Tag: mist

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

I waited and waited but no train came

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This photograph was taken from almost the same spot as yersterday’s image – atop a railway bridge – that one depicts the view to the right from here.

I stood atop this bridge waiting for a train to enter the scene for almost 15 minutes, but none made its presence felt. As I’d walked to this location, three trains had passed in quite close proximity, so I’d hoped for another, but nada. After a while, my legs began to feel the chill so I decided to move on, sure that as soon as I got beyond range I’d hear the sound of another locomotive and curse my decision to move, but (surprisingly, given my usual luck) I didn’t.

Before I left though, I took this photo. Part of me thinks it’s better without a train anyway.

FILM - To unknown places

Holga 120N & Kodak Tmax 400.

Taken on 18 December 2019

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

On a lunchtime walk

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While I’ve not listed any new year’s resolutions this year (I’ll only go and break them anyway), one thing I do aim on doing is losing some weight (ha ha ha) and part of this process will be to try and get out and walk more often. I’m fortunate in that I have a country park within easy walking distance of home which has a footpath that makes a circuit around two of the lakes there. In all it’s around four miles to walk from home, around both lakes, and back home again (although a mile can be shaved from that by skipping the path around the smaller lake).

While the park is a good thing to have on the doorstep, it’s not the most inspiring location for photography – or at least the sort of photography that I favour. The park has been in existence for almost forty years now and was built on reclaimed mining land. The trees and shrubs planted at its inception are well into adulthood but, despite this, the way that they are arranged (in small, impenetrable, copse-like, groupings) means that most of the park is open grass that slopes gently to the lakeside. While this gives good lines of sight across the water, the views aren’t ones I find especially inspiring, especially as the park sits in a bowl of hills, most of which have easily visible and bland-looking suburban housing or industial buildings on them.

Despite my moaning here, I’m grateful the park is there, and it will undoubtedly be the venue for some of my walks. I think it’s only fair that I challenge myself to achieve some nice photos on my visits.

I’m also fortunate to have a number of other pleasant walking locations within 5-15 minutes drive from home, and I plan on making use of those too. The agricultural land where these lie is criss-crossed with public footpaths and rights of way and I’ve found that even the most unlikely looking paths can throw up some surprisingly beautiful photo opportunities if you take the time to look for them.

Today’s photo was taken just above Renishaw golf course. The hills in the distance have plenty of buildings, but the mist on the day did a great job of obscuring them and making the scene look far more rural than it is.  The power-lines and farm track make for a couple of great leading lines, and it’s the sort of scene that works a charm when photographed with the Holga.

FILM - They play golf down there

Holga 120N & Kodak Tmax 400.

Taken on 18 December 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Yet more pylons

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Yeah, yeah, I know, more pylon / powerline photos. But I make no excuses as I still think they make for excellent photographic subject matter.

Both shots here are 1:1 crops because my OM-1 created a partial double-exposure when winding on the frames (which it did again later in the roll too). Fortunately, these two shots didn’t suffer (and maybe even benefited) from the crop.

FILM - Along the National Grid

FILM - Reflections of power

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford XP2 (expired).

Taken on 17 December 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

In suburbia #3

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A third batch of suburban scenes – this time in black and white – that I shot just before Christmas. I never give up the chance to take photos on misty or foggy days unless I have no choice, so while this was only a quick half-hour walk, it still deliverd a handful of nice photographs.

FILM - In Suburbia #8

FILM - In Suburbia #9

FILM - In Suburbia #10

Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford XP2 (expired).

Taken on 17 December 2019

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Vintage sidings

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This is the railway station at Elsecar Heritage Centre. It forms the departure point for trains running on the Elsecar Heritage Railway, the only heritage line in South Yorkshire. At this time of the year the line runs “Santa Specials” where you are able to enjoy a trip on a train (consisting of vintage carriages usually pulled by steam locomotive) and the children are visited by Santa who gives them all presents during the journey (adults get a hot-chocolate or a mulled wine). While my own children are too old for such things now, I have fond memories of taking them on these trips when they were younger.

There was no sign of the steam loco on the day I took this and the station itself was closed, so this photo was taken through the gates at the level crossing just beyond the station. Fog and mist always adds a wonderful quality to photos, I think.

I took an almost identically composed picture with the Zeiss Mess-Ikonta just before this one. That’s a nice photograph too and much sharper due to the Zeiss glass, but I think the Holga shot just pips it to the post. Maybe because it’s more contrasty – the Holga’s single shutter speed and limited aperture control largely dictates the final exposure of the image, and I think this slightly darker one wins out in that respect. The Holga’s vignetting and soft edge focus also works very well to draw your eye into the frame, which is often an attractive compositional feature.

