Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Bridlington boats
Tag: Blackpool
Written in sand
The beach at Bridlington is backed by a sea wall along the stretch in front of the town north of the harbour area. This means there’s a good vantage point for looking down upon the sand and seeing the activities of the people enjoying the seaside, including writing messages in the smooth wet sand.
Despite my own spelling often being atrocious (albeit usually due to my inaccurate keystrokes, rather than an inability to spell), I seem to be quite good at seeing other peoples typos, such as the ones present in the first two pictures shared today. To be fair to the authors, it’s a lot easier to spot them from up on the promenade, than it probably is a beach level.
The third shot is spelt accurately, although it’s missing an apostrophe in “mums” and the spacing leaves a little to be desired. It’s not lacking in impact though, and I wonder what “mum” thought about the message?
😀
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Bridlington beach
Back to black and white again. The coming series of posts will be photographs I made during a day trip to Bridlington with my wife back at the start of August.
This shot seems quite grainy for FP4+, but I do like the light and the expansiveness of the beach, with the coast curving around to the distant promontory of Flamborough Head.
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
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.
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
The Big Film Photowalk
At a number of locations around the UK today, Analogue Wonderland organised a series of film photography photo walks – over forty of them! As they not only provided a roll of 36exposure Kodak Gold film, but also developing and scanning too, this was quite the deal, and it didn’t take much thought to decide to join in.
There was no event taking place in my home city of Sheffield, so I decided to join the Blackpool event. There were closer locations I could have chosen, but I fancied a trip to the seaside. In the end, the Blackpool photo walk took place in Stanley Park, which is about a mile or so inland from the seafront, but I engineered my visit to get to the town early enough to have at least some time to wander around the more seasidey part of the place.
Sadly, though not surprising for the UK, the weather was less than ideal today, with rain and heavy overcast skies through much of the day, and my time at the seafront mostly consisted of a walk along the beach, my camera hidden inside my waterproof jacket, only to appear when there was something worth photographing. Spoiler – trying to take photographs with a fully manual SLR camera while simultaneously holding an umbrella in the wind and rain is a challenge! Nevertheless, despite this, the grim weather actually made for some atmospheric looking scenes, so I’m hopeful these will look good when I get the roll developed.
After this I set of for the walk to Stanley Park to meet the organiser of this event (Peggy Marsh of Camera Go Camera fame) and the other photographers. In all, there were around 15-20 people taking part), so there was a mini crowd of analogue-camera-carrying-people that set of from the start.
The event consisted of a gentle ramble around the park – past the cafe, to the boating lake, through some woodland, and beside a golf course, amongst other sights. The rain, while never far away, did ease off to a degree in the afternoon – it was even almost sunny for a short while! – but the day remained mostly overcast. I usually favour black and white film in these conditions, but colour was the order of the day, so I tried to take care to find subjects that would suit the medium. Whether I’ve been successful will remain to be seen…
At the end of the walk, we all had to give out completed rolls of film back to Peggy to be sent to Analogue Wonderland for their Analogue Wonderlab to work its magic. I’ve never used Analogue Wonderland for developing or scanning before, so this will be a good opportunity to see what their results are like and compare them to my usual lab.
Although I shot a full roll of film today, I don’t yet have any pictures to share from the event, so instead here’s a picture of the stretch of the beach I walked this morning, although this photo was made way back in 2006. It’s interesting to note that, while the pier looks very similar today, the sea defences have changed quite considerably, with a curving (and photogenic) set of steps now running along this part of the seafront.
Canon PowerShot S2 IS.
Taken 13 September 2006.
On Blackpool North Pier
A farewell to Blackpool with the last three shots from this roll.
I’ve been very happy with the look this roll of JCH Streepan has given me. Very fine-grained for a 400 ISO film, and lots of contrast. I’m not sure how it would work in less flattering light, but in these conditions it shone.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken 1 July 2023
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.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken 1 July 2023.
Mirror Ball revisited
I photographed this artwork (officially titled “They Shoot Horses Don’t They?“)last year during an autumn trip to Blackpool and posted about it here, but the two photos I’m sharing today were from a visit this year, back in July – we went back again because we had a complimentary room.
There are a lot of public artworks around in the UK – I think there may be requirements on developers to install such things when the build new projects, but many of them feel somewhat arbitrary. This one though, is there for its own sake and it’s quite a spectacle up cloese.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Yashicamat 124G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
Taken 1 July 2023.
Blackpool North Pier
Another quick post today as I’ve spent several hours driving to pick up my wife and sister-in-law from the airport, so I’m just going to drop this picture of Blackpool North Pier in here.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken 1 July 2023.
Blackpool prom
A couple of weeks back I posted a picture of Blackpool’s “Comedy Carpet”. The Comedy Carpet formed part of an £87 million redevelopment project around Blackpool promenade and seafront.
Among the other new features added are the Giant Spoons, although these seem to be much more commonly referred to as the “Tulips”. These things are huge and must be well in excess of 100 feet tall and are quite the sight to behold, especially when you are stood right beneath them and they are swaying in the wind on their flexible stalks. There’s something slightly unnerving about them, like they’re a part of a Martian tripod from The War of the Worlds, or something.
I cropped the image to a 6×7 format to remove some uninteresting sky.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken 1 July 2023.
Steel City Snapper photography 