Some more from the steam rally…

August 11, 2017 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

As my slovenly updating of the blog continues, I thought I’d just drop in a bunch of photos to keep it alive!

These were taken back in June at the Sheffield Steam Rally ay North Anston. I’ve already posted the shots of the traction engines, but there were also some classic cars that I photographed, plus a few random shots. These were shot with my OM-1 with the F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 on Fomapan 100. I like the Fomapan, it’s a little grimy in my experience, sometimes having little back soot-like flecks on the negatives, but the results are pretty nice.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Sheffield Steam Rally

July 18, 2017 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

On Sunday 25 June I attended Sheffield Steam Rally, which is held just outside Sheffield at North Anston. I visited last year too, but have only attended one other time before that, probably sometime in the late 1990s. Like trains, classic cars, or aircraft, steam engines are not something that I have any deep interest in, in and of themselves, but as a photographer, they make for excellent interesting subjects, both of themselves, and also in the vast array of detail that they hold. There’s also a wonderful nostalgia that surrounds them and, while I don’t think I’d like to have lived in an environment thick with it, the pungent whiff of coal smoke is lovely in these situations.

I managed to take over fifty photographs on the day, but this post contains just a selection of them. These shots were all taken with my Olympus OM-1. Some shots are on Ilford HP5+, and others are on Fomapan 100. I’ll mark each shot accordingly, but the HP5+ shots will be first.

#1 (HP5+) – This was a favourite of the day. I really like the out-of-focus engine to the rear of the shot, and it feels like it could have been taken a long time ago.

#2 (HP5+) – Another favourite. I like the composition and the trio of figures.

#3 (HP5+) – A lot of the traction engines appeared to be family endeavours, with fathers, sons, wives, daughters all mucking in. I like this shot because of the foreground interest granted by the man and his dog (although I nearly cut off its feet!).

#4 (HP5+)

#5 (HP5+) – I think the human element adds to a lot of the shots. Some of the interest would be lost if were just the machines.

#6 (HP5+)

#7 (HP5+)

#8 (HP5+)- This must be a show regular, as I photographed it last year too. To be fair, many, if not all of the engines might’ve been there last year too, it’s just that I recognised this one.

#9 (Fomapan) – Another favourite. If the van weren’t in shot, this would perhaps have the look of a much older photograph.

#10-19 (Fomapan) – The steam engines take part in a drive-past event in the central “show-ring” area and I took a number of photos of this. The next two are my favourites – the size of the machines, but also the poses of the drivers, gives them something od an epic feel I think.

#20 (Fomapan) – The smoke adds so much atmosphere (both literally as well as figuratively!).

#21 (Fomapan)

#22 (Fomapan)

#23 (Fomapan) – There were other things present, apart from steam rollers and traction engines, including this organ. There were also some nice food stalls and I had a delicious pork and pulled-pork burger from one of them.

There were also a large number of classic cars, bikes and trucks present, but I’ll save those photos for another day.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

So much for at least one update a week!

July 10, 2017 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Oh well, the sky hasn’t fallen down as yet, so I guess my self-imposed “at least one post a week” wasn’t the be all and end all (after all!).

Anyway, I’ve still got quite a mountain of pictures to post – even though, until the weekend, I’d had a break of a couple of weeks without taking a single photograph – so here’re a few more. These were all taken during the day-trip to York that I’ve already posted about, but were on a second roll of film that I didn’t finish on the day. There’s no particular theme, just a selection of things I though might make a decent picture.

These were all shot with my Olympus OM-1 on Ilford HP5+. I used the F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 for some, and a Hoya 25-42mm wide-angle zoom for the others. I got both lenses with the camera but, despite its wide-angle versatility, I’m not keen on the Hoya – it’s very bulky and heavy and the image quality isn’t a patch on the F.Zuiko. I’ve flagged the Hoya shots with a (H).

#1 – This was taken on my way back to the town centre after the morning’s visit to the National Railway Museum. I hung around at the edge of the street to get someone reflected in the puddle. I took two shots, but this is the best.

