I had the day off work today and had planned a trip out into the countryside. Alas, the weather had other plans and the day was one of those with a solid sheet of blank grey sky. To make matters worse it also kept raining. Not proper, people-with-umbrellas rain though, but the fine, almost mist-like, rain that just hangs about in the air and gets onto every surface – especially cameras and the front elements of lenses!

So I changed my plans and drove into town instead. Today would be my first trip into the city centre since the non-essential retailers were allowed to open their stores last Monday (and only the second time since lockdown began in March!). Although early, I’d expected more people and traffic that there was – having seen pictures of crowded streets and shops in the media, I thought there might be something similar afoot – but there were very few people about. More than my previous, pre-shops-re-opening visit, but still not many – not even many people travelling into work. The largest groups of workers I saw were construction workers, of whom there were a significant number apparent around town.

Today’s trip was different to the last though in one simple way – I was uninspired. Whereas on my previous visit last weekend I saw photographs everywhere, today I saw few, and the ones I made (I shot around half a 36 exposure roll of HP5+) felt for the sake of it rather than anything I expect to be good when they are developed. Usually, shooting a full roll of film is no problems, but today I left defeated.

It was the first outing for my newly acquired Olympus OM-2 too and perhaps getting to grips with the slightly different fuctionality when compared to my familiar OM-1, had an impact on my photograph making. I’m hoping I might get to finish the roll over the weekend (and I have an extra day off on Monday too) and that the next outing will see me in better spirits.

Today’s photographs are from the dust-spotted Fomapan roll of doom that I’ve spoken about in recent posts. It took me ages to get rid of all the speckles, so I hope someone likes them. 🙂

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 6 June 2020