Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Hello 2021

My first blog post of the new year.

Looking further down the line I’m hoping for at least a partial return to normaility later in the year. As more of the population are vaccinated against Covid-19, so I hope that restrictions will be lifted and more freedom restored. Just the though of being able to hop in the car and drive somewhere without first having to check which tier it is in will be nice. Hell, just going to a restaurant even!

But at this immediate point in time that all still feels like some ways off. The restrictions remain, vaccinations have not really touched the majority of the population yet, and there’s likely to be an increase in cases and fatalities as we move into January. Brexit has happened, but the less said about that sorry state of affairs the better, I think . I’m also back at work next week and have a busy month ahead of me. This is a good thing, but despite a fortnight’s leave over Christmas, the strange circumstances in which we still reside mean that I don’t feel particularly rested.

Apart from some confectionery, the gifts I received for Christmas sit as yet untouched in a small pile on my office desk and, if previous years are anything to go by, it may be months before I actually find the time to enjoy them – mostly because ,when I do have some free time, I feel overwhelmed by all the things I’d like to do and then end up procrastinating about which to choose until I end up doing not much of anything! I feel I need another week of post-holiday leave or something to just do stuff.

As for photography, I still have pictures made in 2020 to develop and scan, but I’m not sure what will be the first thing I do photographically in 2021 as yet. I’m feeling a little uninspired if I’m honest. I’m sure the inspiration will return, and it’s not a winter thing – I know may photographers despair of the dull and, some might say, miserable conditions brought by a British winter, but I really don’t mind them. The conditions suit different types of photos is all. I will be making a second zine in the coming months though, so I need to put on my thinking cap to decide on the contents.

I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions as such, as they tend to fail more often than not, but this year I am going to attempt to not only lose some weight (something I know I can do), but also get fitter by doing C25K with one of my sons. Both should be positive activities I think (if not the easiest for me!).

Well, that’s a slightly gloomy post isn’t it? Please don’t let me bring anyone down. In order to lift things a little, I’ve decided that I will try to add a haiku to each day’s post this year. So here’s the first Please don’t judge my verse too harshly. 🙂

A new year is here
I hope it’s better than last
I’ll cross my fingers

And here’s another (slightly underexposed, but still quite nice) photo of the trees on the edge of Lady Canning’s Plantation. It is a photo blog after all.

Dim light at the plantation's edge

Fujica GW690 & Fomapan 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 12mins @ 20°.

Taken on 23 December 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

In Lady Canning’s Plantation

This is one of the underexposed frames of Shanghai GP3 that I mentioned a few days ago – the least underexposed of the three and it’s been recovered for the most part in post-processing. The other two shots were also made within the trees of the plantation, so I suspect it was caused by poor metering on my part. The next wrst exposed shot has also recovered enough that I might post it too, but it’s noticably more contrasty than this one. The worst of the bunch is mostly “soot and whitewash” unfortunately.

Somewhere in the plantation

Fujica GW690 & Shanghai GP3. Ilfotec DD-X 1+9 10mins @ 24°.

Taken on 23 December 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Shooting a roll of Polypan F

A few months ago, a friend on the photography forum I’m a member of offered some rolls of bulk-loaded Polypan F to other members. Apart from generosity, he was interested to see what sort of results a variety of other people would be able to achieve with the film. Several people volunteered to take part and a box full of film was circulated (each person taking a roll and then posting the remainder to the next person, and so on).

I received the box back at the start of November, but didn’t shoot my roll untill the end of December. The main reason for the delay is the nature of the film. Polypan F is a motion picture copy film. It has very little anti-halation and so can make bright light sources bloom and glow in the right conditions. As November in the UK is not known for it’s bright conditions, I decided to wait for a sunny day. The 30th of December wasn’t the first sunny day to come around, but as I work full time, it was the first one where I was off work and could get out and shoot the film.

There was a loose theme attached to the film – the subject matter should be related to the letter “P”. Based on this, I decided to shoot my roll in a plantation of pine trees in the Peak District national park.

Polypan F has a native speed of 50asa so, even given the bright conditions, I would probably need to shoot accordingly. As a result I took along my tripod and a shutter-release cable. Alas though, even these measures were not to be sufficient.

Shooting in relatively well lit areas of the woodland didn’t pose much of a problem, especially with the 50mm lens, but the 75-150mm was another matter. I was using mid-range apertures to try and maximise my depth of field while shooting at focal lengths over 100mm. When in shaded conditions, this was dropping my shutter speed right down to little over 1sec in many instances. While the camera was firmly held on the tripod, and I was using the cable-release, I still ended up with a lot of shots displaying noticeable camera shake. I believe that the long lens, coupled with the slow shutter speed, was subject to vibrations from the cameras mirror when I took the shots. This was a shame as I lost a number of photos that I think were otherwise pretty nice, Still, I’ll take it on the chin and chalk it up to experience. I’ve never used the OM-1’s mirror lock-up before, but am now fully conversant with how it operates!

Here are some of the better shots from the day.

1 – This is the southerly path I took when entering the plantation (Lady Canning’s Plantation, to the south-west of Sheffield at Ringinglow). The plantation is commercially operated but has public access, including a number of mountain bike trails that were in heavy use on the day of my visit. The light blooming is quite apparent in this shot, particularly where the sun is peeking through the trees.

FILM - Through Lady Canning's Plantation

2 – I ventured off the main footpath to take the next two photos. This was perhaps a mistake as the ground was very uneven (from the wheels of heavy plantation machinery that must have worked there some time in the past) and with a notable quantity of prickly, clothes-snagging, skin-scratching brambles to fight through. Even though I was only 20 or 30 metres from the path, I did wonder if anyone would ever notice me where I to collapse or something. Me and my cheerful thoughts, eh?

FILM - Battles with brambles

FILM - Glade

3 – This wide avenue bisects the plantation and is the route of an underground pipeline, hence the lack of tree cover.

FILM - Pipeline passage

4 – The southern boundary of the plantation opens onto Burbage Moor.

FILM - Southern boundary

5 – A couple of hundred metres or so from the southern edge of the plantation stand the Ox Stones, a gritstone tor. Also nearby is a triangulation (trig) point.

FILM - Ox Stones

FILM - Trig point

6 – And finally, here’s a detail shot of one of the Ox Stones.

FILM - Strata

It was interesting to use the Polypan F. I’m not sure it’s a film I’ll rush to use again, but I wouldn’t say no if some more came my way. I wish I’d not had the issues with camera shake though as I might have had more images to share.

All photographs taken with my Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 / Zuiko 75-150mm f/4 lenses & Polypan F.

Taken on 30 December 2019