More views of Emley Moor

August 8, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

A few more photographs of Emley Moor transmitter, this time made with my Canon Sure Shot Supreme. I bought five rolls of Agfa APX 100 a few weeks ago to see how it looked in 135 format – I’ve shot it once before, but that was 120 (plus it was an expired roll) – and the first roll I’ve developed has been a little hit and miss.

The whole roll looks slightly over-developed, with overly bright results and, while some frames have little grain, others look like they’ve been shot with agrainy high-asa emulsion. I don’t think that this is an exposure issue as the camera used hasn’t suffered in that way on anything else I’ve shot with it, so it’s either the film and developer combination, or something that has occurred as a result of my scanning and post-processing.

I shall be interested to see the results from the next roll when I shoot it.

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Agfa APX100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10.5 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 21 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Windows and reflections (and annoying internet problems)

August 7, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

It’s one of those horribly humind days here today. I had plans of finishing work for the week and getting on with a few things I wanted to do. But then, literally just as I was about to down tools for the day one of my sons infomed me that his internet wasn’t working. All the other network connected devices in the house were operating as expected. Cue the next 1.5 hours of me faffing around trying to find a solution.

At first I thought it might just be a case of resetting the router, but that failed to resolve things. Then I tried swapping his homeplug for one from a working device. No luck there. I tried deleting his PC from the router so it would reconnect. Nada. Eventually I found out that, for some unknown and annoying reason, the plug socket in which his homeplug was inserted was at fault. Despite it looking like it was fine – the homeplug lit up and flickered as though connected, and it had been working perfectly well for years up until today – for some reason it now wasn’t. Connecting the homeplug to another socket six inches away resolved the issue.

And now, here I am, hot, sweaty and pi**ed off at having to start my weekend in this way.

Here are a coiple of photos of windows on office blocks for no real reason other than I uploaded them both to Flickr today.

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Agfa APX100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10.5 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 11 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Norton water tower

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Norton water tower (or to give it its official name Oakes water tower) sits to the south-east of Sheffield. While you can’t really say it sits atop a hill, it’s still located at a more elevated position than much of the surrounding area and as such is visible for miles around.

It’s one of those structures that is much larger than expected when you get close to it. It stands 109 feet tall.

It was originally built to supply water to homes in the Norton district of the city, including the Gleadless Valley housing estates – around ten-thousand homes at the time. It cost approximately £90,000 to build and was officially opened in July 1961, so 59 years ago as I write this.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Pandemic scenes #13

July 28, 2020September 30, 2020 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

As the number of people buying face-masks and gloves has increased, so has the number of them I see discarded on the floor.

I try not to be all doom-and-gloom about the human race – we’ve achieved so many amazing things. Sometimes though, it’s hard not to think of ourselves as just a blight on the planet. Consuming that which we don’t need and polluting with what we don’t want.

It really isn’t that difficult to find a bin in most places, and if not, just take the rubbish with you until you do.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Kodak Colorplus doing the business

July 27, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

A quick post today because it’s approaching midnight and I’ve just realised I’ve not written anything for the blog!

So, just a picture of a church I passed that was nicely lit by sunlight. It’s perhaps a shame about the bin bags, but the scene is otherwise attractive, and maybe the bags add a sense of real-life to the shot or something.

This roll of Kodak Colorplus has been giving me some particularly saturated colours, reminding me of the look I get (and like) from the Lomography Color Negative films.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 5 July 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Woollen Signs

July 26, 2020 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

A couple of photos of the old Woollen Signs building in Sheffield. The company was bought out about twelve years ago and the site was permanently closed, having been in business since 1883. Some employees went on to form a new Woollens business trading on their expertise in traditional sign writing.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Dot Cotton caged

July 25, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

While wandering around Sheffield’s Kelham Island area recently I came across this piece of street art that I thought was deserving of a photograph. For those readers outside the UK, the person depicted is Dot Cotton, a long serving character of the British soap opera Eastenders. June Brown, the actor who plays the role, joined the soap back in 1985. She had a hiatus in the 90s from 1993, but returned again in 1997 where she played Dot up until January this year.

