Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
I took the following photographs shortly after the Empley Moor images from yesterday’s post.
The town of Denby Dale sits a few miles to the south of Empley Moor and has a wonderful victorian viaduct spanning the valley in which it sits.
The location of some homes beside the viaduct made for some interesting pictures.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Delta 400 (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 July 2020
I’ve been meaning to visit the Emley Moor television tower for some time now so, while on a week’s leave from work recently, I decided to take the opportunity.
The transmitter is visible from miles around (although not from where I live, it being fully obscured by all the hills around Sheffield) and can easily be seen from the M1 or A1 roads whenever we’ve driven north. As well as it being an impressive sight, it also provides a pang of nostalgia for my childhood where, on days I was up early before television had started for the day, there would be a bombastic start-up broadcast announcing that “Yorkshire Television was broadcasting from the Emley Moor, Belmont and associated transmitters of the Independent Broadcasting Authority“, accompanied by a stirring orchestral piece that gave the impression that a bunch of Spitfires and Lancaster bombers were fighting off an attacking German force or something, so much like a WWII movie theme it sounded.
Although I’ve seen the tower on numerous occasions, this was my first close visit since one time I went to one of my friends’ relatives houses who lived close to it. That would have been the better part of forty years ago! My, how time flies!
It took a little over half-an-hour to drive there (most of the trip being on a fast route up the motorway) and there’s a small car-park beside the road near the transmitter. I’d planned some potential shots in advance from the comfort of my PC by using Google Street View. As the cameras on the Street View cars have super-wide-angle lenses though, it’s difficult to know exactly what your own shots might look like, and unless I moved away a considerable distance from the tower (it’s already quite a distance from the road as-is), it was impossible to fit it into the frame with the 80mm lens on my Yashica Mat 124G, so the first couple of pictures here show only the base of the tower. Well, towers actually – the thin metal mast is a temporary structure that was constructed in 2018 to maintain broadcasts while the main tower undergoes maintenance. The upper sections of the metal mast were lowered into place by helicopter apparently.
The concrete tower is 1,084′ tall and the metal mast 21′ shorter. The concrete tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom and was built in 1969 after the previous mast (the second one built on the site) collapsed due to an accumulation of ice. Although not open to the public, there is a lift that takes people to the equipment area that operates at the top of the tower. It apparently takes seven minutes to reach the top in the lift.
The official name of the structure is The Arquiva Tower, after the company that operates it, but it is commonly known as Emley Moor.
I had to drive further from the tower in order to get the full structure in the frame, and even here I’ve had to correct some very noticeable converging verticals. I like the way it towers over the farmhouse in this shot.
Another wide shot from even further away. I like the cyclist that has just entered the bottom left of the scene. Because of the angle of view, the temporary tower appears to be much taller than the main structure in this picture.
In all it was a nce trip. There isn’t an awful lot to do at the tower given it’s privately operated with no public access, but it’s very impresive to behold from close up.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Delta 400 (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 July 2020
Another dip into my (recent-ish) archive with a shot taken at the start of the year which I’d not published on Flickr until a couple of days ago. It shows a weather-worn fencepost beside one of the footpaths near Baslow Edge. Not sure why I didn’t publish it before – I possibly had a surplus of images to upload or something.
I ventured up town again today and finished the roll of HP5+ in my recently acquired OM-2. I felt much more inspired than I did on yesterday’s outing, although I’m still not convinced I have anything great to show for my efforts. I think that, as this has been my first roll through this camera, that I’m subconsciously treating it as a “test” roll and as such didn’t want to invest too much effort in the photos in case there’s an issue with the camera (not that I have any reason to think there might be). Anyway, the roll is shot now and I’ll hopefully get it developed tomorrow.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford Delta 400.
Taken on 4 Jan 2020
A photograph today that was taken back at the start of the year. I made it during a trip out to Baslow Edge and shot it using the Zuiko 75-150mm f/4 lens I had with me.
While I published several photographs taken during that trip here on the blog, this one has lain untouched on my hard-drive.
It shows the view looking down on the village of Baslow from atop the edge that is named after it.
While I don’t do it often, sometimes it’s nice to just have a look back through photographs I made previously. I often find a few surprises in the form of images I’d forgotten about completely, or ones which, while not doing much for me at the time, now hold appeal on a fresh viewing.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 75-150mm f/4 & Ilford Delta 400.
Taken on 4 Jan 2020
A slightly larger selection of photographs today made up of most of my remaining pandemic-related pictures. I have a few others, but I’m not sure if they’re worth posting or not.
As retail opens up and the lockdown measures ease, there might be opportunities to make more photographs relating to the situation (and if the whole thing goes belly-up, there might be a whole bunch of new lockdown pictures too!), but for now this is the last of what I have to show.
