Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
I’ve had the day off work today as the garden fence needed painting. I’ve been at it all day and it’s still not finished (there’s a lot of fence!) and now I’m exhausted. As a result, I don’t have the energy to type anything lengthy, so here’s a photograph of some poppies I made about six weeks ago. Gotta love this expired Superia! 🙂
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008).
Taken on 31 May 2020
This is a photo that came out much nicer than I expected it might, which is always a nice thing to happen. Taken a short while after yesterday’s image of the church at Thorpe Salvin, this was maybe a quarter mile away. Luckily I’d brought my Sigma 105mm lens with me which gave me just enough reach to make the picture. I don’t think it would have worked with the 28-80mm as the tree would have been too small in the photo and other distractions would have crept in at the sides.
I like the minimalism and the colours (although they’re probably a little warmer than they were in reality – I tried a re-scan of this shot on my Plustek too, but it looked much worse than the lab’s Nortisu scan).
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.
Taken on 31 May 2020
One of the effects of midsummer where I live in the UK is the position of the sun in the evening when it sets. In the winter it drops behind a ridge of hills to the west, blocking its light a little earlier than it might if we leved somewhere flat. In the height of summer however it sets to the north-west, descending in such a way as to shine between two houses across the street from us. The downside of this is that the living room (and our eyes) are filled with bright light, meaning we need to shut the blinds if we want to see the TV. The upside is that some beautiful evening light floods into the rooms on that side of the house, sometimes making for a nice photograph or two.
Today’s photo is one such image. The light on this evening filled the kitchen with a stunning golden glow and alighted on our knife block and a glass of orange juice stood beside it. It looks almost like the white balance on the photograph needs to be tweaked, but this was the shade of light that shone that evening.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.
Taken on 19 May 2020 (I think!)
On the patio behiand our house stand a number of planters containing various flowers and shrubs. We haven’t re-planted any of them this year and they’re in a slightly sorry state with weeds growing amongst the remnants of the original inhabitants.
One of the pots contains a lily which flowered recently but is now dying back down again. At some point the pot must have had a different occupant though as there’s also a cane sticking out of the soil that would have been used to train and support some other plant.
Halfway up this cane is a small snail shell. I suspect that the snail is no-more. The shell has been afixed there without moving for months now, so is probably glued to the cane by what remains of occupant. It’s now been immortalized in photographic form though.
I’m not honestly sure when I made this photo. Sometime in May is my best guess. When I go out-and-about to a location I can use Google Maps’ history to remind me of the date I visited a place, but shots made at home have little evidence to place them in time.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Ilford XP2 Plus.
Taken sometime in May 2020 (I think)
As it’s a public holiday here in the UK on Monday (Spring Bank Holiday or, as it used to be known when I was a kid, Whitsuntide) I decided to extend the weekend futher and book today off work as well. As my wife is currently nursing an injury, my morning consisted of doing the weekly grocery shop and then, when I got home, helping with the housework. Not quite what I’d hoped for when I booked the day’s leave. Still, being positive, at least those chores are now done and I can spend the next three days doing mostly what I please.
The trip to the supermarket was a little stressful – while I’ve been in the local Sainsbury’s store on several occasions since the lockdown and social-distancing measures were enforced, this was my first trip to Morrison’s. Perhaps because the aisles are less spacious in Morrison’s, and perhaps because they were allowing more shoppers in at a time, the place felt crowded – certainly in comparison with my experiences at Sainsbury’s. There was little hope of maintaining a constant two-metre distance anywhere other than the queue for the checkouts (or the queue to get in). A good number of people didn’t seem to care anyway and I caught myself holding my breath on more than one occasion in some sort of futile attempt to ward off viruses! In the end, a task that takes my wife an hour (even under current conditions) took me almost two, and I was duly chided for it when I got home.
After unpacking the shopping, it was onto the housework – although there wasn’t too much to be done, thankfully. Once complete, I had some lunch and then undertook a couple of photography chores. I have a roll of HP5+ that needs to be developed, so I loaded that into the tank ready to dev it tomorrow. All went well getting it onto the spiral, but the bit of tape that holds the film to the backing paper evaded my fingers and stuck itself to the film. Whether this was on a section of exposed emulsion, I’m not sure, but I’m bracing myself for at least one knackered negative. After this, I scanned a roll of Fomapan 100 that I developed last weekend. This is the first roll of Foma that I’ve home devved in the Ilfotol DD-X so I was curious as to the results, and I’m pleased to see that they look good. I like Fomapan 100 and I’m glad the DD-X does it justice. It’ll be a while before any of those see the light of the blog though as I’ve got a bunch of other stuff I’ve already scanned but not yet published.
Today’s photo is another shot from the expired roll of Lloyds Pharmacy 200 shot over Easter. It’s another abstract, this time of a ridged golden vase that holds a bunch of artificial flowers.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired 2008).
