Tag: pigeons

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Pigeons

fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Well there’s the rule of odds out the window, eh?

Something good that happened today…

While browsing Reddit earlier I came across a post about an old British children’s programme called Spider. Spider wasn’t something I watched as a child – I predate it by quite some time – but my oldest son had an episode of it on a VHS tape back in the 90s which contained a compilation of single episodes from various children’s animated shows, and we watched this one together on numerous occasions. Seeing a single image of Spider on Reddit instantly brought back the song, lyrics and all, that featured in this episode, titled Spider in the Bath which I’d stored somewhere in my memory banks awaiting something to trigger it one day. Today was that day…

Graffiti birds

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

The birds

fishyfisharcade5 Comments

I knew I had to get a photo of these pigeons as soon as I saw them. If I’ve counted right, there are one-hundred-and-eighteen of them perched on the overhead cables (including the two in flight). Normally when I see something like this they’ll all fly away before I get chance to take the picture, but on this occasion I was blessed with a flock tolerant of my presence. I guess city pigeons are generally quite accepting of people though, and they were pretty much out of reach up there on the wires anyway. I suspect that, had I dropped some fod on the floor, the whole lot of them would have descended!

The tram has a slight blur as I wanted to maximise my depth of field, so had to use a slower shutter speed (I think it was 1/125s, but it might have been 1/60s.

Overhead wires

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

Taken on 27 November 2021

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Pandemic scenes #11

fishyfisharcade6 Comments

I had wondered if I might have come to the end of this series of pandemic-related photographs given the relaxing of the lockdown here in the UK, but I’ve got a few new images of scenes in the new, post-lockdown world.

The weekend before last was the final one before non-essential retail was allowed to re-open on the 15 June, so I took a trip up town to see how things looked before the shops returned to life.

 

Down empty alleyways

The town centre was largely empty, with the largest groups of people I noticed being construction workers and homeless folks. It was a little eerie and the weather – dank and grey – felt more akin to a winter’s morning than one approaching the summer solstice. There were pigeons in the Peace Gardens and I wondered if they’ve been forced to work harder for their dinners given the lack of humans feeding them or dropping scraps?

 

Pandemic pigeons

The city has been given new signage outside some shops (although it seemed somewhat hit and miss as to which shops did – it certainly wasn’t all of them), and benches and the like feature signs requesting they not be used, or to keep your distance from others.

 

Queue here

I’ve made a couple more trips since this one (and still have more pandemic-related photos from this roll yet to upload), so I guess this series will continue for a while yet.

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Liverpool Street pigeons

fishyfisharcade1 Comment

On the whole, I’ve been more than pleased with the results from this roll of HP5+ pushed to 1600asa. I was expecting a lot more grain and contrast than is apparent, and the images all look great. Definitely something I will repeat when the situation requires it.

This was the final shot on the roll – although I shot a few photos with the Pentax Espio that I also had with me. After that I resorted to some digital shots when back in the dimmer light of the Tube station.

FILM - Liverpool Street pigeons

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600).

Taken on 19 February 2020