Early November in Sheffield, and the Christmas stalls were already present but not yet quite ready for the public, so they were still locked away by fences (in a festive shade of red, at least).
I like how the girl in the first picture is, at first glance, dressed in what looks like a Santa coat.
Something good that happened today…
I watched the second episode of the new period drama, A Thousand Blows, which started airing on Disney+ this afternoon. I watched the first episode last night and it quickly caught my attention and drew me in. It’s a fictional period drama that is based on actual characters in the underworld of Victorian London, following two new migrants, Hezekiah and Alec from Jamaica and how they become embroiled up in the escapades of The Forty Elephants, a real-life female criminal gang, and also bare-fist boxing (with a muscular Stephen Graham portraying boxer “Sugar” Goodson. It’s from Steven Knight, the man behind Peaky Blinders, and is similarly violent, but the characters are interesting, they are portrayed well by the cast, and the story has its hooks in me. Hopefully it will keep it up through the full six episodes.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
There are still a number of the old K6 telephone boxes in Sheffield city centre, a lot of them clustered around the town hall area. This one stands on Leopold Street and has seen better days. I’ve photographed it on quite a few occasions, and it’s featured in the blog on at least one previous occasion.
There are still numerous K6 phone boxes around the country, but the ones out of town centres rarely contain telephones anymore, now tending to be used to house mini-libraries, or sometimes defibrillators.
Something good that happened today…
I had a call with a customer that I had been a little nervous about (this is not unusual, I often feel nerves before such calls, despite never having had one go badly), but it went well, which is always a relief. People I’ve been on customer calls with have always fed back on how confident and composed I am, but my own inner imposter-syndrome tends to try and tell me otherwise.
Muriel is the title of the piece of street art seen painted on the gable-end of the building in today’s photo. It’s by local artist, Pete McKee and had been there since 2018. Sadly though, someone has seen fit to stain Muriel’s coat.
Something good that happened today…
I’ve been backing files up onto an external hard drive for a while now, but was conscious of the fact that I probably wasn’t doing it very efficiently. Today I’ve rectified that and now have a much improved, simpler, and mostly hands-off method, so I’m happy about that.
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…
This big boat of an Oldsmobile made for a pretty nice picture. I think the touch of corrosion on the bonnet (hood) adds to it.
I think that this is a Cutlass, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
EDIT: The owner of the car has discovered my blog post and contacted me to let me know that the car is actually an Oldsmobile Ninety Eight, which was the flagship model. I did speak with him on the day I took the picture and he told me that the corrosion on the bonnet was on his list of things to sort out, and he’s re-confirmed that, along with a few stats on the vehicle, namely that it has a 425 cubic inch engine, which means it is a 7000cc V8 engine. Around town it manages 8MPG, and 13.7MPG on the motorway.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°.
I don’t often photograph cars from the side, usually because there’s always something else in the way or the lens isn’t wide enough to fit it all in. But I had the chance to do so with this Austin 7 (which I think is a Ruby Saloon from 1936).
I’ve just managed to squeeze it into the frame (and I’d normally leave a little more space) but I think the shape of the car lends itself to this tight framing.
I like the way the guy is framed through the window. You can also see me in a reflected selfie. 🙂
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°.
I’ve been suffering from insomnia for the past few days. My natural tendency towards anxiety has been triggered by the news of my son’s apprenticeship not being converted into a full time role.
I’ve suffered from insomnia in the past, that time triggered by anxiety too. I don’t have any difficulty falling asleep – in fact I could probably close my eyes and drift off from the early evening onward – and while I am asleep, it is undisturbed. The problem tends to come about in the middle of the night, usually because I need to get up to use the toilet. Once I get back into bed, I find it very difficult to get back to sleep. I’ll try for a while, starting by just closing my eyes and hoping I’ll drop off, but then I’ll feel the need to fidget. Each change of position will feel good, but after awhile I’ll have the urge to move again. After a couple of rounds of this I might try some breathing exercises, or some mental equivalents of counting sheep, but sooner or later it will become apparent that my efforts are futile and I will resort to reading my Kindle.
Reading is sometimes enough to get me back to sleep again, but not always, and sometimes I end up just lying there in the dark, eyes closed, hoping for unconsciousness to return. I try to avoid looking at the clock as I think this is counter-productive and makes things worse, but the downside of that is that I don’t know whether it’s 1:30am with a good chance that I will get back to sleep for a few hours, or it’s 6:00am and I have less than an hour until my alarm goes off.
I think sometimes I fall back asleep without realising it. This is more noticeable at the weekend where I have the chance to sleep in. I’ll be awake in darkness and the next time I open my eyes it will be light, proving that I had slept. It’s more difficult to tell on work days though, when it is still dark when the alarm goes off.
I figure I must be getting at least a few good hours of sleep as otherwise I would be a complete wreck during the daytime. As it is I’m still able to function at work and complete other tasks around the place, so I guess I can’t be awake all night, even though it sometimes feels that way.
I expect that the insomnia will subside once I have a better idea of my son’s next steps, but at the moment we’re giving him a little space and letting him keep us informed, as this is what he’s requested. Hopefully he will fill us in later in the week and we can get on with supporting and encouraging him and his plans and just being there for him. For now though, even though I’m confident of his ability to find another good role somewhere, the uncertainty of what is happening keeps me awake thanks to my frustrating anxiety brain. I wish I could mute the part of my mind that does the over-thinking.
Here’s another shot of the AMC Rambler.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°.
Steel City Snapper photography 