A Walk With a Camera – Elton to Robin Hood’s Stride (part 2)

May 19, 2024May 19, 2024 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Part one of this walk ended as I passed through a small area of woodland that marked the turning point where the circular route began its return back towards the starting point. Perhaps the most well known landmark on this leg of the journey is Robin Hood’s Stride, but before I got there I took a small detour to Nine Stones Close (also known as The Grey Ladies), a small neolithic stone circle that stands beside a tree in a nearby field.

There’s something fascinating and a little eerie about stone circles, both in their age, and the limited understanding we have as to why they were constructed, but also – in large part – the fact that they feature heavily in a number of fantasy / sci-fi movies and TV shows I’m fond of, notably the 1979, John Mills starring, Quatermass series, The Children of the Stones, and the Doctor Who story, The Stones of Blood. All heady material for the youngster I was back when all three aired.

After admiring the stone circle (you can see some more photos I took here), I set off back towards Robin Hood’s Stride, first passing a couple of lone trees, one dead, one alive.

Robin Hood’s Stride is a gritstone rock formation, notable for the two pinnacles at the eastern and western end. The pinnacles are named “Weasel” and “Inaccessible” and legend has it that Robin Hood was able to jumped between them in, hence the name of the formation. All I can say, is that Robin Hood must’ve had some sort of Olympian-level jumping skills as the two pinnacles are around fifty feet apart!

Unfortunately, when I arrived the sun was to the south, backlighting the rocks to a degree, so I wasn’t able to photograph the whole structure in the best light. I took several other close-up shots of part of the formation though, including some carved graffiti that has been there quite some time.

I climbed to the top of the formation, although it was tricky with my backpack, tripod, and walking poles, but there were nice views. A couple were up there already, eating their lunch.

The view back towards The Grey Ladies was a nice one, though probably not done justice by the XA3 on this occasions. The stone circle can be just made out in the centre of the frame if you look closely.

After a drink of water, and a careful descent, I took another short detour from my route, this time to another rock formation named Cratcliffe Tor. This is a popular spot for climbing and bouldering, and there were signs of this in evidence with dusty powder marks on the stones where people had sought places to get a grip.

Cratcliffe Tor is also the site of a hermitage dating to the 14th century. The small cave is now fenced off as it was being used as a shelter for climbers, but behind the fence it is just possible to make of a crucifix carved into the rock. You can just about see it on the second picture below about a third of the way from the top right of the image.

After visiting the hermitage, I made my way back to my route and began a descent down the hillside east of Robin Hood’s Stride, passing a bench bearing the name of someone called Hillary.

Looking back up the hill, the rock formation can still be seen above the trees. Another name for the location is Mock Beggar’s Mansion as, from a distance in the right light, it looks a little like a turreted house.

In the hilly Peak District countryside, the descent soon turned back to ascent, and I followed a steeper-than-it-looks lane past a couple of houses on the final stretch back to Elton.

A footpath branched away from the lane, taking me through a number of muddy fields. To my right the path was bordered by a fence and trees. A rope swing hung from one.

Another tree had seemingly absorbed a cable as it had grown, resulting in a shape in it’s trunk that reminded me of someone sucking spaghetti!

To the north, Robin Hood’s Stride and Cratcliffe Tor could still be seen peeping out of the ridge line.

I reached the brow of the hill I was climbing and could now see the houses and Church of Elton come into view.

As I walked back through the village to where my car was parked, I passed a man cleaning his car with a jet spray. He turned it off as he saw my approach, but I cheekily asked if he wouldn’t mind spraying my feet with it to remove the thick clods of mud attached to my boots. He was amused by the request, but I soon had clean (wet) boots again. 🙂

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Drystone wall and copse

May 16, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Apologies to anyone expecting the second part of my post covering the walk between Elton and Robin Hood’s Stride. That should be here tomorrow – I got waylaid today, unfortunately.

Here instead is another photo taken during the walk but which didn’t feature in the first half of the post published yesterday.

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A Walk With a Camera – Elton to Robin Hood’s Stride (part 1)

May 15, 2024May 15, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This is the third of these posts, and the second for which I selected a hike from my Ordnance Survey book: Peak District – Outstanding Circular Walks. I was going to be slightly OCD about the routes in this book and do them in order, but I then decided that would be silly and that I should do them in whatever order suited me. In this case, I skipped the second walk in the book because it was a location I’m quite familiar with, and this one is somewhere I’ve never visited before.

The route of this walk is in the Derbyshire countryside to the north of the village of Elton. It’s a short route of just over three miles, with an elevation of 750 feet. While the guide gives an approximate time of 2 hours to complete the walk, because I’m faffing around taking photographs, it took me somewhat longer.

Although Elton isn’t too far, much of the drive there is on smaller roads, so it took about an hour to get there and park up. The weather was a little overcast when I arrived, but with the promise of some brighter spells later. The starting point for the hike is outside the Duke of York pub, across from the village church.

Not long after this, there was a slightly confusing branch of the path in a field that first had me wandering around some farm machinery before wandering off down the wrong fork. It was a little while later, after descending a hill and then crossing a large pool of muddy ground near the entrance to a field that I realised my error. Luckily, re-checking my map, I could see that the narrow road I was now on would curve around and intersect the original footpath, so I stayed on this course. This wasn’t a bad thing as, part way up a hill at a bend in the road, I came across a series of water troughs, fed by a spring.

These troughs are called the Burycliffe Troughs and the spring that fills them has never been known to run dry. Until 1940, these were Elton’s main source of drinking water, and men, women, and children would walk here in all weathers to collect water in buckets and then carry them back up the hill to the village. One enterprising farmer would fill urns of water and transport them in a cart, selling them for a penny a bucketful.