FILM - Vintage sidings

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 30 November 2019

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

At the edge of the reservoir

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This photo was taken shortly before the picture of the flying gulls that I posted yesterday. It’s one of several I took (this one and yesterday’s with the Zeiss Mess-Ikonta, and the others with the Holga 120N).

There were a significant number of birds present. Most of them were out on the water as I approached, but they’re obviously used to being fed by people as, as soon as I appeared, the whole lot of them swam or flew straight to the shoreline and right up to my feet. They then all flew away suddenly in a cacophany of flapping wings when a lady with a dog turned up. As soon as they saw she had a big container of food for them they soon came back though, completely ignoring the dog.

I nearly had a mishap while taking these. There was a “No Swimming signpost that I thought might make a nice image, but the muddy floor was extremely slick underfoot and I almost went down on my back when my feet slipped. In the photo, the floor looks like a gravel surface, but this is misleading – it’s actually a thin layer of slippery mud with leaves dotted through it. Thankfully, my ninja-like reflexes saved the day.* 🙂

Both this and yesterdays photo both managed to find their way into Flickr Explore this morning, although the one with the flying gulls dropped from the list later on.

FILM - Reservoir's edge

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 30 November 2019

* Ninja-like reflexes = lumbering middle-aged bloke who got lucky this time.

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Autumn bandstand

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I visited the town of Barnsley on Saturday. There are three photo exhibitions currently on show at the Barnsley Civic that I wanted to see. The one that attracted me initially was Broth Tarn, a collection of gritty northern street photography by Sean O’Connell. It was featured in The Guardian newspaper recently and looked to be right up my street. O’Connell has an Instagram feed that features his work here.

The other exhibitions were Barnsley Markets 1982 – 1987 featuring photographs by Harry Brooks taken in the 1980s of, you guesed it, Barnsley Markets, and North: Fashioning Identity  which explores nothern identity and fashion which features work by many photographers, including Peter Mitchel and John Bulmer. While the latter exhibition wasn’t my prime reason for the visit, I very much enjoyed the experience (and took a few photos while exploring the photos and displays).

While I’ll likely be publishing some of these photos, this is pretext to today’s pictures which were taken later in the day when I stopped off at Elsecar Heritage Centre on my journey home. By this time, despite the lovely early morning sunlight at the start of my trip, a thick fog had descended across the entire region, and fog’s not something I like to miss if I get the chance, so I set off to get some more images before I headed home.

Across from the heritage centre is a park and Elsecar Reservoir, and in the park is a bandstand. I loved the way it looked in the fog, backed by misty skeletal trees and flanked by empty benches. I’m a Stephen King fan, and the scene evoked the bandstand in the fictional town of Castle Rock where a terrible event takes place in the novel The Dead Zone.

As well as the Zeiss, I also had the Holga with me and took further pictures with that, so they might turn up in a post in the coming days too.

FILM - Castle Rock evoked

FILM - Late autumn atmosphere

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 30 November 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Forgotten photographs

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I like to carry a compact film camera with me wherever I go, and so tend to keep one in my coat pocket at all time. This does mean that the habit tends to fall off somewhat in the warmer months when I don’t have a handy pocket, but through late autumn to early spring I’ve usually got a camera on me.

The camera of choice for quite a while now has been a Canon Sure Shot Telemax point-and-shoot compact, a camera that has the distinction of being the only film camera that I’ve owned since new. It was a gift from my parents nearly thirty years ago and sat unused in a drawer for the best part of two decades until I got back into shooting film a couple of years ago and I decided to see if it still worked. Despite the battery cover being held shut with tape, it whirred into life with a new battery, so I gave it a go. To say I was pleased with the results would be an understatement – while the camera is far from sophisticated, it produces very nice photographs indeed, and it’s been a constant companion for spur of the moment photo opportunities ever since.

Because of the nature of having it in my pocket much of the time, it means it’s with me even on occasions where I go out to shoot with a different camera, and it also means that it can take a while to finish a roll of film, leading to me forgetting what shots I’ve taken with it and getting an extra bit of anticipatory pleasure when getting the roll processed.

Which leads me to todays post. I finally finished a roll of HP5+ that has been in the camera since last October, and got it processed on Friday and then scanned today. I only got 33 shots for some reason – I vaguely remember perhaps mis-loading the camera and so lost a few frames that way – but happily a great deal of them are keepers (to my own standards, if not anyone else’s, at least).

This shot was taken on a foggy day when I went out with my DSLR last year, and I completely forgot taking any shots with the Telemax, so this was a nice surprise. It’s almost the same composition as a shot I took digitally, except this was handheld, and that was on a tripod. Despite the added detail in the digital version, I might be erring towards preferring the film shot.

FILM - Into mystery

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 25 November 2018