Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Having just spent the best part of an hour getting rid of thousands of annoying dust specs on some Fomapan 100 negatives, I’m about done for the evening. Therefore this will be a succinct post where I just add this photo of a gravestone with crucifixion design. It was one of several in the churchyard, making it look like some sort of miniature recreation of Golgotha or something.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Pan-F Plus. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 May 2020
I made a few photos of these flowers. They were beside the footpath I took on a walk a few of weeks ago – this one with the Holga, and a few others with my F80 and a macro lens. I’ve yet to have the F80 shots developed as I still have a couple of frames left on that roll, but I suspect they’ll look quite different to this Holga photograph which has given me a somewhat unexpected, but nontheless pleasant, low-key result.
Although I’ve titled the post (and photograph) “Daisies”, I’m not actually sure if that’s what they are. While the look of the flowers is the same, and the colours match, these are far larger than the daisies that sprout in our garden if I’ve not mowed the grass in a while. I’m sure they must be some relation though. Great Auntie Daisy perhaps? 🙂
Holga 120N & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 31 May 2020
Few words today. Just a photograph.
Holga 120N & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 31 May 2020
Keeping the theme going, here’s another gate shot – this one from my walk in the Moss Valley and shot on expired Shanghai GP3. In contrast with yesterdays photograph, this one was incident metered and the difference can be seen quite clearly – the gate is well lit, but the shaded area under the tree has fallen mostly to shadow.
In fairness, my simplistic two-reading average method that I used on the shot shown yesterday might not have held up as well here as this gate was in full, bright, sunlight (and the photo has already had some work to drop the highlights), so might have been noticably overexposed had I used the same technique.
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 23 May 2020
Keeping to the theme of gates that I’ve loosely adhered to over the past few days, here’s another one that I made (the photo, not the gate!) during a walk I took on Spring Bank Holiday. It was the first photo I took during the walk and marked the place where the footpath left a field and rose up the embankment of a disused railway line. I’d have made the photo even had the gate been pristine, but I was especially taken by its somewhat tired and well-used appearance.
Normally, when metering for photos with meter-less cameras (the Yashica Mat does have a meter, but I’ve never used it) I take an incident reading. As long as I’m stood in similar light to my subject then it tends to work out well. Today’s photograph is one of the relatively few I’ve made using spot metering. The main reason for this is that I don’t have a proper spot meter. The Sekonic L-208 that I use is fairly basic but accurate in most regards, but the spot meter has an somewhat wide angle of 40° IIRC and no means to aim it precisely unless the subject is right in front of you.
This photo was an occasion where I thought spot metering would give a better overall exposure. The gate and foreground was in full daylight, but the footpath up the embankment was in much deeper shade, so I decided to take a spot meter reading for both and then average it to get an exposure that would give me some details in the shadows without blowing out the brighter parts of the scene. Maybe not Ansel Adams levels of technique, but I think it worked well enough in this case.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Pan-F Plus. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 May 2020
It’s Friday evening again and I have to say that I’m very thankful for that fact. I’ve had a very busy week at work once again and am really looking forward to relaxing a little over the weekend. Hopefully I might get out to make some photographs – I have around six frames of 135 Ilford XP2 sat in my F70 that I want to shoot, certainly, which can then be sent off for developing along with a roll of Kodak Gold I finished a couple of weeks ago.
The weather doesn’t look particularly great on either day this weekend, but I can live with that – although boring flat grey skies or torrential downpours might put me off. I shall wait and see I suppose. If all else fails I’ve got a huge pile of photobooks to catch up on.
Today’s picture completes a hattrick of consecuitive shots from the same roll of Shanghai GP3 that I’ve posted photos from the past couple of days, this one being the last one on the roll. The backing paper had bled through on this one (and a couple of others), most notably in the sky, so I’ve fixed it in Photoshop (although it was a bit of a quick’n’dirty job if I’m honest).
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 23 May 2020
Following on directly from yesterday’s photograph, both in title (although this one’s a tad less evocative…), subject matter, and in timing – today’s photo being the next frame on the roll.
One of my ambitions this year is to make a book (or more likely a zine) of some of my photography. I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for a zine-swap with a group of other photographers where we each produce a zine and then send a copy on to everyone taking part, so we all get a nice little selection of each others photography in physical form. I’m still at the stage of figuring out both a) what subject to choose, and b) how the hell to make a zine. I have a few months yet though, so still time unless I get to too much procrastinating.
Anyway, what I suppose I’m trying to say is that perhaps a selection of photos of gates, fences. and stiles might make for a nice collection of photographs. Stuff like yesterday and today’s photos.
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 23 May 2020
Please excuse the somewhat pretentious title of today’s post, but I think it fits the photo. It was made during the same walk as yesterday’s picture, although this was a few miles further along the route and getting back to where I’d parked my car.
In the same way that I seem to have a fondness for photographs of power lines crossing the landscape, so I also like gates, fences, stiles and signposts it would seem. Gates and stiles especially though, as I find them evocative and good subjects for drawing the eye into a scene.
While I know exactly what was on the other side of this gate, another viewer almost certainly won’t, and I hope the picture triggers thoughts of exploration and curiosity as to what might be on the other side. Where might it lead? What sights might you see?
I have a tendency to use a wide aperture to produce a shallow depth of field on such shots which, for me at least, adds to the feel of such photographs.
Anyway, hope someone else likes it too. 🙂
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 23 May 2020
I made this photo back on the 23rd May and posted about the walk I’d taken on the same day. In that post there’s a section about me accidentally going off my planned route and ending up in some private woodland. The tree in today’s photograph was one of the first things I saw when entering.
Clearly some cyclist or horse-rider has taken umbridge with the suggestion that they are not allowed in the woods and had responded with a coarse, but good natured retort. It made me smile and take the time to make the photograph.
I wondered how the Yashica Mat would cope with the light as the bright sun was directly in frame – if partially obscured by branches – and I half expected a lot of lens-flare or loss of contrast in the shot. As it turned out, it’s coped very well and I really like the glow around the disk of the sun as well as the backlit trees in the woodland.
The sunlight was so bright that it’s light crossed over into the next frame on the roll of film!
Yashica Mat 124G & Shanghai GP3 (expired). Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10 mins @ 24°.
Taken on 23 May 2020
Someone had constructed this small tower of stones in a stream-bed that I crossed while out for a walk a few weeks ago. It’s not as precise and artistic as some of the piles of rocks that people make – some of which feature incredibly fine balancing of smooth stones. This one is somewhat utilitarian in appearance but yet still attractive enough to have caught my eye as I passed. A few minutes before I’d seen a deer a little further up this same stream – the first time I’ve ever come across a deer in some woodland like this – and I was feeling glad about it.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 16 May 2020
