Another photo from my mini road-trip. This was a deliberate destination though, rather than my happening upon it by chance. I’ve driven past this water tower in the Derbyshire town of Bolsover a few times in the past and thought it might be a good subject for a photo, and on this day I finally got a picture. I like the shot but I’m a tiny bit disappointed that the figure in the centre of the image is in a slightly awkward pose rather than catching them mid-stride. still, they aren’t the subject of the picture, so I guess I can live with it.
I shot this whole roll of Ilford HP5+ while driving randomly around the countryside. I’d love to do a proper roadtrip where I just set of and explore the country but, alas, it’s not something I have the time or resources to do at present. Maybe when I retire at some point I’ll get more of an opportunity.
But even without an extended trip, it’s still possible to just head out into the unknown, taking random roads with no particular destination in mind, and just stopping and photographing things that catch my eye. Both photos from the last couple of posts were made in this way, as was today’s picture.
The house pictured is painted a pastel pink but I had black and white film loaded, so you’ll have to take my word for it, and it was a combination of the colour, plus the house standing solitary on a bend in a country road (not a quiet country road, but not racing with traffic either at the time I was there) that caught my attention.
I drove past the house and saw a place to park a short distance further on, so stopped and walked back along the verge to take my picture. As I got closer, I noticed a solitary woman just across the road from the house and said hello when I got closer. She was stewarding some sort of fun-run event that was taking place in the area and we chatted for a few minutes as I explained why I’d suddenly appeared from nowhere to take a photograph.
I’m posting these shots out of order for some reason, and this was the penultimate picture from the roll (the final phote being the one of the pylons I posted yesterday. The day before that was the first shot of the roll.)
Some more pictures from my wander around Tickhill – mostly taken after I visited the church.
I’m fond of the old-style road sign (or “fingerpost” as I believe they are called) and I’ve had it in my mind to maybe do some sort of project on them. I just need to pull my finger out and get on with it. 🙂 There are many of them still dotted about, mostly in rural locations (although there’s one five minutes walk from where I live, in the suburbs).
The second picture shows the market cross (although market temple feels more apt in this case), with the fingerpost hiding in the background.
The light had become a bit drab when I took these pictures, it being after the rain shower that had forced me to take shelter, so the pictures are a little flat (especially the last shot, of the butcher’s shop), I think.
As I wandered around Tickhill, I walked past the church: St. Marys. The building was open, so I went inside and took a few pictures.
It was quite dim inside and I didn’t have a tripod, so these were the best I could do hand-held (and leaning against things to steady myself where I could). The first shot below was with my Olympus OM-10 and is a little soft (although not too bad if you don’t look closely). The shot after is the same scene, but shot with my Yashica Mat 124G. It’s much sharper, but not as sharp as I know the camera is capable of. Both shots required wide apertures too, which reduces the depth of field.
This final shot is probably the sharpest of the batch as I was able to stand the camera on the back of the pews, but a wide aperture was still required and so the DOF is again reduced.
Following directly on from yesterday’s post where I had a short wander around Oldcotes, today’s pictures are from the walk I took around Tickhill on the same day.
Tickhill is a small town in Nottinghamshire a few miles north of Oldcotes. It’s quite a pretty little place with what appears to be a busy high street (certainly without the usual array of charity shops, tattoo parlours, vape shops and the like that tend to appear where a place is struggling). I’ve driven through the place on a number of occasions, but have only stopped when we’ve been strawberry picking at a farm just to the northern edge of the town. This was the first time I’ve had a walk around the place.
Tickhill has the remains of a castle, although it’s in private ownership so you can’t see much of the place other than a few sections of the wall and it was close to there that I parked my car. Walking towards the castle led me to a millpond where an ice cream van was parked and it was in this area that I took the first of the three pictures below.
After this I set off to the east following a public footpath, taking the next three images along the route. I was getting close to the end of the roll of film and had planned on finishing the remaining frames, but then a sudden heavy rain shower made its presence felt and I had to seek shelter, at first beneath a tree, and then in a cafe on the high street.
I shot the remaining few frames in the church, along with a bunch of medium format pictures too. Those will appear here soon.
Back in June my wife and I went strawberry picking at a farm near Tickhill. It was a hot day so, on the way home, laden with three large tubs of delicious berries, we decided to see if we could find a cafe. Looking on Google Maps, I found a place called Manor Farm (which is the building in the last photo below) in the village of Oldcotes which has a cafe and makes its own ice cream. The ice cream was very nice, as was the cafe which had seating in a lovely courtyard as well as indoors.
In getting to the place, I noticed a few other things in the area that might make for interesting photos. I didn’t have my camera with me at the time so, a few days later, I returned, parked the can and went and took some pictures (I also returned to Tickhill on the same trip, and took a bunch more there, but those are for another day).
As tends to be my thing quite often these days, most of the pictures are of buildings I found interesting (although I snuck a kissing gate in too…).
I thought I’d just throw out the remaining pictures from my trip to Bury for today’s post. It’s the last day of a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and it’s been quite a busy one. It feels like it’s still Sunday, but I’m back at work tomorrow (I could do with another bank holiday to recover from this one!).
Saturday started with me developing a roll of film first thing in the morning. Normally I would do this later in the day, but we had plans to visit our eldest and I wanted to get the roll sorted out and hung to dry before we set off. We got back in the afternoon, so I had time to cut and sleeve the negatives before going back out to visit my dad.
Sunday was my day out with a camera (actually three cameras, more fool me) on a trip to Spurn Head on the east coast. I’ll post more about the trip when I have some photos to share, but suffice to say that the lighthouse at the end of the head is a lot further than it looks!
More developing today, and I managed to get through three rolls. Two rolls of Acros developed together in the same tank while, at the same time, I used semi-stand development on a roll of Fomapan 400. The Across looks good, but there are problems with the Fomapan. Some of it might be down to my development (I can see bromide drag – the first time this has happened when I’ve used semi-stand), but it’s also beset by the tiny white specks issue that I’ve had in the past with Foma stocks, plus some other weird artefacts that I think are also film related. I’ll do what I can to rescue the shots, but it’s disappointing, especially given some of the shots are from my lengthy walk yesterday and look nice otherwise. I’ll say more about this when I post the shots.
I did shoot more (non-Foma) film on the trip too, so hopefully those will work out better.
The Kay monument commemorates several members of the Kay family, notably John Kay, a prolific inventor most famous for the ‘flying shuttle’ a simple device which dramatically increased the output of hand loom weaving.
Apologies for a concise post today. I’ve been out for a hike and am exhausted!
Steel City Snapper photography 