In the garage at Bletchley Park

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

I was fortunate enough to visit Bletchley Park last week, the site of Great Britain’s code-breaking activities during WWII, and now a museum. I’m still in the process of scanning the roll of HP5+ I started on while there, but today’s post contains a couple of images from the initial strips of negs.

These are a couple of vintage vehicles housed in the garages at the rear of the main hall building. The light was pretty dim – the weather forecast that morning predicted thick cloud and overcast conditions, though they’d managed to get it somewhat wrong as it was brilliant sunshine all morning. The bright light meant many of my outdoor shots now had to be shot at f/22 & 1/1000s due to the sensitivity of the pushed film! It was advantageous in the dimmer indoor areas such as this though.

Anyway, here we have an Austin Six ambulance, and a Sunbeam-Talbot 2-litre Sports Tourer.

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (pushed to 800asa).

Taken on 11 December 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

London skyline

December 12, 2019 fishyfisharcade3 Comments

Jumping back six or seven weeks for today’s image, a shot of the City of London skyline taken from the South Bank at Blackfriar’s Bridge.

I like the way this has turned out – there’s a very slight haze on the tall buidings that gives a nice tonality to the shot. Even with a somewhat flat sky, I still think the image works well.

The handily-placed boat doesn’t hurt either. 🙂

Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Fujifilm Acros (pushed to 400asa).

Taken on 23 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Watching the Thames at low tide

November 15, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This was a photograph taken very quickly during my walk along the South Bank of the River Thames in London recently. The smart suit, bald head, and posture of this chap made for a nice composition. It was the last shot on the roll and I wasn’t sure it would come out (as a result of this, I loaded another roll and took a second shot of the same guy a minute or two later, albeit from a different position – I’ve not scanned that roll yet, so maybe I’ll share that picture in a future post). Luckily it turned out quite nicely.

Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Fujifilm Acros (pushed to 400asa).

Taken on 23 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

St. Paul’s Cathedral from Millennium Bridge

November 11, 2019November 11, 2019 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

Three shots of the same subject today, all of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London taken from across the river on the South Bank from the end of Millennium Bridge. Two of the photos were taken using the Olympus Zuiko AUTO-Zoom 75-150mm f/4 lens, my second time using it since I bought it back in the late summer (I used it for a few shots on my trip to Hull a few days prior to this). So far I’m quite happy with it’s performance. Like most Zuiko lenses, it’s pretty compact, but it has a decent reach and is able to compress distances nicely.

The first shot was taken with the Zuiko 28mm f/3.5.

This is one of those slightly cliched and overdone photo locations – albeit for obvious reasons – but I’ve never shot it before and as it’s not a place I get to visit often I though I might as well take the opportunity while I had the chance.

Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Zuiko AUTO-Zoom 75-150mm f/4 & Fujifilm Acros (pushed to 400asa).

Taken on 23 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Turn up the contrast

November 10, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I shot a roll of Fuji Across a couple of weeks ago and, expecting the weather to be a bit on the gloomy side, pushed it to 400asa. As it turned out, the sun decided to come out for at least some of the shots. This resulted in super-hight-contrast images being the outcome. Across is pretty contrasty anyway, but pushing it amplifies this noticeably, such as in today’s photograph of a street corner convenience store in Southwark in London.

The sunlit areas, particularly those with lighter tones stand out vividly, while the shadows have been reduced to deep blacks – the lady on the left of this shot seemingly emerging from a pool of liquid darkness.

I do like a contrasty image, but care needs to be taken when shooting in such conditions of light and shade that it doesn’t become too much. I’m pretty happy with this one – there is still detail in the highlights, and while the shadows are deep, they work nicely withe the brighter details popping out of them.

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Fujifilm Acros (pushed to 400asa).

Taken on 22 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

He’s looking right at me!

November 8, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Yesterday I spoke a little about those photos which, upon later inspection, reveal a person in the scene who is looking right at you (or appears to be). Well here’s another…

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Fujifilm Acros (pushed to 400asa).

Taken on 22 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

The caravan of gin

October 28, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This caravan was parked next to the Minerva pub on the bank of the Humber Estuary at Hull and the words written upon it made me smile. For those not from the UK (or anywhere else that has a fanbase for The Housemartins), the words are a play on the lyrics of the song Caravan of Love. The Housemartins originated in Hull, so it seems particularly fitting somehow (although I’ve no idea if the band were gin drinkers or not).

Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+ (pushed to 800asa).

Taken on 19 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Couple with a guitar on a cobbled street

October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 fishyfisharcade2 Comments

It’s always a joy to wander around an unfamiliar area with a camera, whether it be somewhere far-flung and exotic, or just a part of your own town or city that you’ve not explored before.

During my wander around Hull last weekend I found a number places that just brought a smile to my face. While probably not drawing a second glance from many local eyes, to me they were heavy with possibility – even in the somewhat flat, grey, overcast light in which I viewed them.

This is one such location – Bishop Lane. I never knew this existed before last Saturday (and why should I? Despite a couple of prior visits to the city, I’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of exploration) but as soon as I saw it I was finding photographs in it’s wonderfully cobbled straightness and shot a few pictures. The first two were of an empty street, but then a couple appeared at the far end of the lane and began to walk in my direction. As they got closer I noticed that the man carried a guitar case and the woman a smaller intrument case – possibly a fiddle – and I knew I had to get them in a photograph of the location.

Before they got too close I checked my focus – the 28mm is fairly forgiving, but I pre-focussed on a spot where I thought the composition would work best as they passed, and then I waited. Looking at the photo it seems evident that one thing I didn’t check was the shutter speed as the couple have some noticable motion blur, so I’m guessing the camera was at 1/125sec (or perhaps even 1/60sec) when I pressed the shutter button. Despite this, I feel the photo works with the blur – it adds a subtle hint of motion in an otherwise motionless scene.

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (pushed to 800asa).

Taken on 19 October 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

People in a gallery

October 21, 2019October 21, 2019 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

I visited HIP Fest at the weekend – Hull International Photography Festival. This is the third year I’ve visited and there are always interesting things to see, both in the exhibition spaces and also in Hull itself.

The photos in today’s post were taken as I was browsing the work of Claire Armitage, who has a series of self-portraits on display in the main atrium area of the shopping centre where most of the exhibitions are placed. I quite liked the framing of the photos on display and people walking past the white wall in the background, so took a few shots.

While I don’t dislike these images – the first one is my favourite – I really should have been patient and waited for further opportunities as the second shot would have been better taken a second earlier, and the woman in the last one is ever-so-slightly out of focus. Alas, I only had a few hours to spare and felt the need to hurry to cram in the other things I wanted to do while there.

This was also the first time I’ve ever pushed film. While Silverfast seemed to want to overexpose all the scans (I got better results using the Pan F 50 setting than HP5+), the one’s I’ve scanned so far have come out pretty well, and the faster shutter speeds that I was able to use were very useful when shooting indoors or in the dark and overcast conditions outside.