Around Park Hill flats

February 11, 2025 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

A quartet of pictures I shot one morning on my way into the office.

Park Hill Flats are a notable (and some might say, notorious) landmark in Sheffield, being one of the major landmarks visible when entering the city by rail or by road down the main arterial route from the motorway.

When originally constructed in the late 1950s, / early 1960s they replaced older back-to-back tenement housing and gave the residents the luxury of their own private bathrooms and heating. Due to the construction on a hillside it was possible to reach every floor apart from the highest from somewhere at ground level and the wide frontages to the flats were wide enough for electric milk-floats to be driven, and the name “streets in the sky” was coined.

Over time, a mixture of poor maintenance, and rising antisocial behaviour and crime blighted the development. Over time it became more difficult to house tenants on the site. In recent decades, a part-privatisation of the development has taken place, with the blocks being gradually refurbished and improved into a mixture of upmarket housing, social housing, and business units, and there are now much improved facilities on the site.

Whatever your thoughts on the brutalist architectural design, the place is certainly striking, and for a photographer provides ample opportunities for interesting pictures to be made.

Something good that happened today…

I heard today that one of the people in our team impacted by the recent redundancies has secured himself a new role, so I’m very happy for him. He’s a great young man with a lot of promise and deserves every opportunity.

Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.

Taken on 25 October 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Park Hill flats

September 26, 2023 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC, and Kodak Portra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro

Taken 6 August 2023.

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Park Hill flats in snow

December 4, 2021 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

This is the second version of this post. The first one was about how the short and gloomy winter days are getting me down somewhat this year, but it made for somewhat depressing reading, so I scrapped it.

The days can be very gloomy during the winter though – it’s just after 4pm as I write this and it’s almost fully dark outside. Normally this wouldn’t be the case for another hour at this time of the year, but we’ve got some heavy rain today and the clouds have blocked what little natural illumination we might otherwise have had.

We were due to go out shortly for a family meal, but one of my boys went out with friends last night and had a few celebratory drinks too many so we’ve had to cancel and re-book as he has had a hangover all day. With the wisdom of age I can easily preach to him about the foolishness of drinking too many beers and the price that comes with them, but I’ve got plenty of hangovers of my own under my belt from when I was young which prevent me getting on too high a horse. So the meal will take place tomorrow instead when hopefully we will all be in a fit state to enjoy it.

My other son will now be having some takeaway pizza instead which, from the look on his face when I told him, I think he prefers anyway. Not sure if the rest of us will have the same (or if Mister Hungover will want some – pizza is great at the end of a night out drinking, but I can’t remember if it maintains its allure the following day), but we shall see shortly.

Today’s picture is of Park Hill Flats, a sheffield architectural landmark that has featured here on the blog on a few occasions previously. I made this photo after the shot of the magick studio, and before the picture of the pigeons I posted yesterday. It was taken from the footbridge over the road and shot through the railings.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 27 November 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Eleven flights

March 28, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

As I briefly mentioned the other day, the skies are currently almost empty of aircraft, something noticeable on clear days. Today not so much as it’s mostly cloudy (and considerably chillier!) so the sight has been lessened somewhat. To mark the lack of flights, today I post a picture of eleven flights.

Of stairs.

As I type this I’ve not checked the news for today’s pandemic updates. I’m not planning on burying my head in the sand over the situation, but dwelling on a constant 24-hour news-cycle of reports on the pandemic are probably not great for mental health, so I’m going to try and get on with things as normally as possible, dipping into the news only when appropriate.

Today’s previously mundane, but now suddenly “interesting” activity was to go to the local supermarket for some things we needed. I only posted the other day about only going to get provisions once a week, and that seems to have fallen through straight away as my wife was unable to get all the things we needed yesterday. So, this morning, I drove to the local Sainsbury’s to get the things we were missing.

The branch of Sainsburys is attached to a shopping-mall close to where we live and there were plenty of car-parking spaces as most of the other shops in the mall are closed at present. The supermarket has implemented a queueing system that allows twenty people in the store at a time, which requires people to stand in the car-park outside in a zig-zag queue. The parking spaces make handy markers for keeping apart, and the was a gap of three or four metres between each person (or family). Everyone was behaving and, despite it being colder today, seemed in good spirits – chatting with their fellow shoppers and sharing news of what was open, where the treasured items (pasta and toilet rolls) might be acquired, and being generally good-natured. Despite the queue seeming quite long, I got into the store in the third block of people.

Stock on the shelves was pretty plentiful apart than a few items I noticed (pasta and dried rice), and I was able to get the things we needed, plus a few other items that we were running short on.

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Lomography Color Negative 400.