A little further up the road I rejoined my original route and broke off into a field to the left. The path led through another field where this tree stood near the ridge of the hill.

As the path descended, it reached another track, this one leading to a Christian sanctuary / retreat. On the other side of the track a lone piece of farm machinery stood on the grass.

While crossing the next field I spotted a herd of animals off to my left. I soon realised that these were deer. I took a photograph but it should be noted that the Olympus XA3 is not a useful wildlife camera. You can see the deer in this picture though – they are the black pixels about a quarter of the way up the frame. 😀

One thing you find a lot of in the Peak District (and, to be fair, a lot of the British countryside) are drystone walls. This arrangement of walls with a lone tree looked like a decent photograph to take.

In the opposite direction, a track led to a farm sitting atop the ridge of a hill.

A little further along the route, the path I needed to follow crossed a small stream before curving up and to the east through some woodland. There were signs of forestry activity here, and it marked a good place to park myself on a fallen log and take a drink of water. It also marks the place where I’ll leave the first part of this post. In part two there will be stone circles, rock outcrops, and a hermitage!

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The Grey Ladies

May 11, 2024May 11, 2024 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

The pictures today show The Grey Ladies, a stone circle that stands on Harthill Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District between Youlgreave and Elton.

Also known as Nine Stones Close, the circle dated back to the Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and is likely at least three thousand years old. It’s an odd thought to think that, over thirty centuries ago, people stood where I did and built this.

Although named Nine Stones Close, there are just four stones present in the arrangement today (although in the mid 19th century there were still seven – one of these now stands as a nearby gatepost while another lays in a field some distance to the north.). The site was excavated in the 19th century, and some consercation work took place in the 1930s to re-stand two of the stones which had fallen.

Folklore says that the stones will sometimes dance at midday and midnight, and the “Nine” in the name Nine Stones Close may be a corruption of “Noon”, when fairies were said to gather to dance at the site.

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

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Derelict cars

May 10, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Finding old, abandoned cars isn’t that easy in the UK. Anything unroadworthy (which includes most old cars) is, well, off the road. In most cases this will mean scrappage of the vehicle. Even scrap yards seem to be a thing of the past. All the old yards, where you could wander between aisles of teetering wrecks piled atop one another, looking for a spare wing mirror or replacement windscreen wiper motor for your own, still functioning, ride, seem to have disappeared. They’ve been lost to tightening of laws and regulations and, to some extent probably, online sales of used parts.

While this isn’t a junkyard, finding these old cars (including a couple of Vauxhall’s – A Chevette, and a Nova) by the side of a footpath, was a pleasant surprise. These scenes may not be pretty but they’re certainly photogenic.

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

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Hilltop farm

May 9, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Today’s photo is from a hike I took back in March. There will be a post or two about the full hike coming soon, but before then I’ll share some medium format pictures I made with my Yashica Mat 124G alongside the bulk that I shot with my Olympus XA3.

This farm sits in the hilly Peak District countryside between Elton to the south and Youlgreave to the north.

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

Taken on 26 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Boats at West Stockwith

May 8, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

The first two boats in this scene – Willow and Trisantona – look best suited to the adjacent River Trent, although I suppose they can also traverse the River Idle. I’m not sure if boats like this venture onto the Chesterfield Canal, and I expect that their wakes would cause quite a commotion if they did. That journey is probably left to narrowboats, like the ones moored in the background.

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

Taken on 24 March 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Pictures without words

May 7, 2024 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

Occasionally on this blog I will post a photograph without saying anything about it. I could try and bluff my way through this and claim that “the picture speaks for itself“, or something similar, but that would be – pardon my French – bullshit.

What it actually means is, usually, one of two things:

I have writer’s block and can’t think of anything to say.
I don’t have time to write anything.

Option 2 is the usual culprit. I’ve either been doing something that has kept me from the computer, or I’ve been doing something else on the computer (or PlayStation…) and the time has gotten away from me. Either way, the result is the same, a picture without words.

Today was going to be a similar thing, but then I wrote this.

So here’s a picture that has words, they’re just not connected to its contents whatsoever…

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

Taken on 24 March 2024

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Getting it wrong – push processing film shot at box speed

May 6, 2024May 6, 2024 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Over the last few weeks I’ve posted a whole bunch of photos taken with my Olympus XA3 on Ilford HP5+, which I pushed a stop to 800asa.

Or so I thought…

After receiving a comment about one of my posts using this setup, where I was asked if there was a reason I was shooting the film at 800ASA, I replied that it was to aid me during the low light conditions that are prevalent during the UK winter. Given that the camera has no manual control of shutter speed or aperture, this is a logical thing to do to get faster speeds and avoid camera shake.

But after replying, a small exclamation mark began to flash above my head. So I took a look at the camera manual and, lo and behold, it turns out I’ve not actually been shooting at 800ASA at all, but at 400ASA – HP5+’s box speed. Although the XA3 allows the ASA setting to be changed, it turns out that it will automatically override this if a DX code is present on the film being used. The manual control is just for non-DX coded films!

So in actual fact, I’ve been overdeveloping my film by push processing it!

Fortunately for me, the shots are all perfectly usable, and it’s a testament to Ilford’s HP5+’s resilience to these sort of damn fool mistakes that this is the case.

Anyway, here’s a random shot of one of the impacted frames, proving that if you ever accidentally push your HP5+ by a stop in DD-X, you will likely be forgiven your mistake…

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 20 January 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

A nice doer-upper

May 5, 2024May 5, 2024 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This is the same house that I shared a picture of yesterday. It definitely needs some TLC, but I imagine it will be worth a fortune when renovated.

Those two black specks at the top of the picture are birds. I ummed and aahed about painting them out, but decided they were there when the picture was shot, so there they can remain.