The photos were made over three seperate outings, using two different cameras (and film stocks). The first three follow on directly from the trig point images I posted yesterday, being made on the same walk. The first shows the KFC restaurant at the local retail park. This place would normally be full of cars at the time I walked past, but on this day is was completely deserted. I think it may have re-opened for drive-through sales now but on this day it was shut. The McDonald’s to the right of the image was similarly closed (although it was part way through renovation as the lockdown took effect, so won’t reopen until that is complete anyway). There’s a Pizza Hut off the edge of the frame to the left too, but that was also closed. Probably good for people’s cardiovascular systems though.
After walking past the KFC I dropped down to the shopping mall to get some items from Sainsbury’s. The usual socially-distanced queue was in effect and took me past these signs on the store window close to the entrance. The rightmost sign is for the Big Night In, a television special made by the BBC where the majority of the performances came from the act’s own homes. You can just make out the ghostly reflections of other socially-distanced shoppers in the window too.
Walking home I passed by a local pub restaurant, closed up since before the lockdown started. Like many similar venues, the noticeboard features a thank you message to NHS and other key workers.
This next photo was taken from practically the same spot as the second picture in this sequence, but on a different day. It shows the supermarket’s promotion of technology to make it easier for people to avoid contact with others while in the store.
And finally, this is one of the children’s play areas at Rother Valley Country Park, the gates taped up, warning notices applied, and fastened shut with plastic cable ties.
Shots 1-3. Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 April 2020
Shots 4-5. Pentax P30T, Rikenon 50mm f/2 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 29 April & 2 May 2020
The British Isles is dotted with triangulation pillars. These “Trig points” were placed by the Ordnance Survey as a means of triangulating locations when mapping the country back in the 1930s. They can be found all over the country and are generally marked on Ordnance Survey maps (certainly the 1:25,000 scale Explorer maps at least).
Todays post shows a trig point a mile or so from where I live. I’ve known it was there for a long time, but had never walked up to it before this occasion. While the pillar is the usual concrete obelisk, this one has a significant number of rocks, stones and pebbles deposited around it’s base, many of them decorated with pictures and messages.
During the Covid-19 pandemic many of these messages are in support of the NHS and frontline workers. Some of them are brightly coloured and this was an occasion where colour film might have been a more suitable choice.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 April 2020
I think that this little run of pandemic-related photographs might be coming to an end shortly. I have a few more yet to post but, as it feels that the country is pretty much out of lockdown now following the latest set of relaxation measures on the existing rules, I’m not sure that I will take many more. Hopefully my fears that this easing of the lockdown are misjudged and that I’m not going to be back posting a whole new set of pictures from lockdown phase 2 in a couple of months time. Having seen pictures of huge crowds of people flocking to the usual beaches and beauty spots to enjoy the good weather in the news today though, I won’t hold my breath.
A couple of photgraphs from the local kid’s park posted here today. I’ve shown some from here previously, but these tie quite nicely into the news that competitive sport is being allowed in the UK from 1 June. This will have to take place behind “closed doors” which means no crowds of spectators will be present at the events for obvious reasons.
Similarly, people will be able to exercise together in groups of up to six people while observing social distancing measures, meaning that some other recreational team-based sports may now be possible.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 20 April 2020
One of the significant changes due to the UK lockdown was the closure of non-essential retail. The local shopping mall, which has a large selection of stores, including big-name reatil outlets, a market hall, and a variety of other independent traders, has been largely shut down as a result. The two photographs posted today were made while queueing to get into Wilkinsons, a store permitted to open during lockdown. I think I went in to buy some anti-viral disinfectant wipes.
As the store was operating the now-familiar system of only allowing a limited number of customers inside at any one time, the queue stretched past a number of other, closed, shops, including ToyTown, where a large plastic knight seemed to be guarding against unwanted intruders.
Once inside Wilkinsons, my route through the store took me down the confectionery aisle, where I noticed the locked down pick’n’mix sweets and made the second picture.
These photographs were made almost six weeks ago now and the UK government have announced that non-essential retail can re-open for business (with social distancing precautions in place) on 15 June. Some members of the government’s own advisory council, SAGE, have warned against this (and other loosening of restrictions). The country is still recording 8,000 new infections each day and the R number is hovering perilously close to 1 (if it goes above this it indicates that each infected person is passing on the disease to more than one other person, which means the numbers of infected will increase). My fear is that the loosening of measures is premature and being done for political reasons, not public health, and that we could very well be paying the price for it before long.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 19 April 2020
It’s going to be one of those “Single Image” days today which, in my case, means I’m tired after being at work all week and don’t want to write much. 🙂
So here are some shafts of evening sunlight falling on the closet door.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 19 April 2020
Following on from yesterday’s photograph of the barred church entrance, here are a couple of photos of the churchyard itself.
The light was very nice on the day these were taken and the blossom on the trees glowed in the sunshine. It was an occasion where I really wished I had a roll of nice colour film in the camera. I had Ilford Delta 400 though, so the colours will have to remain in your minds eye.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 14 April 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 