#2 – Despite their poorer image quality, I still like a few of the Hoya shots, including this one (H).

#3 – York Minster at a jaunty angle (H).

#4 – Another one of the Hoya shots I really like (H).

#5 -The Minster again (H).

#6 – And again. I like the juxtaposition of the old Roman column against the more modern cathedral here. I couldn’t have taken this without the wide-angle (H).

#7 – A couple of bicycles (H).

#8 -Another street scene (H).

#9 -And another (H).

#10 – York’s famous medieval shopping street. the Shambles, some of the buildings here date back to the 14th century. It gets its name because it used to be the home of a large number of butchers’ shops (shambles being an old term for open-air butchers and slaughterhouses.

#11 -And York’s famous tea-room, Betty’s (there’s another branch in Harrogate, which I think is the original). There was a sizeable queue outside each time I passed by.

#12 -Finger-puppets for sale on The Shambles.

#13 -And more modern digital “bobble head” clocks.

#14 -And gin (though this wasn’t on The Shambles).

#15 -There was a sizeable international food fair taking place on the day, with loads of stalls, but the only one I photographed was this sausage stand (which might be there all the time anyway for all I know).

#16 -The old BT piper logo was still in evidence on these payphones.

#17 – This is my favourite shot of the bunch. I spotted this trout’s expression on a fish monger’s stall.

#18 – Another bicycle. The city being relatively flat, bicycles appear to be a popular form of transport in York.

#19 – Not sure if these stones mark actual graves any more.

#20 – And the final shot of this batch, a small alleyway just off Stonegate. And another of the shots I quite like.

It’s a shame the weather wasn’t better on the day – there are untold numbers of things to photograph in York, and the place is well worth the visit.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Oddshots #3

June 23, 2017July 24, 2017 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Another of my occasional quickie posts featuring just a single shot. This time taken in York’s National Railway Museum with my Olympus OM-1, F Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+. The subject is a selection of glassware from the Great Eastern Railway Company which was housed in an exhibition case in the Flying Scotsman area of the museum. It was very dimly lit in there and so a wide aperture and slower shutter speed were required (1/30s handheld) to get a sufficient exposure. I’ve cropped the photo slightly as there was a distracting bit of silverware encroaching in from the right of the frame that I didn’t like.

The shallow depth of field lends it a bit of an abstract air and it’s a photo I like (I am a sucker for these sorts of pictures though).

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A rainy day in York

June 16, 2017June 16, 2017 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

The British summer behaved as expected last weekend, when my wife, her sister and I went on a trip to York, delivering a day of rain and muggy humid conditions. The trip came about because I fancied a photography outing, but didn’t want to leave my wife out if I went somewhere nice, but I similarly didn’t want to feel guilty or limited in what I could do by dragging her around while I took photos, so I suggested she bring her sister so that they could do the shopping thing, while I went off to do my stuff.

Anyway, the trip from Sheffield to York takes about an hour, so it’s nothing too onerous to undertake, but the weather definitely put a (literal) dampener on things and so, while the ladies went around the shops, I was forced to find some indoor location myself, and decided upon the National Railway Museum. The museum is worth a visit (even if you’re not all that interested in railways), and I’ve been a number of times in my life, both as a child, and then as an adult, with our own kids. The major downside in the museum, photographically speaking, is that it’s not incredibly well-lit – especially in the hall where the royal trains are housed – and while this isn’t a hindrance to modern digital cameras, where the ISO can be changed on the fly to account for dim light, it’s something of a nuisance for a tripodless film SLR, even with 400 ASA film loaded. So, while I took quite a few shots inside, there were many where I just had to let them go as I would’ve needed far too slow a shutter speed to be able to hand-hold the camera. Oh well.

The photos below were taken on the way to, and inside the museum. I have a bunch of other shots from the day in York (it did mostly stop raining in the afternoon, thankfully), but I’ll perhaps share those in a future post at some point – plus some of them are on a roll of film that hasn’t been finished as yet.