I don’t actually like Eastenders, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched a full episode (although my wife used to watch it and I picked up many of the storylines of the time via osmosis). Dot Cotton is, however, an archetypal British screen character and I really liked this small homage to her on this namesake street.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

That’s torn it

July 24, 2020September 30, 2020 fishyfisharcade3 Comments

I’ll post one of my weird photos today that I like a lot but which I expect many people will just wonder what on Earth I was thinking when I fired the shutter…

It’s just an advertising hoarding. One with a torn advertisement. I don’t drive past this often, but have done so on a handful of occasions recently and each time I passed it caught my eye. Usually this indicates that I ought to make a photograph.

I’m not really sure what drew me to it, although it was the faded, half-torn Colonel Sanders that first caught my attention. I also like the way that the badly faded KFC advert is peeling away to reveal a still fresh-looking advert for (I think) Sky Sports beneath, where it emerges butterfly-like from it’s pale cocoon, still daubed with the remnants of paste, almost like the man is yelling the remains of the paper away. I like how the splash of blue in the otherwise overcast sky is mirrored by the blue on the billboard. I like the cluster of poppies giving a splatter of red to the dusty edge of the car-park besides which the billboard stands.

I like it.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 28 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Rural transport and the making of memories

May 5, 2020May 6, 2020 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

Yep, it’s a bus stop. It’s quite a nice stone-built one though, and it’s in a beautiful location.

This is one of those photos that I like without it being of a traditionally photogenic subject. A bus stop is mundane, but this one looks like some sort of miniature bothy sat on a wide grass verge beside a country road.

I like the way the telephone wires lead out of the scene to destinations unknown.

I like the white laundry blowing on the washing line as it reminds me of the freshness in the air on the day I made the photograph.

I sometimes wonder how much a photograph engages it’s creator because it triggers memories? For other people, the stories need to be created. For me it brings the day I visited this place back to the front of my mind, and reminds me of the other things that happened on the day: How I was cross that it was cloudy on the morning I left the house, despite the weather forecast promising otherwise; how my mood lightened as the sun began to break through the cloud cover; remembering a long-ago school trip to one of the villages I passed; thinking my little car might struggle to carry my weight up a very steep hill; how myself and another walker struggled to follow the footpath (and he climbed a dry-stone wall and nearly did himself an injury on some barbed wire; how a man videoing Magpie Mine asked me if I would let him record my thoughts (I did); waiting ten minutes for clouds to move across the sky and balance out one of my compositions…

Maybe not a thousand words, but it’s not the half of what this picture says to me either.

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 16 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

The size of a tree

May 4, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I took these two photographs on my way back to the car after visiting Magpie Mine back in March. The light in the village here was lovely and I finished the roll of Delta 400 that was in my (somewhat tempremental – it sometimes decides that it’s won’t fire, until suddenly springing back into life a few minutes later) Sure Shot Supreme making photographs of some of the scenes.

I didn’t really pay heed at the time, but on seeing the scan of this first image it really brought home to me just how big trees can grow in comparison with their surroundings. This one towers above the house it stands beside and I wonder which of the two came first?

It’s not really a tall tree in the scheme of things either, there are much larger ones to be found – including true titans such as the giant sequoia’s that grow in the western US. I think that this one is a sycamore (judging by the texture of the bark at least), but it’s very possible that I’m wrong. There was a time when I was younger that, in true boy-scout fashion, I could readily identify a whole range of trees from their shapes, leaves, fruit, bark etc., but it’s a skill that has faded over time. I still know the obvious ones – oaks, chestnuts, maples – and I would recognise sycamores from their leaves and seeds – but I’m not sure I’d know an ash from a birch these days without looking it up. I have a book of British flora and fauna, so maybe I’ll see if I can refresh my knowledge.