I’ve already posted a picture of this place a couple of days ago, but that was just the section seen at the left side of this wider view, I’m not sure when this building was constructed. It has an art deco look about but I suspect it to be a much more recent addition.
The bold reds and bright whites of the paint stand out in lovely contrast agains the blue skies. It’s on days like this where I most enjoy shooting colour film.
Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
A fairly straightforward street photo for today. It works, I think, because the arcade is closed and the blue shutters are down. Had it been opened then the figure would have been lost amongst the background. Lots of blues and a nice burst of colour from the sign look quite nice.
We’ve been hit by storm Eunice here in the UK today, and the southern counties received two red weather alerts, the most serious we get in this country, and not something that happens very often. Wind speeds of over 100mph were recorded in parts of the country. Being a couple of hundred miles north of the worst of it, all we’ve had here is a quite blustery and rainy afternoon. Some of the trees I can see from the house were swaying quite wildly but I’ve not noticed any damage from the limited vantage points I have from looking out of the windows.
A large part of the population seems to have been fixated on this YouTube channel, which has been showing planes landing (or attempting to land in some cases) in the high winds at London Heathrow airport. It had 185,000 viewers when I took a look earlier!
Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
I use the Grain2Pixel Photoshop plug-in to convert colour negatives. I’ve found it can be a bit finicky on certain film stocks – Portra for instance – but it always seems to do a great job with Kodk Colorplus, producing lovely saturated colours. I’m not sure how accurate these are to the film’s profile (and who really knows when scanning?) but I like the results very much. In scenes like this the reds leap off the picture.
Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
At the end of January I took myself off for a day at the seaside town of Cleethorpes. It was a nice day with vivid blue skies and plenty of bright winter sunshine. There wasn’t much in the way of warmth however, not helped by the fact that we still had the tail-end of Storm Malik creating blustery conditions. However, this being the UK in wintertime, I was glad enough for the bright day and wore enough clothes to keep the chill at bay.
I didn’t have any particular plans for the day other than to take a bunch of photographs at an off-season seaside town. I knew that most of the attractions would be shuttered up for the winter, but that was kinda the point – to see it in the times when it isn’t full of holidaymakers and day-trippers.
I’d parked up right on the promenade. Unsurprisingly there were plenty of spaces to choose from – almost all of them in fact, and after buying a ticket I decided to head north to the end of the promenade where the beach heads on up to Grimsby. The wind was bitingly cold, but my jacket kept me warm, and I kept on my gloves unless I wanted to make a picture. Despite the fact that most things were shuttered, the big amusement arcade was open and I went in for a bit of warmth and a quick game on an old Galaga machine that I found lurking in a corner.
I had three cameras with me, which might sound like overkill, but two of them (the Olympus XA3 with which today’s photos were shot, and my digital Ricoh) are both tiny and easily pocketable. Only the OM-2n required a bag to carry it and a couple of extra lenses.
The photos in todays blog are of the small funfair on the beach. It’s not much of a funfair – just three rides – but I think it’s pretty much all that is left in terms of these sorts of things at the resort. There used to be a small theme park to the south of the town with some actual thrill rides, but that closed years ago. There were also larger rides including dodgems and a waltzer inside one of the buildings on the promenade, but I believe that it’s now an indoor market. This small cluster of beach attractions consists of a big-wheel (sans carriages at this time of year), a helter-skelter (all locked up), and a kiddies rollercoaster (missing its train, again because no children are around to ride on it in January). Despite their inactivity, they still made for colourful pictures in the bright sunshine though.
The old expired roll of Colorplus (which came with the XA3 when I bought it early last summer) has come out a treat.
Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
My plan to get more film developed today has not borne fruit, so for now it means I’ll have to dip into the archive to find a shot (for today at least – I still plan to get another roll developed tomorrow). The good news is that it wasn’t procrastination at fault, but the fact that I went out with the camera this morning and shot a couple of new rolls. I was using the ETRSi, so that should mean 30 more potential shots to feed the fires that keep the blog going.
Today’s photo then is from late spring last year, made during a daytrip my wife and I made to Bridlington, a seaside town on the Yorkshire coast. I thought that I’d posted this one before, but looking through my posts I can’t see it on here. It’s one of my favourites from this roll too.
