As per the title. 🙂
Pentax P30T, Rikenon 50mm f/2 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 2 May 2020
Tag: Pylon
Pandemic scenes #10
A slightly larger selection of photographs today made up of most of my remaining pandemic-related pictures. I have a few others, but I’m not sure if they’re worth posting or not.
As retail opens up and the lockdown measures ease, there might be opportunities to make more photographs relating to the situation (and if the whole thing goes belly-up, there might be a whole bunch of new lockdown pictures too!), but for now this is the last of what I have to show.
The photos were made over three seperate outings, using two different cameras (and film stocks). The first three follow on directly from the trig point images I posted yesterday, being made on the same walk. The first shows the KFC restaurant at the local retail park. This place would normally be full of cars at the time I walked past, but on this day is was completely deserted. I think it may have re-opened for drive-through sales now but on this day it was shut. The McDonald’s to the right of the image was similarly closed (although it was part way through renovation as the lockdown took effect, so won’t reopen until that is complete anyway). There’s a Pizza Hut off the edge of the frame to the left too, but that was also closed. Probably good for people’s cardiovascular systems though.
After walking past the KFC I dropped down to the shopping mall to get some items from Sainsbury’s. The usual socially-distanced queue was in effect and took me past these signs on the store window close to the entrance. The rightmost sign is for the Big Night In, a television special made by the BBC where the majority of the performances came from the act’s own homes. You can just make out the ghostly reflections of other socially-distanced shoppers in the window too.
Walking home I passed by a local pub restaurant, closed up since before the lockdown started. Like many similar venues, the noticeboard features a thank you message to NHS and other key workers.
This next photo was taken from practically the same spot as the second picture in this sequence, but on a different day. It shows the supermarket’s promotion of technology to make it easier for people to avoid contact with others while in the store.
And finally, this is one of the children’s play areas at Rother Valley Country Park, the gates taped up, warning notices applied, and fastened shut with plastic cable ties.
Shots 1-3. Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 April 2020
Shots 4-5. Pentax P30T, Rikenon 50mm f/2 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 29 April & 2 May 2020
Weekend stuff
Today has been a somwhat uneventful day. I haven’t left the house, and the only photography-related activity has been reading my Portraits of America book, reading some blogs, and loading a roll of Fomapan 100 into my Bronica ETRSi (but not, so far at least, making any photographs with it). I did also upload a couple more shots to Flickr from the roll of Hp5+ I developed on Friday, one of which you can see in this post.
Yesterday, while not exactly exciting, was more eventful. My wife needed to pick up some things from the hospital and, as she was unsure if she’d be able to find a parking space outside the ward (and would otherwise have a lengthy walk), asked if I would drive her there. This was a reason for me to both drive the car – something I’ve barely done in over a month – and also, because we took our small car (which has been sat on the drive for weeks), give it a run to get some charge in the battery and get some movement in it’s parts. While hardly the trip of a lifetime, it was nice to be able to venture further from home for once.
Then, yesterday afternoon, I decided to combine a walk with picking up some things my wife had been been unable to buy during the weekly supermarket shop. I decided to get some decent exercise by taking a circuitous route around the area, looping around to the shopping centre, and then back home. At around 3.5 miles it wasn’t a really long walk, but I kept up a brisk pace throughout and got some good fresh air and exercise.
I also had the Sure Shot Telemax in my cargo-pants’ pocket, and managed to finish the roll of Delta 400 that it contained. Just a few snapshots as I walked, but maybe something worth a second look when I get around to developing them. The roll ended rather abruptly at frame #32 because I think the camera’s frame-counter has developed a fault – it sometimes jumps back to a lower number, or (in this case) miscounts how may shots have been taken. It’s done it before, but I don’t think it’s actually lost any images, still producing the expected 36 or 37 photos.
Today’s photo has both railway lines and power lines, and is the sort of composition that the Holga seems to eat up for lunch.
Holga 120N & Ilford HP5+ – Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins
Taken on 9 April 2020
Yet more pylons
Yeah, yeah, I know, more pylon / powerline photos. But I make no excuses as I still think they make for excellent photographic subject matter.
Both shots here are 1:1 crops because my OM-1 created a partial double-exposure when winding on the frames (which it did again later in the roll too). Fortunately, these two shots didn’t suffer (and maybe even benefited) from the crop.
Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford XP2 (expired).
Taken on 17 December 2019
Leading lines and power lines
Or is it “lead-in” lines? Or does it matter, both seem to be correct anyway?
This was taken while out on a walk about a year ago and has just been re-scanned on my Plustek 8100. The colours look far better and much more natural now, as does the sharpness of the image (albeit the focus is more on the barley than the distant pylons).
Anyway, it’s quite a nice image, I think.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Agfa Vista Plus 200.
Taken in April 2018 (I think!)
Transmission lines
While this is just a quick grab shot, I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with electrical transmission lines, pylons, poles etc. I think it comes from the old “Play Safe” public information films that used to air in the UK in the 70s. Not only did I have a slightly morbid interest in the danger they posed to the unwary, I would also wonder about where the lines would take me if I were to follow their routes. Sometimes, if I could get my hands on an Ordnance Survey map, I’d trace the paths they took from the places I’d seen them to discover their points of origin and places of termination.
While I don’t go out of my way to photograph these things, they’re always a tempting subject when I see them.
While a slower film would’ve been good for this shot, I don’t think the gritty look of the Tmax P3200 does the shot any disservice.
Nikon F70, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Tmax P3200 with orange grad filter.
Taken on 15 January 2019
Overarching power
This pylon had a dominant, imposing look about it stood on the ridge overlooking the road and valley, and I think the curve of the foreground road adds to the shot.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta & Kodak Tri-X (expired 2013).
Taken on 25 January 2018
There are no dogs here any more
The trailer with the dog’s face on it has been parked in this field for years. For a while there would be canine “gymkhana” type events that would take place here from time to time, where people would run their dogs through courses of fences, ramps, tunnels and the like. I never visited any of these events, but I drove past on a few occasions when they were taking place and there was often quite a crowd of people in attendance. However, at some point a few years ago the events came to an end, but the trailer, with its jolly artwork, has remained in the field since. At some point more recently, someone has broken into the trailer and there were various pieces of equipment scattered beside it.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Tmax 100.
Taken on 1 January 2018
Broken willows
Not far from where I live is the floodplain of the River Rother, where horses and cows sometimes graze. It’s also the location of a number of willow trees, a few of which have been notably disfigured by some force.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Kodak Tri-X.
Taken on 12 December 2017
Steel City Snapper photography 