My wife and I took a day-trip to the seaside at the end or March. We went to Cleethorpes because it’s the quickest seaside place to get to from where we live. The weather was great for the start of spring with plenty of sunshine and pleasant temperatures.
We walked the length of the promenade, ate fish and chips, and ice creams, and had a nice day of it.
I took the Yashica Mat 124G with me and a few rolls of film, but I only shot this single roll of Provia 100. I’ll share the rest of the pictures in the coming days.
Yashica Mat 124G & Fujichrome Provia 100. Lab developed and home scanned on an Epson V850.
One of the Barcelona Christmas attractions was situated beside the marina and consisted of many more food and drink stands, plus attractions such as a large Ferris Wheel, which can be seen in both of today’s photos. There was a circus too, but I’ll post a picture of that on another day.
It’s been a somewhat sad day today. It was the last day for most of the people impacted by the wave of compulsory redundancies that hit our team after Christmas. There are still a couple of people here until the end of March, but I had to say goodbye to the others. I’m still in contact with most of them on social media, but it’s not the same as being able to reach out to them as part of the team.
I’m sure they will go on to better and brighter things, and I wish them every success, but I’m gonna miss them.
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I quite often try and pick days with nice light for photography. Alas, living in the UK, dull weather is never to far away, particularly through late autumn to early spring when it can persist for days on end. There’s nothing that puts me of going out with my camera more than a flat grey sky. But should it?
The two pictures published here today were taken on the same day in Cleethorpes at the end of December last year. When I arrived the sky was bright and clear and strong contrasty light was present. However, as the day progressed, clouds began to gather until they pretty much filled the sky. By the time I set off for the drive home the light had diminished considerably and it was raining.
Yet, despite this and my normal preference for good light, it’s the second photograph made in the supposedly worse conditions that I like the best. It just has bags more atmosphere. I guess the different composition of both could be having some effect, but I don’t really think that’s the reason.
Back at the closing days of December, just before New Year, I decided to take a trip to the seaside. Cleethorpes is the resort that’s easiest to get to as it can mostly be reached by motorway, with the journey taking about eighty / ninety minutes or so.
Attractions at British seaside resorts are largely closed at this time of the year, as can be seen from the picture of the helter-skelter and big wheel (sans seats) that stand on the beach just past the pier. Largely closed doesn’t mean totally closed though, and there were still arcades and cafes open (I even had myself an ice-cream before I left for home!).
I managed to get good weather for most of the time I was there, the cloud cover only arriving (along with rain) as I was heading back to the car at the end of my visit, and I shot four rolls of film through the GW690. Most of them have turned out well and I’ll be publishing them over the coming week, although I did make a complete noob mistake of shooting a couple of frames with the lens cap on – a painful error when you only get eight shots per roll!
Following on directly from yesterdays Ingoldmells post, todays piece features photos from Skegness (or Skeggy for short. Or, amusingly, SkegVegas).
It took about 20 minutes to drive to Skegness from Ingoldmells, a trip I punctuated with a visit to a fish & chip shop for some dinner (dinner is what we call lunch in my part of the world. The evening meal isn’t “dinner”, it’s “tea”, but not the drink. Sorry to cause confusion!). After that a short drive into the centre of the town to get parked.
As a child it felt like Skegness beach was huge. It seemed you had to walk through a veritable desert of sand before you would reach the se. These days however, it laps around the end of the pier, and the pier isn’t even as long as it once was! I expect this is a result of the work that has been carried out to combat coastal errosion in this part of the Lincolnshire coast. Mablethorpe, for isnstance, used to have groynes all along its beach, but these are now buried beneath feet of sand that has been dredged from offshore. I guess it makes for a nicer beach, but it also seems to have lost some interest in the process.
When staying at my grandparent’s caravan in Mablethorpe, we would occasionally have a day trip to Skegness. Skeggy is much bigger than Mablethorpe and has a lot more entertainments, including the pier, and a good sized funfair in Bottons Pleasure Beach. I think, for my grandma, the much greater selection of shops was also undoubtably a lure.
On the day of my visit I walked along the promenade area above the beach before venturing onto the sand to take a few pictures of the back of the Pleasure Beach. From there I wandered to the pier, back through the Pleasure Beach itself, and then onto the main road that runs between the beachside entertainments and the town itself.
While the weather had improved a bit by the time I arrived in Skegness, it was still largely overcast, and I was disappointed that I didn’t get the sunshine and blue skies that I think would have made the colour film work better. As always here in the UK, you get the weather you’re given though, and it’s a case of making the best of it.
One of the things I like about the seaside, is the architecture – the arcades, the food stalls, the touristy stuff. It’s kitschy and sometimes a little worse for wear, but it has a special charm to it and I sometimes wonder if there’s a school of architecture dedicated to designing such structures?
