Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
These are the final two colour pictures that I’m publishing from the steam rally this year (that I shot with my Yashica Mat 124G).
While the subjects differ considerably, I did notice that there is a nice Red / Yellow / Blue thing going on in both pictures, so I think they work together in that regard.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 160 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 June 2025
Another picture taken in close proximity to those posted over the last couple of days.
This is a bit of a “tripod holes” scene, and you can probably fine a large number of alternative (and probably better) photographs of the same location. It sits beside one of the main paths leading through Padley Gorge so, unless you take the path on the other side of the gorge, you can’t really avoid it.
Still, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. I’ve cropped in a little to remove some additional brightness where the grey and overcast sky was visible through the branches at the top of the scene.
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 30 October 2024
Today’s picture was taken just a stone’s throw from the one I posted yesterday, but shot a year later. Thankfully the Kodak Ektar sheet fil, already expired by a few years when I loaded it into the holders, has stood the extended wait quite well, especially as it was just sat in my office and not refrigerated during this time. I wonder if we sometimes get overly concerned about the longevity of film if it’s not cold stored? I expect that, unless you’re in particularly adverse conditions, it will fare quite well at normal room temperature in a temperate environment.
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 30 October 2024
Over a year ago, I wrote this post about a disappointing outing with my large format camera. You can read the post for the details, but the gist of it was that I wasted a sheet of very expensive 4×5 format Kodak Ektar by not paying attention and messing up the exposure.
I remember thinking at the time that I might as well just pull the sheet of film from the holder and throw it in the bin, such was my certainty that I’s messed it up beyond salvation. In the end, I decided to leave the sheet in the holder until I shot the remaining three sheets I had loaded on some other outing. It took almost a year before that next outing with the 4×5 Ektar came around.
Tempting fate somewhat, I returned to the same location – Padley Gorge – although the weather wasn’t particularly inspiring, it being a typical UK dull and overcast autumnal day. Nonetheless I decided to shoot the remaining three sheets I had loaded into my film holders. This being the first time I’ve shot colour 4×5 film, and as I don’t have the chemicals or equipment I’d need to develop the film at home (as I do with black and white), I had to find somewhere to send the film to be processed. I also had to locate a spare film box that I could use to send the sheets (they need to be sent in a light-tight container, usually a double box with a lightproof bag inside). It ended up being a month before I managed to post them out to the lab I chose, then another week to get them back.
When I saw the negatives, the original badly exposed shot looked a little thin, so I was expecting a bad result. Imaging my surprise when the picture you see below appeared from the scanner! It’s the best of the four sheets by far, I think. Yes, I’ve done some post-processing to make it look its best, but nothing too dramatic, and I’m extremely happy with the result. If you click the photo you can see the full-size version on Flickr, with all the lovely detail that a large format photograph provides.
There’s a lesson here about not giving up on things, even when they seem a lost cause…
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 30 October 2024
Three more classic cars photographed at this year’s Classics on The Moor event. This marks the last of the shots I took on Kodak Ektar, but I’ve got pictures from a roll of Lomography Color Negative 400 AND a roll of expired Kodak Plus-X still to come…
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 August 2024
Following yesterday’s photos of Ford Capri’s, here are a couple of shots of it’s stablemate, the Cortina. If the Capri was the British equivalent of a US fastback, then the Cortina was probably it’s muscle-car brother – most particularly, I think, in the Mk III version.
The one shown here is a Mk II, which while still a nice looking car, lacks the sculpted shape of it’s descendant.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 August 2024
If there was one car that most teenage boys yearned for when I was such an age, it was the Ford Capri – Britain’s version of the fastback coupes and saloons from across the pond. It was obviously smaller than it’s transatlantic cousins, and was supposedly a bit of a pig to drive – stories abound of having to put a bag of cement in the boot to improve the handling – but it looked cool and Bodie, from the popular TV show The Professionals drove one.
Ford recently brought back the Capri name in a new model, but it really doesn’t have the same appeal, being a boxy, squashed-looking design nothing akin to the sleekly desirable air of the original versions.
Here are a few old Capri’s at this year’s Classics on the Moor event in Sheffield.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 18 August 2024
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.
Taken on 28 July 2024
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.
Taken on 28 July 2024
Fujica GW690 & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 28 July 2024
Steel City Snapper photography 