All the shots below were taken with my Olympus OM-1 with a F Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens fitted, on Ilford HP5+ film. It’s a lovely camera, and the lens is capable of some very sharp results (although I did lose a couple on the day thanks to camera shake in the low light).

#1 & #2 – While heading towards the museum, I spotted a tour group in the town centre. As the rain was coming down quite hard, they were all holding umbrellas, and I thought they were worth a shot or two. Sadly, just as I got the camera out of my bag and focussed, the group decided to move on, which is why there’s a degree of motion in the first shot. Still, I decided to follow them to their next point of interest and got a more satisfying second shot.

#3 – Just before you arrive at the National Railway Museum if coming from the town centre), the road goes beneath the norther edge of York railway station, and there is a separate tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists.

#4 – Just inside the museum, next to the reception area, is a steam engine of some sort, and I spotted this interesting-looking gauge on the dome.

#5 – In the Station Hall section of the museum I was very limited by the available light, and only took a couple of shots – one of which had awful camera shake. If the day had been brighter, then the skylights would have let in much more illumination, but not on this visit unfortunately, so this is the only shot I got in there. It’s a shame as there are lots of things of interest in here, both for the museum visitor and the photographer looking for interesting subjects.

#6 & #7 – The other main section of the museum is the Great Hall. This section houses most of the locomotives and has an operating turntable that is demonstrated at set times throughout the day. One of the first things you see in the Great Hall is a Japanese Bullet Train, and you are able to board the single carriage and watch films that are screened at either end of the compartment. I seem to be receiving a concerned or disapproving look from the lady in the second shot, although I didn’t really notice her at the time of taking the picture.

#8 – The main feature of the Great Hall is the turntable, and the first shot here shows a group of spectators waiting for a demonstration to begin.

#9, #10, #11 & 12 – show details of some of the locomotives arranged around the turntable, and these shots show a replica of Stephenson’s Rocket, the Mallard, the Evening Star (Britain’s last steam locomotive run by British Railways) and a Class 31 diesel locomotive.

#13 – Also in the Great Hall was this odd little locomotive off to one side of the larger specimens.

#14 – The final shot I’m including here is of a couple of diesel shunters that were stood outside the Station Hall.

I have to say that I’ve a new-found love for Ilford HP5+. My early attempts with it resulted in slightly flat, grey images that I wasn’t top happy with, but I’ve now realised that this was a fault of the photographer and not the film, and my recent shots have been far nicer in their tones.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Oddshots #3

May 26, 2017June 7, 2017 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This has come rather closer to the last Oddshots posting than I expected, but as I haven’t gotten around to writing about the roll of Ektar I shot on Tuesday as yet, I thought I’d drop this in to keep up the flow of posts (I promised myself I would update the blog at least once a week, but seem to have gotten into a faster pace, so I may as well keep it up while I have stuff to show).

So, today’s oddshot was taken back in January this year with my Olympus OM-1. I’d bought a roll of Rollei Retro 400s film after being impressed by the results I’d seen produced by other people, so I loaded it up and off I went on a somewhat misty and gloomy winter’s day. What I’d not considered however, was the double whammy facts that, 1) Rollei Retro 400s is better shot at 200 ASA rather than box speed (at least according to most of the reports I looked at after I’d shot my roll) and, 2) that my OM-1 meter was out by about a stop due to it containing a 1.5v battery rather than the 1.35v it was expecting. I thought I was compensating for this by the meter needle placement, but I was clearly out by some margin (I’ve since had the camera modified to meter correctly with a 1.5v cell). The result of this was that the entire roll came out pretty significantly underexposed.

While some of the shots were write-offs, thanks to film being film, I was still able to rescue a good percentage of the photos. They’re all still underexposed, but in a way that I wasn’t unhappy with, and which rather suited the murky day on which they were shot. The picture below is an example of this. While’s it’s pretty dark, I really think that it’s added some atmosphere that might otherwise not have been there and resulted in a photo I like a lot. I’ll maybe post others from the same set in future.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Doors, doors, doors…

May 22, 2017May 22, 2017 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I’ve not finished off any rolls in the past week, so this post is from a trawl through my archives (which only really go back to last summer, film-wise).

