About a week after returning from Dubrovnik, I drove to Retford (a town in Nottinghamshire about 25 miles to the east of Sheffield) with the intent of using up the last of the Kodak Gold in the camera after the holiday. It was a beautiful early summer day with blue skies and fluffy cumulus clouds.
I parked the car in the town centre (where I had to scrounge a pound from a passerby as the parking meters didn’t take card payments and I didn’t have enough coins) and then headed out to where the canal passes to the east of the town. From there I took a leisurely walk westwards along the Cuckoo Way, making a number of photos, a selection of which are included below. Eventually I left the canal and took a few more pictures on my way back into the town centre, but I’ll post those tomorrow.
Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
The picture shared today features a pair of adult swans and, if you look closely, their brood of cygnets.
The photograph was taken a few minutes after the swan at the front had gone into full blown protect-the-family mode.
A man was coming down the canal on a sit-down paddle board (he must have been fishing, as there were a couple of fishing rods attached to the back of the board). As soon as the swan noticed him heading in the direction of its family, even though he was still about thirty meters away, immediately launched into a threatening flight directly towards the man, flying inches above the surface, it’s wing tips making splashes on the water.
The guy on the paddle-board slowed himself to a stop and the swan dropped back into the water maybe seven or eight feet in front of him, it’s long neck coiled down into a tight number-two shape. The swan then proceeded to swim back and forth in front of the board, clearly prepared for any sign of hostility towards it’s nearby family. This continued until the guy gently and slowly passed downstream from the birds.
I took great care not to antagonise the swans when I took this picture. The thing about a swan being able to break a man’s arm is most likely an urban myth, but I felt it prudent to take no chances. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
The last picture I have to share for the day I walked between West Stockwith and Misterton, is this shot or a bicycle in front of a barge at the marina where the Chesterfield Canal joins the River Trent.
This is my favourite photograph from my walk between West Stockwith and Misterton. I presume this particular bridge is for farm traffic as there is no road atop it, just grass when viewed from Google Maps.
I spotted the composition as I approached the bridge, and then moved around a bit until it looked just right in the viewfinder. I was expecting the arch of the bridge to render more darkly, assuming the camera would meter on the brighter area in centre of frame, but it captured the reflected light from the ripples on the canal beautifully.
A queue of bullrushes stand reflected in the still waters of the Chesterfield Canal.
Today feels like the first proper spring day we’ve had this year. A pleasant 15 degrees, with blue skies and light cloud. Blossoms are plentiful on trees, and the grass looks fresh and well quenched. It will no doubt rain the next chance I have to go out. 🙂
The first part of this post detailed the walk from West Stockwith to Misterton. This part covers the walk though the rest of Misterton and back to my starting point.
I’ll begin with All Saint’s church, a Grade 1 listed building that dates back to the 13th century (although it was largely rebuilt in the mid-19th century. It was a little awkward trying to compose a shot of the church from the entrance to the grounds to the east (the perils of a fixed-lens camera), but a better view was possible from the west, albeit with the church partially obscured by a couple of evergreen trees.
I sometimes go inside churches if they are open, as there is usually something of interest to look at and photograph, but I didn’t have time on this trip. Instead I took the following picture of one of the stained glass windows from the outside. This is perhaps not the best way to appreciate stained glass, but I quite liked the patterns of the lead-work.
Leaving the church along Church Lane, I rejoined the main road through Misterton (the B1403). The road changes names from Church Street to Gringley Road near here and an old-style black and white fingerpost donates directions to various places. I think this one is ready for a lick of fresh paint.
Following Gringley Road south passes a variety of interesting old houses before reaching a bridge that crosses the Chesterfield Canal. It was here that I left the road to join the Cuckoo Way footpath that follows the canal all the way from its source in Chesterfield in Derbyshire.
The canal skirts the southern side of Misterton, passing beneath a few bridges, such as this one that carries Grovewood Road.
Further down the canal, it curves attractively past some houses where a man and two boys were fishing, before reaching a series of locks. One of the houses between these locks had a small boat moored beside it’s back garden
The canal then follows a straight route back towards West Stockwith. There were many narrow-boats moored along this stretch.
There’s a final bridge carrying the main road through West Stockwith before the canal enters Stockwith Basin, a marina that opens directly into the River Trent via locks.
The final stretch of the footpath route follows the flood-bank on the west side of the Trent. The Trent is the third longest river in the UK, flowing 185 miles from its source on Biddulph Moor in Staffordshire, to Trent Falls in Lincolnshire, where it discharges into the Humber Estuary. The river is navigable to Burton on Trent in Staffordshire.
Leaving the riverbank before the mouth of the River Idle, I crossed the bridge across the Idle and back to my start point in West Stockwith.
I enjoyed this walk. The weather was pleasant, the light was nice for photography, and there was plenty to see along the way.
Just a few days ago I said that I was at the end of my autumn colour images for this year. Well. turns out I’m not – I forgot about this roll of Velvia 50 that I shot on a walk along the Chesterfield Canal near Thorpe Salvin a few weeks ago.
The roll was tricky to meter with confidence. Given that I don’t have a spot meter (just a reflective setting that’s has a pretty wide angle and no meand to accurately point it) I almost always use incident readings instead. Incident metering usually serves me very well, but a canal withich has irregular tree cover along it’s banks makes it difficult to match the light falling on the meter with the subject unless it’s pretty close by, or you’re sure it’s in the same levels of light.
As a result, quite a few of the images on this roll are poorly exposed, and the ones here are probably the best from the canal-side walk.
Of the four, the sycamore leaf below is the best I think (even if it did keep attempting to blow away in the light but irregular breeze!).
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Fujichrome Velvia 50.
I took this shot while using up the final frames on this roll of Shanghai GP3. The walk along the towpath beside the Chesterfield Canal is known as The Cuckoo Way and can be followed from Chesterfield all the way to the point where the canal enters the River Trent, approx 50 miles away.
Although it was a very hot and bright day, the place where this canal-boat was moored was in shadow from the trees beside the canal towpath and I had to open the Zeiss to it’s widest aperture to get a decent shutter speed on the 100asa film.
I don’t normally shoot the camera wide open as it performs better when stopped down, plus the uncoupled rangefinder design can make it a bit of a best guess for fine focusing.
In this case though, the boat was far enough away for the focusing to not be too much of a concern and I quite like the way the lens has rendered the scene. It’s hardly some kind of “bokeh monster”, but has given a nice hint of seperation in the focus.
Steel City Snapper photography 