Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Just up the road from the houses featured in the blog yesterday is a bridge which crosses Bar Brook, a small river (or, I guess, a brook!) which originates on the moors to the north of Baslow before it joins the River Derwent a little further downstream. The sunlight was casting deep shadow beneath the bridge, which I attempted to capture in this picture.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
Taken on 25 January 2025
Nice oblique sunlight and some interesting houses made for a nice shot at the beginning of a walk to Chatsworth House I undertook back in January.
I was umming-and-ahhing about going out with my camera today. The weather has been nice (it’s been nice for the last couple of weeks, in fact), but I wasn’t sure where to go, and I had some other stuff to do around the house but, in the end, I gave myself a kick up the backside and took a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I shot an old roll of Tmax 100 with the Yashica Mat 124G and (hopefully!) should have some nice pictures to share. I do have a backlog again though, so they might be a little while appearing here.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
Taken on 25 January 2025
In the early days of the new year, before I returned to work, I had a day free to do some photography. The world was my oyster (well, maybe not the world) and I was beset by the angst of choice paralysis – lots of places I might go, but a major struggle deciding on which one to choose. Quite often in these situations I just end up going to the same places I’ve been before – often into Sheffield city centre, or Kelham Island, or somewhere else close but familiar. However I was able to grasp the mettle and make a decision, and pulled Saltaire out of the, er, air.
Saltaire is somewhere I’ve never visited before. It sits to the north west of Bradford which, while not too far away, is still about an hour’s journey in the car. The village (although it’s now kinda merged into the wider Bradford conurbation), was built and named after Titus Salt to house workers employed at his mill, aptly named Salt’s Mill. The streets in the village are named after Salt’s children and other family members.
The mill and village sit beside the River Aire and the Leeds to Liverpool canal and the buildings are built in an Italianate style, which is very photogenic. As well as the mill and the houses, there are a number of other civic buildings, including a church, hospital, school, and others. The village was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 2001.
The mill contains art galleries, shops, and a restaurant, and was a very nice place to wander around.
It’s a place I think I may revisit at some point as there is much I didn’t see, and lots to photograph.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
Taken on 2 January 2025
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
Taken on 2 January 2025
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
Taken on 2 January 2025
I’ve seen this building on numerous occasions when driving through the area and on this day I finally found myself well placed (and equipped) to photograph it.
It might look like it’s out on the open plains somewhere remote, but is right on the edge of Whitwell and it’s only the gentle curve of the land that allows this illusion of space.
I took a number of pictures of the building (and the tree to the right of frame – which featured in yesterday’s post) using different focal lengths and am happy with all of them. I did have another shot which is zoomed out a little further than the third shot below which I think I liked best of all, but I managed to beat the lens’ vibration compensation and introduce some camera shake. A shame.
One thing I didn’t notice until I processed the scans is that there is a solitary figure sat on the corner of the wall of the structure. You can make them out better if you click on the images and view them larger in Flickr. They were some distance away, so I wonder if they noticed they were being (unknowingly) photographed?
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
Two photographs of the same tree.
The first is my favourite of the pair. I like the simplicity of the lone tree, but more than that, I like the layered tones created by the fields which neatly divides the picture into thirds. I’m not sure what focal length I used for this one, but expect it was somewhere between 150mm-200mm.
I like the second image too, but I had an ulterior motive when composing the shot to see what it would look like if I utilised the Tamron’s full 300mm range. The image falls apart a little when viewed larger, although I’m not sure how much of that is weakness in the lens at 300mm, and how much is atmospheric effects from zooming in through what was quite hazy air.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
One of the trees form the picture in yesterday’s post can be seen again in today’s picture, lthough it has been relegated to a supporting role in this shot. Instead, the star of the show today is the head of some dried cow parsley which was growing (or had been growing) at the edge of the country lane I was walking down.
As I already mentioned yesterday, I’m very happy with a lot of the pictures that I got from, what was in effect, a test roll.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
Considering this outing was primarily to shoot a roll of film to test my semi-stand developing process, I managed to get quite a lot of pictures I really like. Including this one.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
This is the type of scene that I would miss without a telephoto lens. It was a bright, sunny day, but as well as whisps of high-altitude cloud, there was a haze in the air which meant the landscape became layered as it fell to the distance. This is a relatively mundane scene, but the layering provided by the mist makes it into something much more interesting, and the farm is placed so it doesn’t become too obscured, I think.
I did wonder about cropping out a lot of the sky and going for a more panoramic frame, but in the end decided against it – I quite like the way the distant wind turbine protrudes into the emptiness.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
Steel City Snapper photography 