Today marks the thousandth post I’ve made to this blog. I’ve known that it’s been coming for a while now and have spent some time thinking about how I might mark the occasion. However, no matter how much I thought about it I couldn’t think of anything profound. I have a bit of a dislike of anniversaries if I’m honest. They tend to make me uncomfortable. I’m not a person who craves limelight or attention, actively seeking to avoid it in fact.
I suppose having a blog might seem contradictory to this. After all, I’m putting my work out there where it can be seen. The blog was never about that though. It was more about quietly scratching a small mark of my existence on the world. When others find my stuff and like it, then of course that makes me happy, but at the same time I find it hard to take a compliment in the way that others might, instead shuffling my feet and looking awkwardly at the floor while I mutter an embarrassed thanks. Modesty comes easily.
I also wonder about the rationale of numeric signifiers such as this. What does it matter that it’s my thousandth post? Why is yesterday’s post #999 any lesser? What about tomorrow’s? What about the thousandth consecutive post (coming sometime next year all being well)? It seems that there’s something about the human condition, at least the modern, western condition, that places strange virtue on divisibility by ten.
So, anyway, here’s post #1000 for all its significance. It’s divisible by ten you know.
Three autumnal images, all taken almost a month ago now – once again, where does the time go?!
The first two are in an out-of-town industrial estate. I’d spotted them on the way to where we were going and then made my wife wait in the car while I photographed them on our return. I always carry a compact camera in my coat pocket at this time of year for opportunities such as this. I try to carry one in the warmer months too, but having the need to wear a coat gives better opportunity to carry a pocketable camera.
The final photo in today’s post was made on a seperate outing, but was taken on another industrial estate not far from home – I can’t remember if I was out dropping a film off to be developed or visiting the postal sorting office, but it was one of the two.
I have a feeling that my Telemax might have developed a light leak on the lens assembly. It’s displaying minor, but noticeable signs of leakage at one corner of the frame, although easily fixed in Photoshop. It’s similar to, but not as severe as, the leak I had on the Samsung Fino compact I tried a while back. The Telemax is the only camera in my collection (other than my Instax Mini) that I have owned since new – a gift from my parents around 1990-ish. I might have to retire it if the leak persists (although I shan’t get rid of it – I have an attachment to it now).
A couple of photographs serving as a direct follow on from yesterday’s pictures of the flyover – the first taken when I was stood almost beneath it, the second featuring it as a subject.
I wasn’t sure the second would work as it was shot with the sun directly in frame. While there’s a little flaring, the Telemax’s lens has coped admirably though.
Nothing much to say about my photos today – some more shots of the road viaduct that I’ve posted other pictures of recently.
I’ve mostly been glued to CNN for this week for obvious reasons and today has been a good day. I don’t know exactly what the future will bring, but it feels like a corner has been turned. For me, and I think for many, it is a happy day.
Plus it was foggy this morning, and I got to go out and make photos in it. Bonus!
A couple of pictures to continue the seaside theme today, albeit with nary a grain of sand, nor a splash of salt-water in sight. Both these were made in that other stalwart of the seaside resort – the arcade. This one has been open as long as I can remeber (it’s definitely older than me), although it’s changed considerably since what was (to me and my own personal nostalgia, at least) its heyday.
Back then it was full of bleeping, blooping video games. At first the older titles like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Night Driver and such, but later expanding significantly as the craze for such games grew and grew. A few years later it was possible for show-offs to display theit skills on the Don Bluth animated laser-disc games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, the huge cabinets given pride of place next to the street to draw the crowds.
This arcade is a sizeable place and it used to have some full-sized fairground rides within. A ladybird ride for the younger customers was near the ntrance, but a set of dodgems awaited the bigger kids right at the back of the place. Along one wall were a series of fairground stalls in the form of coconut shies, shooting ranges, ball games, and – perhaps most memorably – a place where you could make artwork by squirting plashes of colourful paint onto a sheet of paper that would then be spun at high velocity on a turntable to create amazing, psychadelic works of art. I remember with fondness the smell of the lacquer that would be applied to hold the image in place, and also the disappointment you’d get when it turned out that some of the paint had stuck to the inside of the card cover, ruining it when you later opened it.
I still love visiting Mablethorpe, and suspect I will for as long as I live, such were the happy memories formed there when I was a child, but each time I go I also feel a certain disappointment that things are not as I remember them in my youth, that the bleeps and bllops of the arcade games of old are mostly gone, the old stand-up cabinets replaced by larger “event” machines offering experiences that cannot be had on home consoles. Much of the floor space is now given over to fruit-machines and devices that let you win lengthy strings of tokens to be exchanged for prizes. It’s not the same as it was. But then, not many things are. Sometimes you really want a time-machine though…
Anyway, one of today’s images shows a couple of retro-games. Not the originals, but still enough to bring a smile to my face when I saw them.
