I’ve photographed St Peter’s church at Elmton on a number of occasions before, and posted the results on the blog here, here, and here.
I decided to drive past again to finish off this roll of film, with a plan to shoot the church building with its low, squat tower, from a different angle. Ala, it wasn’t to be – the light wasn’t great and the fixed prime lens on the GW690 introduced limitations on how I could frame a shot, essentially meaning I’d have had excessive converging verticals, or the tips of gravestones poking into the bottom of the frame. In the end, I decided to take a picture of this small outhouse affixed to the rear of the building. The weathered door, and caretaker’s paraphernalia served to add a little interest.
I thought I’d treat myself to one of those clickbait titles similar to the ones I see on YouTube from time to time. You know the ones, where the person titles their video “My final post” or “That’s it. I’m finished.” or something else that gives the impression that their video making days are at an end but, upon viewing, it turns out that it’s “My final post… of November!” or “That’s it. I’m finished… Putting together this year’s calendar which you can buy from my SquareSpace site.“.
So in the spirit of that annoying tradition, today’s post is just about what I found at the end of the road I drove down in Whitwell, Nottinghamshire one day. In this case it was Whitwell railway station. The station today is a pretty simple affair – a couple of platforms, a footbridge, and some shelters for passengers. There used to be a selection of buildings at the station, but these were removed when the line was closed to passenger traffic sixty years ago (although passenger services would resume in the 1990s). The buildings were not lost however and were rebuilt at Butterley on the Midland Railway – Butterley heritage line as they were almost identical to the buildings that had originally stood there.
As to why I drove to the end of the road, it was mostly to see if there was a good composition of the chimney at the nearby Steetley Dolomite works (you can see it just above the Whitwell railway sign to the right of the first picture). I think a longer lens might have led to a more dramatic photograph but, alas, a long lens the GW690 does not have. Instead it’s a shot of loads of things poking up into the sky. A bit mundane, but I kinda like it anyway.
The second picture was another reason I drove down here. The lamps on this footbridge are just about visible peeping over the bridge crossing the railway tracks that I’ve driven across on a number of occasions, and I’d wondered if there was a picture to be had of them. This was the picture I got, although I think there may be better ones to be found if I revisit the place, possibly (again) with a different focal length at my disposal.
The chimney of this dolomite works is visible from a long way away. I’ve driven past on a couple of occasions and taken photographs of the buildings, which are impressive and crusted with white dolomite deposits, although I’ve not attempted to see if the actual quarry workings are visible from the roadside.
The road and verge is also covered in a faint white sugaring of dust from the works’ activity.
This made for quite a quaint scene, I thought. I like how the house has a post box embedded in its wall (there’s a phone box right across the street too – although I’m not sure if it’s still operational, or been converted into a library or defibrillator or something).
I came across the field of corn in the village of Holbeck when I went to photograph the church with my large format camera. I made note of its location and a short while later returned with my GW690.
Corn fields aren’t a rarity in the UK, but it’s far from a common crop, so finding a field where I had a good view of the stalks was a happy find.
This is not the first time this church has featured on the blog – I have an earlier post taken using my large format camera. The picture below was taken first though (and was the reason I went back later with the Chamonix, as I though it would be a good location for a 4×5 photograph).
Fujica GW690 & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This is the Primitive Methodist chapel in Westwoodside in Lincolnshire. I had a few frames left on a roll of film in my GW690, and so drove around looking for subject matter, of which this was a chosen candidate.
It triggered a thought as to why such chapels (and the Methodism they provide places of worship for) are called “primitive”, so I looked it up, because I think curiosity should be satisfied when you have the means to do so. Anyway, the new thing I learnt as a result of this is that the term relates to Methodists who wished to return to an earlier, purer form of Methodism that was based on the early church.
Primitive Methodism was a working class movement that began early in the 19th century in The Potteries, in the English Midlands region. By the close of the century it had an estimate 200,000 members.
It wasn’t clear from the outside whether the chapel in the picture still operates, although I suspect not. I looked somewhat overgrown and had little sign of being somewhere in regular use. I would not be surprised to see the building re-purposed into a posh house.
Fujica GW690 & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I was quite surprised by the vividly saturated colours that I got with this roll of Fuji Pro 160NS. It’s not a film that I’ve shot a lot of, so my lack of familiarity might mean that my scanning process has resulted in a richer than usual output. But I like it, so who cares?
Sadly, given the film was discontinued in 2021, I’m unlikely to get to know it much better (although I do still have three rolls of it in the freezer).
Fujica GW690 & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 