason.

Maybe I should just embrace the grey.

Cloudy helter-skelter

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Digging for bait

fishyfisharcade2 Comments

An angler digs for bait at low tide on Cleethorpes beach. The beaches around the uk are a prime habitat for lugworm, which are a popular sea fishing bait. They can be bought from fishing tackle shops, but can also be harvested from the sea shore in areas where it is permitted to do so.

The worms are filter feeders and live in u-shaped burrows with a small dimple at one end and a distinctive squiggly cast at the other meaning they are easy to locate when the tide is low.

Digging for bait

Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

People on the beach

fishyfisharcade1 Comment

A couple of photographs of Cleethorpes beach. Although December, it wasn’t especially cold, so there were quite a few people about, albeit no-one making sandcastles or paddling in the sea that I saw.

The fenced-off area at middle-right of the first picture is the site of the new lifeboat station and boathouse – at the right edge of the image you can just make out the concrete supports that will hold the boat ramp when the building is complete.

Beachfolk
Where I came from

Fujica GW690 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Beneath the pier (with a spot meter)

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

After yesterdays picture of Cleethorpes pier, here’s a picture showing what it looks like underneath.

This is one of the first photos I’ve ever spot metered handheld. I have a Reveni Labs spotmeter that I bought from someone second-hand. I’ve only used it at a basic level so far – looking for a Zone 3 area (dark, but with detail) to take a single reading and place it on middle-grey (Zone 5), and then underexposing a couple of stops from what it tells me (I don’t think I’ve explained that very well…).

It’s worked pretty well on the handful of shots I’ve used it for so far. I’ll likely continue to use an incident meter where possible, but it’s good to have the option to be more precise when I can’t get into the same light as the subject.

The upper part of this picture is pretty dark, but that’s what it was like (and there’s no way I could capture setail there without blowing out the brighter parts of the scene). My intent was to retain detail in the vertical struts, which I’ve managed to do.

Beneath the pier

Fujica GW690 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Papa’s once more

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

It seems that every time I visit Cleethorpes, I photograph Papa’s fish and chip restaurant. Or, rather, I photograph the pier. Papa’s just happens to be the current tenant. It’s a photogenic scene though, so I’m not surprised that it draws my lens.

I think this is the third time I’ve featured the pier and chippy on the blog (here and here, although it might be in some other posts too , just not where I’ve mentioned it by name).

Papa's once again

Fujica GW690 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Groynes and marker posts

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

These groynes are both at Cleethorpes, but the ones I remember most vividly are the ones at Mablethorpe, a little further down the coast (although those didn’t have marker posts as far as I remember).

On days at the beach they would provide lots of opportunities to play at receding, or low tide. Most of the groynes would trap pools of water beside them or around their ends, and these were often good places to catch small crabs (I never saw any more than a few inches across their shells). The water in these pools could sometimes be deceptively deep (maybe three or four feet sometimes) and it was quite easy for the waterlogged sand to collapse beneath your feet and lurch you into the depths. I have memories of my sister doing this when she was a toddler – suddenly flipping headfirst into the water fully dressed before she was swiftly grabbed and rescued by my mum.

Groyne

The outflowing water provided a multitude of engineering projects for my young self, usually in the form of creating dams, or sometimes intricate and meandering canal systems to take the water to holes I’d dig in the sand. Sometimes I would float small pieces of driftwood, upturned shells, or lollipop sticks and watch them make their way out to sea (or, usually, to a place where the sand could no longer hold its structure and the waterway had collapsed).

Unlike Cleethorpes, the groynes at Mablethorpe are no longer present. Or if they are, then they are buried beneath the sand. Mablethorpe undertook a project of offshore dredging to place a thicker layer of sand on the beach. This has not only removed the groynes, but also made some of the sea defences less vertiginous than I remember them being when I was little.

Marker

Fujica GW690 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 28 December 2023