Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

A wet morning in Blackpool

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

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Blackpool Tower

For a considerable amount of time through my life, I believed that Blackpool Tower had been constructed as a prototype for the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I’m not sure where I gained this belief, although I suspect it originated, as so many long-held and unquestioned beliefs do, in the school playground. Some believable kid probably told us in a sage and wise tone about the origins of the Eifel Tower being in a Lancastrian seaside resort. This unremebered child didn’t offer any explanation as to why Gustave Eiffel had decided to come to the windy north west of England to test out his design. Or perhaps we simply believed that he had copied the Blackpool Tower (the reality is that Blackpool Tower was inspired by the Eiffel Tower).

Whatever the case, I never event thought to question any of this knowledge until much later in life whereupon at some point I guess I suddenly had a random realisation that it was all a load of bullshit.

I had similar beliefs about the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle being a prototype for the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well, although, in that case, the builders and designers of the two bridges were the same, and the Tyne Bridge predates it’s larger Sydney version by a few years.

Blackpool Tower

Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken 1 July 2023.

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Monochrome Ektar

The colours on these two Kodak Ektar pictures were very strange and I couldn’t get them to look right no matter what I did in Negative Lab Pro, Lightroom, or Photoshop. So, in the end I decided to convert them to B&W, which has worked quite well, I think.

Tiddly-om-pom-pom
Tower

Yashicamat 124G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted to black and white in Lightroom.

Taken 1 July 2023.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Blackpool Tower

Two similar, but still different views of Blackpool Tower today.

Apologies for a brief post today – I’ve been out to do some photography this afternoon and it turned out to be a dissapointing experience. Things went wrong and I ended up making mistakes and feeling annoyed and sorry for myself as a result. And now I have a headache. 😦

I’ll probably provide details of the events in another post (assuming some of the photos turn out ok..).

Blackpool Tower-2
Blackpool Tower-3

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

Taken on 26 November 2022.