I’ve noticed that I often take photos of doors, doorways, windows etc. I don’t think I’m alone in this, and there are entire Flickr groups dedicated to just this subject, but I thought it might make a decent subject for a blog post. I’ll limit the post to shots taken on film, and just those where the door is the focal point of the image (or at least a significant part of it) and will give a little background (in so far as my memory allows) on where and, perhaps, why I took each photograph. They’re shown in rough chronological order, oldest first.

First of all, apologies for the quality of this scan. It has loads of dust and marks on it. Partly, no doubt, due to my not doing a great job when scanning it, but mostly because this entire roll came back from being processed in quite a sorry state. Almost every shot had odd marks, smudges, scratches and horrendous blobs of dust-like artifacts on the negatives themselves. It was as though the roll had been fallen down the dusty back of the processing machine and then been scraped back out from underneath with someone’s shoe. Indeed, I’ve never used this particular place for processing since, and now instead use Peak Imaging, who do a marvellous job.

Anyway, this shot was taken at the Lincolnshire seaside town of Mablethorpe – a regular and frequent holiday destination throughout my childhood and teenage years thanks to my grandparents having a caravan nearby – in September 2016 and this house stood out due to the interesting collection or artifacts surrounding the door. The film used was Agfa Vista Plus 200 (converted to B&W in Lightroom) and it was shot on my Olympus 35 RC.

This shot was taken in September 2016, again with my Olympus 35 RC. The film used here was an expired roll of Kodak Ultra 400 (which expired around 2004). The film suffered from some additional grain and I think I ought to have overexposed it a little more to compensate (I think I overexposed it by a single stop), but was otherwise ok. I didn’t notice any significant colour shifts or other faults, although I’m by no means the expert on such matters. I still have a few rolls of this expired film left to shoot.

The door in the picture is in Elliot House on Sylvester Street in Sheffield. The building is now converted to apartments, but used to be part of the Joseph Elliot & Sons cutlery works that was based on the same street (although very little now remains, and the cutlery firm closed in 1990).

Taken in early October 2016, these doors are the main entrance to the central glass house in Sheffield Botanical Gardens. The glass houses are grade II listed structures and were built in 1837-38. They were renovated and re-opened in 2002 which is why the clock above the doors is dated as such. This is another Olympus 35 RC & Agfa Vista Plus 200 photograph.

This was taken on the same day as the shot above. Same camera, same roll of film. It was taken on a road near the botanical gardens and I liked the autumnal look of the leaves piled up on the path and the encroaching holly bush. It’ll not win any prizes but, hey, it fits the theme of todays’ post.

Taken in November 2016 at Barrow Hill Roundhouse, Britain’s last surviving functional roundhouse. The venue is closed at present due to National Lottery funded renovation work that is being carried out. I discovered this to my detriment after driving out for a visit earlier this year without checking the website, only to discover it was closed when I arrived (I ended up going to Bolsover Castle instead). While I’m not particularly a rail enthusiast, I do find that museums such as this offer lots of nice photo opportunities, so are well worth a trip. The shot below is, again, on Agfa Vista Plus 200, but this time shot with my Olympus OM-1, which I’d recently acquired. The lens used was a 50mm F Zuiko f/1.8. I like the way red comes out on colour film (see #2 above), so this was an easy shot, helped by the nice light on the day in question. I particularly like the inclusion of the smoker’s bench and associated “fag-ends” bin, although I’m not sure that dropping cigarette ends into what looks like a plastic container is a good idea. I suppose it might’ve been full of water though – I’m sure these things were carefully considered by the good people who keep the roundhouse going!