Nobody was enjoying this Altitude attraction when I was there. Maybe the wind was too high or something? Someone was “enjoying” the log-flume though. 🙂
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE and 50mm f/2.8 MC lenses, and Fujicolor Pro 400H. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
Back to the Blackpool photos for a few days, with a couple of types of thrill rides (although I gues the second could be a bit less thrilling unless you don’t like heights).
Typing the title for this post made me wonder – is the structure in the second photo actually a “Ferris Wheel”, or is it a “Big Wheel”? And is there a difference?
A quick search online brought this interesting page from the National Fairground and Circus Archive, which gives a overview of the history and development of such rides and states that the proper name is Ferris Wheel, even though George Washington Gale Ferris wasn’t the originator of such rides. His biggest claim to fame – at least in terms of building Ferris Wheels – probably came with the construction of the wheel that took his name at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a construction that stood 264 feet tall and could carry 160 riders. It was intended to be an equal to the Eifel Tower.
The fairground ferris wheels that are commonly seen at travelling funfairs (as well as permanent fairs) are known as Eli Wheels, named after the Eli Bridge Company which manufactured them.
Yashicamat 124G & JCH Street Pan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
I guess that this Ferris wheel is one of the landmarks in Lido di Jesolo, standing close to the centre of the resort. Its official name is The Jesolo Wheel of Venice and it is almost 200 feet in height. I didn’t have a ride, although I would have done had the opportunity presented. It apparently takes around 10 minutes to go around the wheel once, so not really a thrill ride (unless you don’t like heights!).
Olympus Trip 35 & Fujifilm 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
At the end of January I took myself off for a day at the seaside town of Cleethorpes. It was a nice day with vivid blue skies and plenty of bright winter sunshine. There wasn’t much in the way of warmth however, not helped by the fact that we still had the tail-end of Storm Malik creating blustery conditions. However, this being the UK in wintertime, I was glad enough for the bright day and wore enough clothes to keep the chill at bay.
I didn’t have any particular plans for the day other than to take a bunch of photographs at an off-season seaside town. I knew that most of the attractions would be shuttered up for the winter, but that was kinda the point – to see it in the times when it isn’t full of holidaymakers and day-trippers.
I’d parked up right on the promenade. Unsurprisingly there were plenty of spaces to choose from – almost all of them in fact, and after buying a ticket I decided to head north to the end of the promenade where the beach heads on up to Grimsby. The wind was bitingly cold, but my jacket kept me warm, and I kept on my gloves unless I wanted to make a picture. Despite the fact that most things were shuttered, the big amusement arcade was open and I went in for a bit of warmth and a quick game on an old Galaga machine that I found lurking in a corner.
I had three cameras with me, which might sound like overkill, but two of them (the Olympus XA3 with which today’s photos were shot, and my digital Ricoh) are both tiny and easily pocketable. Only the OM-2n required a bag to carry it and a couple of extra lenses.
The photos in todays blog are of the small funfair on the beach. It’s not much of a funfair – just three rides – but I think it’s pretty much all that is left in terms of these sorts of things at the resort. There used to be a small theme park to the south of the town with some actual thrill rides, but that closed years ago. There were also larger rides including dodgems and a waltzer inside one of the buildings on the promenade, but I believe that it’s now an indoor market. This small cluster of beach attractions consists of a big-wheel (sans carriages at this time of year), a helter-skelter (all locked up), and a kiddies rollercoaster (missing its train, again because no children are around to ride on it in January). Despite their inactivity, they still made for colourful pictures in the bright sunshine though.
The old expired roll of Colorplus (which came with the XA3 when I bought it early last summer) has come out a treat.
Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
The Christmas market is in Sheffield this year again – I don’t think it was there last year due to the pandemic lockdowns that were in place. The market has had quite a lot of complaints on local social media apparently (although I’ve learnt to try and avoid local social media lest I gnash my teeth to powder at the ignorance and general crappy attitudes that prevail). Apparently it doesn’t compare favourably to previous years, or in comparison with the markets in some other places around the country. Too many food stalls and not enough gifts and other non-edible gifts are amongst complaints I’ve heard.
I think we should be grateful that the current situation is allowing the market to take place at all. It might not be at it’s best (although it looked pretty much like every other UK Christmas market I’ve visited) but maybe let’s give it a bit of leeway given the current global situation.
It’s very rare to see these markets with snow present (apart from the fake variety) as it’s unusual that we get any before Christmas. Even though it was wet and slushy and mostly gone, it was definitely a little bit festive to see these seasonal (not really) weather conditions.
As I might not have full access to my PC to post for a few days while we’re having some decorating done, I’ve pre-written a few posts with older pictures that I haven’t posted before (I hope!). As I’m a little stuck for time to write them, they’ll each have this same boilerplate text. If I get back on my PC earlier than usual I’ll probably put the remaining ones back into the drafts folder for emergencies.
You’re not going to escape the crappy haiku’s though…
Hey crappy haiku Why assault my senses With your rubbish verse?
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF & Fomapan 400.
Steel City Snapper photography 