Taken on 11 April 2020
I made photos of a bunch of things in the house during lockdown. Some that looked appealing in the viewfinder resulted in disappointing photographs. Some, however, turned out pretty well.
The three photos today are of a small vase containing some artificial flowers (I don’t know if they’re supposed to represent an actual species of plant or if they’re just some kind of made up blooms – I know little about plants). Framing them against the out-of-focus yellow wallpaper has created a nice colour contrast.
Considering the fact that flowers are not something I readily turn to as a subject for photographs, I’m very happy with these – artificial or not.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired 2008).
Taken on 11 April 2020
Another photograph shot over the Easter weekend, something a little abstract. We have an insect screen that we fit over the back door when we leave it open. The last one, which had plastic beads on threads, became tangled and had to be thrown away, but the new one is made of plastic ribbons. The slightest of breezes sends it fluttering about (usually resulting in a large gap that allows insects past!), and I liked the look of it as it blew about just beyond the frosted glass of the back door.
I’m quite happy with the colours I’ve gotten from this roll of expired film. A few outdoors shots are showing marked grain in shadow areas, but most have come out fine, including this one. I believe the film is re-branded Ferrania Solaris.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Lloyds Pharmacy 200 (expired 2008).
Taken on 11 April 2020
My brief foray into ownership of a 6×9 camera came to an end today with the camera being posted back to the seller for a refund. Will I dip my toes back into the world of large medium format negatives again? At this point I don’t know – while the seller has been very good about my returning the camera, the experience has made me a little more cautious about buying another folding camera online for the time being. I’ll perhaps stick to what I have (for a while, at least).
Some more photos from my Easter back garden session today.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.
Taken on 11 April 2020
Today was the first time in almost two months that I’ve driven out to do some photography. The lockdown rules here in the UK now allow travel for exercise or other lesisure activities (but with social distancing enforced – you can only go alone or with members of your household, and you still need to remain 2 metres apart from other people you encounter wherever possible).
Despite so many places now being potential destinations, the location I chose is only a few miles from home. If I didn’t mind a long hike, it’s actually within walking distance in fact. Nonetheless, being able to drive there and then enjoy a walk was a definite pleasure.
I set off quite early, and parked the car at eight am, and the entire walk took me around two hours. During this time I encountered one other walker, two dog walkers, one jogger, and a couple of farmers shooting pigeons. Social distancing was easily maintained, and there were far fewer people around than if I’d visited the footpaths closer to home.
I also saw a deer, which was nice.
I took a couple of cameras with me. Firstly, the recently acquired Zeiss 6×9 folder that I shot the other day but which I believed to be faulty. I wanted to shoot another roll to confirm that this was the case before requesting a refund. Secondly, my Yashica Mat, which has just come back from being serviced, and so I wanted to give it an outing.
I’ve not developed the Yashica pictures yet, but I’m hopeful that there will be some nice photographs amongst them. The roll from the Zeiss was developed when I got home and scanned a short while ago. I didn’t have any great expectations from the photos as I didn’t spend too much time composing them, expecting them to show the same issues as before. The scans confirmed my fears, with the pictures afflicted by the same out-of-focus problems on the left of the frames. I’ll perhaps post one or two of them if I upload them though.
It’s disappointing, as I’ve been thinking of picking up a 6×9 folding camera for some time and, given the superb quality of images from my 6×6 Zeiss folding camera, I had similar expectations. Sadly, it’s not to be this time.
I’m looking forward to seeing my Yashica Mat photos though!
Todays’s photos are another trio from my Easter weekend in the back garden. A couple of shots of a snail shell I found perched in some heather, and one of a bag of leaves I’d swept up earlier in the day. This latter photo is one that I fully expect most people to dislike – it is, after all, just a bag of rubbish – but there’s something about it that caused me to make the photo in the first place – I think it’s probably the warm colours of the dead leaves framed by the black plastic of the bag. I dunno though, I like it whatever it is. 🙂
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.
Taken on 11 April 2020
This is the first weekend in England under the slightly relaxed lockdown rules, which allow people to travel for exercise or leisure. The weather is forecast to be good in many parts of the country.
This has resulted in calls from the national parks, seaside resorts, and other areas likely to attract visitors, that people should stay away. Many locations have not opened their carparks and other facilities to try to prevent visitors from coming. Despite this, there have been reports of full carparks and large numbers of people turning up at these locations. I expect we’ll be able to look forward to another full lockdown in due course…
Today’s photographs were made in the back garden during the Easter weekend a month ago. I was reading William Eggleston’s Guide in the sunshine and it inspired me to make pictures myself. I ended up shooting nearly a full roll of film during the afternoon, so you’ll see some more ot those in the comimg days. Some of them worked out pretty nicely, some not so much, but I’m pretty happy with the Kodak Gold. It’s the first time I’ve shot a roll of this, believe it or not, and I like how it looks.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.
Taken on 11 April 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 