Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
One of those rare instances where I post a picture on the same day I took it – although that is much easier when it’s a digital shot.
I visited a photo exhibition in the central library today, and this was the view up from the bottom of the (squared) spiral staircase.
Ricoh GR III
Taken on 15 August 2026
It’s very rare that I use my phone’s camera for any creative photography. I’ll take pictures of my family, selfies, and photos of “stuff”, such as a book I might want to read at some point, or maybe some random oddity I spot while out and about, but it’s unusual for me to take a picture with the same intent I would when using a dedicated camera.
Today’s picture is one of those rare exceptions where I used my phone to take a picture with creative intent. I visited the seaside town of Withernsea this weekend gone – a place I have not visited before – and shot a bunch of photographs on film, and these will hopefully be shared in due course.
As Withernsea has a lighthouse (now a museum), this was an obvious attraction, and I made a number of pictures of it from various vantage points. One place where my film cameras were not up to the job, however, was inside the lighthouse tower itself. Maybe if I’d had a tripod and a cable release, I could have worked something out, but I didn’t. So my only option was my phone, and on this occasion it served me very well, with this resulting image of the inside of the tower looking up at the underside of the flag-draped spiral staircase being the result.
I did climb the staircase – quite a hairy experience given my mild, but still quite quite present, fear of heights – and was interested (and a little scared!) to discover that the metal railings you can see in the picture were not always present – there just used to be a rope!
Samsung Galaxy S25+.
Taken on 25 July 2026
I’m home again after 11 days on the beautiful island of Madeira. I have loads of pictures to come from the trip (five rolls of film to get developed), plus a bunch of digital shots as well.
I’ll probably not get around to posting the film shots for a while as I still have a backlog of other stuff to post, but I’ll be dropping some of the digital pictures in over the coming week or so. As usual, it will be a mix of whatever caught my eye, such as this staircase in our hotel.
Ricoh GRIII
Taken on 22 June 2026
I’ve walked around the Kelham Island area of Sheffield on numerous occasions and posted many photos of it on my blog. Despit this, I’d never walked through the Little Kelham section before. This section is a mixture of modern housing and gentrified industrial buildings, such as the one in today picture. It’s an area that will benefit from futher visits to see what other photo opportunites await.
This picture was shot with my Yashicamat 124G, which I think may have some haze forming on the taking lens as I’ve noticed on a few occasions that images suffer from veil flare and a loss of contrast towards the centre of the image. Oddly, it’s an inconsistent effect though, sometimes not appearing at all, even in compositions where I might expect it to, so maybe it’s not haze at all? I’ve had a quote for a CLA, but it’s quite expensive, although still much less than a replacement camera, so I think I will need to bite the bullet and get it done at some point. It’s one of my most used cameras so worth the TLC.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 23 September 2022
It’s in a catherdral, so maybe the former? Most likely just a stairway to the upper gallaries and the clock-tower though.
This picture instantly brings to mind the poem, Antigonish:
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!”
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…
© William Hughes Mearns
Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 7 September 2022
In yesterday’s blog post I featured a cityscape shot of London depicting the Thames, the South Bank, and – in the distance – various other famous buildings (St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Shard, the office towers in the City of London).
One thing that probably went mostly unnoticed is the staircase that I’m showing today. It’s in there if you look for it.
I took a couple of shots of this – the other has a lady halfway up the second flight – but, while that one is ok, I much prefer this. The positioning of the man, the contrast and sharpness that the good ‘ol OM-1 and Zuiko glass provides, plus a bonus pigeon(!) make this one work better, I think.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 23 October 2019
Just a staircase that I spotted while wandering around town the other weekend.
Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 9 March 2018
A bit of an oldie today (well, if just over a year can be classed as such). This is the staircase in the Museum of Liverpool. I spent more time taking photographs of this staircase than I did looking at the exhibits!
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Tmax 400.
Taken on 30 October 2016