Guess the film… Yes! It’s Agfa Vista Plus 200 again! This time shot with my Olympus Trip 35, which is a great little camera with a nice, sharp lens. This is in Paradise Square, Sheffield (if only I’d stepped to right slightly, you’d have seen the full street name for yourselves! Oh well…). This was taken in January on one of my first film-only outings following the (mostly digital) 366 project I did through 2016. The light was great and I went out with my Lubitel 166 U and the Trip and shot a full roll through each.

Paradise Square is a cobbled square surrounded by Georgian houses built through the 1700s. Thankfully it survived the bombing raids that ruined or destroyed much of the city’s historic architecture the Second World War. It now seems to be mostly home to a variety of solicitors and accountancy firms.

This is the doorway of St. Peter & St. Paul’s church in Eckington, Derbyshire. The church dates back to the 12th century, although has had modifications in the intervening time. I hadn’t gone out to intentionally photograph the church, but I parked my car right outside and the afternoon light was lovely, so I took a couple of shots, one of which you see below. This is the first ‘true’ black & white shot from this set, being shot on Ilford FP4 Plus with my OM-1.

Another church doorway, this time St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic church at Handsworth, Sheffield. My wife had an appointment on our way out on a shopping trip, so I decided to go for a walk rather than sit in the car, and I liked the look of the tree’s shadows cast upon the church wall. The camera I had to hand was an Olympus Superzoom 105 G, which is a point-and-shoot compact that was produced around the turn of the century. I bought it for £2 at a camera fayre and it had a partially used toll of Kodak Gold 400 still inside. This was one of the shots taken to use up the remaining frames. As the camera used doesn’t have any way to change the film speed setting, the expired film was shot at box speed and as a result came out with considerable grain. As a result, I decided that B&W worked best for this (plus a crop to a square). For the curious, the other shots on the part-used film consisted of several photos of the (presumably) previous owners’ cat in a kitchen, plus a series from trip to Scotland (After a bit of larking around on Google Maps, I was able to place the specific location of several of the Scotland pictures, which was nice).

Another shot from the £2 Superzoom 105 G. This one is on Fomapan 100. The doorway in the picture is set in the side of the Manchester Crown Court building, and is a suitably imposing entrance. This was taken in April 2017 while I was attending a training course nearby.

#10

Taken while waiting for the train to Manchester to attend the training course I mentioned above. This entrance to the hidden luxuries of the first-class lounge is on one of the platforms of Sheffield’s Midland Station. Shot on our old chum, Agfa Vista Plus 200, and with a Konica Pop camera (the third of the £2 cheapies I picked up at the camera fayre). The camera still had batteries in when I bought it, but they’d leaked and had corroded the battery terminals enough to prevent the electrics from working. Thankfully, if you like a challenge, you can shoot the camera manually by using Sunny 16 guidelines. Although the lens is fixed focus, and the shutter speed is locked at 1/125 sec, you can alter the aperture between f/4 and f/16 by a combination of the ASA setting switch and whether the flash is in it’s up or down position. I know it all sounds a bit Heath-Robinson, but it works nonetheless!

#11

Olympus OM-1 again and another B&W conversion on Agfa Vista Plus 200. This is the entrance to Chesterfield town hall. The framing is maybe a little tight on this at the bottom, but I think I might’ve just about gotten away with it.

#12

Broad Lane, Sheffield. I liked the weathered, graffiti-scrawled look of this particular door. It was taken with a Pentax P30T on (you guessed it!) Agfa Vista Plus 200. I had to stand in the road to get it in shot using the 50mm Rikenon f/2 lens that was attached to the camera.

#13

Not far from the door above, is the next one, not a dissimilar shade of blue, on Trippet Lane. They could almost be related! Again, the weathered look drew my eye, and this one has a nice bit of sticker-art affixed. Same camera, same roll of film.

Well, there you go. This turned out to be a longer post than I expected. Thirteen shots in all (I hope no-one is superstitious!). At the rate I photograph scenes like this I ought to have enough for another bakers’ dozen in about a year’s time!