Taken on 1 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Down Duke Street

March 24, 2020March 26, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Maybe the last of the Samsung Fino 60S photos (for now, at least, unless we get housebound for a reeeaaaallly long time!), but I also shot a Canon Sure Shot Supreme on the same outing, so there may be a few more Park Hill photos to come yet.

My local lab tweeted today that they have closed their walk-in reception for the time being due to coronavirus guidance, so I’m going to have to post any rolls to them (and wait for the negs to be posted back) for any stuff I manage to shoot in the meantime. It’s a shame because it will cost more in postage (effectively adding over £5 to the cost of developing for postage both ways) and will take longer than usual, but we all have to get on board with the measures to reduce the spread of the infection, so I don’t mind too much – I’ll probably wait until I have a few rolls before sending them in though to save on the cost.

I’ve also made some semi-serious investigations into home-developing kit. That’ll involve some upfront cost (and the very real risk of me destroying my own photos through incompetence!) if I go ahead with it, but will help with my impatience and wallet-health longer termif I manage to make a sucess of it. I think I’ll sleep on it awhile first…

Samsung Fino 60S & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 1 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Graffiti on the flats

March 23, 2020March 27, 2020 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This is the top / southern end of the Park Hill flats – the entire complex was built according to the topography of the city (which, like Rome, is built on seven hills according to local folklore) so that every floor of the multi-storey building was accessible from ground level without the need for stairs or lifts (although there are plenty of those too).

This end of the complex has not yet been reached by the Urban Splash re-generation project that is renovating and re-purposing the flats and other spaces for modern accomodation and businesses and some of the metal panels protecting the ground-floor flats has been used to host colourful graffiti art.

In other news, I’m expecting that the UK is likely to be placed under a much more stringent lock-down soon because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it could be that my photography is limited somewhat (although some house-bound projects can be found I’m sure). I’ve enough photos to keep this blog going each day for months and months, so I have no plans to stop posting, but the supply of recently taken photos might be limited.

Maybe this will be a good time to learn how to develop my own film…

Samsung Fino 60S & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 1 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

S1 Artspace

March 22, 2020March 26, 2020 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

S1 Artspace is a gallery nestled within the Park Hill housing complex. The organisation has been in place since 1995, but the gallery at Park Hill is a more recent venue.

Unfortunately, as museums and galleries have now closed in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s now closed for the time being.

Samsung Fino 60S & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 1 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

A couple of photos of Park Hill flats

March 21, 2020March 26, 2020 fishyfisharcade6 Comments

I’ve posted images from Sheffield’s Park Hill complex a number of times before (see Life among the ruins, Work continues, Colourful buildings, Scooter) and the location always tends to provide something worth photographing.

These two are from the test roll I shot through the Samsung Fino 60S – in fact the bulk of the roll features the complex.

The little camera and cheap film have, again, done quite a nice job on my pictures I think.

Samsung Fino 60S & Kodak Colorplus.

Taken on 1 March 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Work continues

March 19, 2019 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

The refurbishment of another section of Park Hill flats is underway and the block in question is cocooned in scaffolding and yellow netting.

This was taken on a roll of 2001 expired Klick XD200 film that I was shooting for this year’s Expired Film Day. Due to the age of the film, I overexposed it a couple of stops. It’s not come out too badly though – a little extra noise and a slight pink cast are the only real signs of its age.

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

Taken on 16 March 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Colourful buildings

February 27, 2019February 27, 2019 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Two photos today, both shot with the Canon AF35M II on expired Superia 100.

The first is a section of Park Hill Flats in Sheffield. The section depicted here has undergone re-development into modern apartments and business facilities and is a far-cry from the state of the place thirty years ago, when the development and area was in a state of decline. The flats were originally built back in the 1960s to replace the tenement buildings that were demolished due to being unfit for habitation and high levels of crime (the area being dubbed “Little Chicago” in the 1930s), and was designed so that every floor except the top would have at least one entrance at ground level – something facilitated by the hilly nature of Sheffield and the location of the buildings. The flats were all accessed by wide walkways that were dubbed “streets in the sky” and were wide enough to accommodate milk-floats. The flats are in the brutalism style that was fashionable at the time but which is often despised these days. Being a strong example of this type of architecture, the development was granted grade II listed building status in the 1990s.

The second shot is of the Co-Operative Funeral Care building, also in Sheffield and not a million miles from Park Hill Flats (hence the reason both shots are only a handful of frames apart on the negatives 🙂 ). I’m not sure when this building was constructed, but I would again expect the 1960s. I used to pass it on the bus when visiting my nan’s house and was always drawn to the colourful glass panes beneath the apex of the roof. They catch the sun in the daytime and would be illuminated from within after dark fell.