Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
When I took this I wasn’t really considering the subjects in the exhibited photographs. My subject was the lady looking at them. But I like how I’ve been caught watching by one of the framed individuals.
Nikon F80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D on Fomapan 400. Rodinal 1+25. 6.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 13 March 2026
Or should that be “waist-shooting”?
I was walking around town a while back and, largely out of nowhere, wondered how effective if might be to try using my Yashica Mat 124G with zone-focus. It was a bright day, and I was shooting 400asa film, so I could set the camera to a relatively narrow aperture of f/8 (although, on a 6×6 medium format camera, the depth of field at f/8 at short distances is still pretty shallow).
The Yashica has a handy scale guide on the focus knob, so I set it to around 8 feet and shot a few pictures of passersby, using the focus screen to compose, but not the magnifier. And it worked quite well. If I pixel peep the full size pictures then they’re not perfectly in focus on the main subjects, but they’re certainly within an acceptable level of sharpness.
It’s probably not going to be a technique I use often, but it might be worthwhile at events such as carnivals or similar where there are lots of interesting subjects, but not enough time to finesse the focus for each shot.
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
I like this photo. It has a clean, minimal feel to it. The sky is clear of cloud (bar a couple of barely discenible whisps) and the lines of the horizon, fence, and bench add an element of structure. The man sits slightly off-centre, adding a small sense of discord to the picture.
I wonder what the man was thinking about as he sat there, looking out across the North Sea? When I see picture that I have taken such as this, I sometime wonder if I should have spent more time taking in the view myself, rather than trying to photograph it. I sometimes feel that I’m spending too much time trying to capture a moment to be enjoyed later when the reality is right there in front of me. But the camera, it draws me…
Yashicamat 124G & Fujifilm Acros. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 20 June 2022
This is one of those photos that I have high hopes for when I first see the negative but which, on closer examination, is let down by some technical problem. In this case the man in the mirror is slightly out of focus. Now there’s a good reason for this – the photo wasn’t a posed portrait, it was a candid shot which involved me crouching down to get the correct angle on the mirror and then capturing someone’s refelction as they walked past. People would be in the mirror for a fraction of a second, so no time to nail the focus and I just went with what looked right in the brief moments that someone passed through the frame.
I still like the picture a lot, but wish I’d have nailed the focus better. The pose is bang on though and I don’t think I could have gotten anything better.
Man in a mirror
Seeing a reflection of
A photographer
Yashicamat 124G & Shaghai GP3. Lab developed in Xtol.
Taken on 4 September 2021
It was a lovely sunny winters day when I took this (and a number of other ) photos, and the low light was casting great looking shadows all oer the place. I thought the circular arrangement of paving-stones outside the cathedral would make for an interesting shot, so I staked it out and waited for people to walk through the frame and add interest. I took three shots and think this is the best one.
Olympus 35 RC & Fomapan 400.
Taken on 19 February 2019
I spotted this chap chatting on his phone with his sunglasses perched on the back of his head and couldn’t resist getting a photo. The little 35 RC has done it proud. The JCH Street Pan produced some lovely tones in bright light, but also resulted in very underexposed thin negatives where I’d shot in dimmer conditions. The underexposed images aren’t unusable – and some of them look pretty great – but they will take some work in Lightroom, not least to remove all the additional dust spots that appear on thin negs.
Olympus 35 RC & JCH Street Pan.
Taken on 15 February 2019
Three shots taken on a walk through a park last weekend.
Yashica Mat 124 G & Fujifilm Acros 100.
Taken on 19 October 2018
I took a number of photos around the flea-market this week using the Yashica Mat 124G. I was hoping for a bit of a Vivian Maier-type result and, while I don’t think I’ve necessarily achieved this, I’m still pretty happy with a lot of the shots I got.
I’m using white borders at the moment which, while looking nice on Flickr, have little impact on this blog given it has a white background anyway. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124 G & Kodak Tri-X.
Taken on 29 March 2018
Through the shelves a potential customer examines the wares.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Tri-X.
Taken on 22 February 2018
It was a pretty cold day when I took the shot and the temperature meant that the clouds of vapor from this man’s e-cigarette were all the more prominent. I took one shot with his head in a cloud of smoke, and then this one in the midst of emission.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Tri-X.
Taken on 12 December 2017
Steel City Snapper photography 