In other news, my zines arrived today! This is the first time (other than the odd print) that I’ve ever had my photos published in physical form. The zines were made ostensibly for me to take part in a zine-swap with a group of other photographers, but I’ve got a whole bunch of them – it was the same price to get twenty-five copies as it was to get ten, so I went for the maximum. I can hopefully use the spares for other zine swapsies (plus I’ve already promised copies to a few people). I’m very happy with the quality of the materials and the reproduction of the photographs – I decided to go with a heavier weight 150GSM paper for the pages, with a 170GSM soft-touch laminated cover and it has a very nice feel to it. There are a few things for me to take away for the next time, but for my first go I’m more than happy.
Not the originals, but still nice to see the old alien foes in their natuaral environment.
I made a few pictures of this vintage Chevy on the way to Mablethorpe the other week, some with my Canon Sure Shot Z135, and some with my Zeiss-Mess-Ikonta 524/16. I photographed the same car before when I passed by last year, using the Zeiss on that occasion too, but with some Ektar (and in bright sunshine). The conditions this year were more subdued, the same layer of thin, high cloud that would be present most of the day, obscuring the sun so that much of of the light was diffused, removing much of the contrast. Despite this, I still like how both these images turned out.
I think the car is a Chevy Townsman from the early 50s, but I’m happy to be corrected by someone more knowlegeable about such things.
EDIT: I’ve been informed my fellow blogger, Jim Grey, that it’s actually a Chevrolet Sedan Delivery. Thank you Jim.
This is the Z135 shot, taken on Kodak Gold 200, scanned on my Plustek 8100 as a linear tiff and then converted with Photoshop and Grain2Pixel.
And this is the Zeiss shot, this time taken on Kodak Portra 400, scanned on my Epson V550 as a linear tiff and converted with Photoshop and Grain2Pixel.
It seems like it’s almost the law that you must make photographs of launderettes if you see them. That, or petrol stations (often at night). So, taday I’ll share a photo of a launderette.
I can see the appeal though, there’s something interesting about the places. They often have a sense of faded glory about them, many of them having fallen away as more and more people bought domestic washing machines. There’s still a demand though, whether it be for full service washes, or when you need to launder a bulky item like a quilt that simply won’t fit in the machine at home.
I remember my mum taking me in a launderette on a number of occasions when I was little. It was fascinating place for a young boy, full of buttons, dials, coin slots, washing powder dispensers, and a long row of heavy-duty washing machines and tumble driers full of other people’s clothes spinning round-and-around. The air would be filled with the warm scent of detergent and fabric conditioner and, if I was good, I would get a hot-chocolate in a plastic cup from the vending machine mounted on the wall.
I think the lunderette in my post today probably does good trade. I expect that seaside towns, particulalry those with large camp and caravan sites, have a strong demand for laundry services.
In other news, I shot another roll through my Lipca Rollop II yesterday, this time with a makeshift felt skirt fitted to the lens standard to attempt to combat the light leak. Alas, it didn’t work, three frames show the same arc of light as before. Now I need to decide what to do with the camera – when it works (usually when focussing on items further away) the lens is sharp and produces very nice images. Unfortunately, despite this, the fault means I can’t rely on it fully. I’m not sure that I want to pay for a repair as I have another, fully-working, TLR anyway, so I might sell it on as a working, but faulty camera.
I’d wondered if I’m manage to make my annual trip to Mablethorpe this year. The lockdown of a few months ago had made it seem unlikely for a time, but as restrictions loosened, so it started to look like I might make the trip after all.
As I had a week off work in early September, I decided that would be my chance, so made the trip on the 11th. The weather was forecast to be partially sunny, but in the end was just bright, with a skein of high cloud that mostly removed any contrast and shadows, Not ideal for colour film, which I feel savours blue-sky days. Still, in a country like the UK you have to make the best of what you get when it comes to the weather. In the end though, these shots have come out quite well despite the conditions.
I took a bag full of film with me on the day. Well, around six rolls anyway. In the end, I only shot two-and-a-half of them though due to the light. Today’s photos were from a roll of Kodak Gold 200 that I’d already partially shot, but there will be some images on Ilford Delta 400 (better for the conditions I had) and, possibly, Portra 400 to come over the next few days too.
I managed to catch a little sunshine for this shot, as evidenced by the shadow cast by the palm. It required me waiting for some time with an eye on the moving clouds though, and the brightness was only fleeting.
A couple of photos taken in woodland beside the Chesterfield Canal, the smell of wild garlic heady in the morning air. Although I’d started my walk quite early, because of the time of year the sun had already risen quite high by the time I made these photos.
This sort of scene, with sunlight dappling the woodland floor is beautiful to look at but often makes for disappointing photographs due to the difference in dynamic range between the sunlit highlights and the much darker shadows. While the eye deals with such things without issue, film and digital sensors tend to fare poorly. Still, I took a couple of shots because I thought I might get away with it in this instance as there was more shade than sunlight. I think they turned out quite well for a consumer grade film.
Steel City Snapper photography 