I’m back at work tomorrow after a week and two days of leave. The decorating is almost complete now – just the kitchen to finish off and a few odds-and-sods to tidy up. Tomorow will likely be the decorator’s last day here. For anyone wondering at the ostentatiousness of us having a decorator, the simple reason for this is that I’m terrible at this stuff. We learnt early on in our home-owning journey that paying a professional to do this stuff would produce far better results. It oviously has its downside in terms of expense, but I’d much prefer the end result to look good than to save a bit of money and have it look shabby.
The end result of the last week has been that I could really do with another week off just to recover – I’m exhausted. Apart from all the maneouvering of furniture from room to room, dismatling and re-assembling beds and so forth, we’ve also been getting up at 7am every morning for the past two weeks to get everything ready before the decorator, carpet fitters, kitchen fitters etc. arrived. The only day where I had any time to myself really was yesterday, when I managed to get pretty much the full day to myself (I went out and made some photographs, and thens saw Dune at the cinema – great movie BTW, amazing visuals!). Despite that, I’m still exhausted and not really looking forward to being back at work. I do tend to find what I do for a living interesting and fullfilling though, so that will ease things a little.
So, a bit of a waffle today, but the picture below features some pictures that other people have painted, so there’s a slim connection with my decorating tale I suppose.
Oh my I’m so tired I could sleep for a whole week If given the chance
My photography has dwindled over the past few weeks, coinciding with the new kitchen we’ve had fitted and ten the decorating that is still ongoing. I had hoped that I might be able to grab a few outings this week while I’ve been off work but, alas, there has been too much other stuff to be done unfortunately. Except for yesterday that is, when I had most of the day free.
Unfortunatley the weather wasn’t ideal – a mixture of boring grey skies punctuated by the odd rain-shower and glimpse of sunshine – plus I was tired from all the other stuff that has been taking place. Still, I didn’t want to waste the opportunity while I had it (I’m fast running out of new photos for the blog!) so I made the effort to go out. I dug the Yashica Mat from a box where it was being stored, along with my light meter, a cable release, and a tripod quick-release plate. I took four rolls of film (better to be prepared, eh?) and, as I was leaving the house, grabbed my XA3 too, which has an almost full roll of HP5+ rated at 800asa loaded.
This last item proved fortunate as, despite all my preparation (and remembering to take the Arca-swiss plate), I forgot to take the actual tripod, leaving it leaning in the corner of the kitchen where I’d placed it! If I’d loaded a roll of HP5+ or something in the Yashica this wouldn’t have been too much of a problem as I could have shot it handheld at box speed, or even pushed it, but I’d instead loaded a roll of 80asa Ortho Plus instead. Because of the dull light, unless I fancied shooting the whole roll at f/3.5, it was rendered pretty much useless without the tripod to hold the camera steady. So, instead, I took shome pictures with the XA3 – maybe ten or twelve frames, not enough to finish the roll. At least I made some photos though.
I might get the opportunity to shoot some more on Monday or Tuesday, but I’ll have to see how things go.
This decorating Is not helping to push my Creativity
This was taken as I sat with a cup of tea and a flapjack on a bench near the cafe. Sadly the flapjack was a little melted from being in the full sun and, to my dismay, a small insect decided to take it’s own life by drowning itself in my tea before I could finish drinking it. Nontheless, as I sit typing this after a full week of complete and upper upheaval while we have the whole of the the upstairs and the staircase decorated, a melted flapjack and insect-polluted tea on a sunny day beside the sea would be quite welcome.
I mustn’t grumble Despite things I didn’t like I ate fish and chips
On Mablethorpe promenade used to sit a number of unusual beach huts. Sadly I think they’ve fallen prey to vandalism and at least one has now been demolished, while the others are boarded up. This one was a functioning camera obscura.
Standing by the sea A camera obscura Its eye is now closed
As I might not have full access to my PC to post for a few days while we’re having some decorating done, I’ve pre-written a few posts with older pictures that I haven’t posted before (I hope!). As I’m a little stuck for time to write them, they’ll each have this same boilerplate text. If I get back on my PC earlier than usual I’ll probably put the remaining ones back into the drafts folder for emergencies.
You’re not going to escape the crappy haiku’s though…
Estuarial beach A feeding ground for the gulls As strangers pass by
Steel City Snapper photography 