Empties

February 9, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

While I rarely witness it, a regular sight on Sunday mornings in the town centre is the detritus of the previous evening. Sometimes, if you’re in town early, this will sometimes include the people who didn’t manage to find their way home again, usually as a result of too much of a good time. While sometimes these people would make for great photos – such as the person I once saw slumped in a doorway fast asleep and wearing a suit, with a half-eaten (and long-cold kebab) still in his grasp – I don’t tend to take pictures of those scenes. I have a rule to try to not take “unkind” photos and I think images like this – as with photographing homeless people – would fall into that bracket. I’m not a photojournalist, and I don’t think I could really dress my pastime up as “social commentary”.

However, that doesn’t mean the things that late night revellers left behind can’t make for a shot or two, such as today’s collection of bottles.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 2 February 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

February 8, 2020February 8, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Painted on the wall of Fagan’s pub on Broad Lane in Sheffield, this lovely piece of art – named “The Snog” – hopefully cheers up commuters heading out of town at the end of the day.

Quite often there are cars parked in the space in front of the wall which block the view, but as there were none there on this day, I made a photo.

It was painted by local artist Pete McKee and if you click this link, you can find out more about it and even see a video of its creation.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 2 February 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Chesterfield market

October 6, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

As an adjunct to yesterday’s post about the old Chesterfield Magistrate’s Court building, today I’m posting some photos of Chesterfield market, which is a mere stone’s throw away from the court (with a good arm, at least).

Chesterfield’s markets cover two outdoor areas with covered stalls, and a market hall with indoor stalls that sits between the two (the hall, with its clocktower, can be seen in the first picture in today’s set). Thursday morning features a flea market, from which I’ve had a camera bargain or two in the past. I’m not sure which days the markets are busiest, but there were a noticable number of unoccupied stalls on the day I took these pictures.

Again, these are shot on the Lloyds Paharmacy 200 expired film, so the colours are a little off and the contrast is pretty high, but it hasn’t turned out too badly all things considered.

The first and final images are my favourites.

Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired).

Taken on 30 September 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

The old Chesterfield Magistrate’s Court

October 5, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

A few months ago I was given a couple of rolls of film by one of the ladies at the local photographic society. Both were Lloyds Pharmacy 200, with an expiry date of 2008. You can’t get much more “drugstore film” than this, I guess. Some research suggests that it is actually Solaris Color FG Plus 200 that has been rebranded.

Both rolls have been sat in my freezer since then, so I decided last week to shoot one of them. Given the age of the film and the fact that I didn’t really know it’s provenance, I decided to rate it at 80ASA and loaded it into my Nikon F70. It turned out to be in a pretty good state, and rating it at 80ASA was probably too much – most of the images are a little overexposed, although I’ve recovered them pretty well in Lightroom. Otherwise, while there are some minor colour shifts, and the shadows are not the best, it’s not too bad. I’ll have much more confidence when I shoot the remaining roll.

I’m always a little wary of putting too much effort into making photographs with expired film, at least unless I’ve already had satisfactory results from a roll from the same batch, and this was very much the case with this roll. Most of the frames were shot on a walk around Chesterfield town centre, and the ones shown in this post are of the old Magistrate’s Court building.

The building was constructed in the early 1960s and was in use until the 2000s when a new building was constructed about half a mile from the old site. Since then the building has fallen into disrepair. As it is Grade II listed, it cannot be demolished, but there are apparently plans afoot to convert it into residential use.

It’s an interesting structure and one I’ve photographed on more than one occasion, so here are a few of the most recent pictures. I think the fourth photo, with the roosting pigeons, is my favourite.

Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired).

Taken on 30 September 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Isometric

September 2, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This tiny van (which looks suspiciously like the one that Postman Pat drives, albeit blue and rusty) is one of the boxiest-looking vehicles I’ve ever seen, which led to the shot below. The right-angled corners mean it looks like something built in Minecraft or an old forced-3D vidogame from the 80s.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired).

Taken on 17 August 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

On the Buses

September 1, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

One of my short posts today – I’ve spent the last hour-and-a-half packing up some stuff that I sold on eBay and I’m losing the will to go on. While it’s always nice to get a bit of cash for things you no longer want or need, the packing part is a real chore. Oh well, it’s done now, so I’ll be thankful for that.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I mentioned that I might have a photo of the interior of the bus that featured as that day’s photo. Well <drum roll>, here it is! See, some things are really worth waiting for, aren’t they? I’m not saying that this is one of them, but some things are. 🙂

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired).

Taken on 17 August 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Come with me if you want to live

July 10, 2019July 15, 2019 fishyfisharcade3 Comments

The two tractors on the right look pretty happy, but the one on the left is looking more ominous. Tractor 800, or T-800 for short, has probably been sent back in time to kill John Connor.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 30 June 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

At Clumber Park

April 21, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This one’s a bit of a random re-scan – after I finished re-scanning the Agfa CT Precisa slides, I scanned a single frame of Superia 100 – mostly because I’d not done anything with this shot before. So here it is.

I’ll hopefully have a bunch of new stuff to go through this week once Easter has passed and the labs are open again.

Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2007).

Taken on 17 October 2017

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Life among the ruins

March 23, 2019March 25, 2019 fishyfisharcade5 Comments

This shot was taken not too far from the S1 Artspace building which had an exhibition last year entitled “Love among the ruins” which was a collection of photographs taken of people going about their lives in the Park Hill Flats complex in the 60s, 70s & 80s, so the title of today’s shot is a spin on that.

This shot isn’t linked otherwise, but sometimes a weed growing out of a crack in some concrete steps makes for a pleasing photograph.

Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & Klick XD200 (expired in 2001).

Taken on 16 March 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

My first try at studio-style portraits

March 21, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

My local photo society had a studio-style model shoot this week which gave me my first ever chance to shoot professional models in this sort of environment. To be clear, this wasn’t a true studio setting, it was more a case of those members with studio-lights, backdrops etc. bringing them along, and then a session of organised shoots with each of the four models, so each member got a few minutes to photograph each of them.

I took along a couple of cameras: the Yashica Mat (which I remembered I’d loaded with 100asa film at the weekend, rather than the Delta 400 I’d bought for this session!), and my Nikon F80 with a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.8. I brought along a couple of film choices for the Nikon, but quickly decided on a roll of Tmax P3200 that I gratefully received from my Emulsive Secret Santa last year, and which I’ve not had opportunity to shoot until now. I figured the 3200asa film would give me plenty of leeway with shutter speed and hopefully produce some nice gritty portraits.

It became quickly apparent that I wouldn’t have enough time to faff around with the Yashica Mat, tripod, light meter etc, so quickly fell back to the F80 for the task at hand. Having never worked with models before, I didn’t really have a clue on how to direct them (and being somewhat shy didn’t help me either), but I was able to direct them in some poses I wanted to shoot, and I also heeded some advice I’d heard on a YouTube video once: That you should trust the model to pose for you. It’s their job, and they’ll know what works better than an inexperience photographer. This was good advice.

Anyway, not knowing quite what results I would get, I was very happy when I got my processed negatives back. While I’m sure there are many points to criticise, for my first attempt I was really happy with what I’d got. I’m not sure it’s something that I’m interested in pursuing further, but it was a good experience.

Anyway, here are a small selection (and there are a few more on my Flickr stream if you want to see the rest).

Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM (except the shot with the tattoed arm in the foreground, which was the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D) & Kodak Tmax P3200.

Taken on 19 March 2019