I’ve seen this building on numerous occasions when driving through the area and on this day I finally found myself well placed (and equipped) to photograph it.
It might look like it’s out on the open plains somewhere remote, but is right on the edge of Whitwell and it’s only the gentle curve of the land that allows this illusion of space.
I took a number of pictures of the building (and the tree to the right of frame – which featured in yesterday’s post) using different focal lengths and am happy with all of them. I did have another shot which is zoomed out a little further than the third shot below which I think I liked best of all, but I managed to beat the lens’ vibration compensation and introduce some camera shake. A shame.
One thing I didn’t notice until I processed the scans is that there is a solitary figure sat on the corner of the wall of the structure. You can make them out better if you click on the images and view them larger in Flickr. They were some distance away, so I wonder if they noticed they were being (unknowingly) photographed?
The first is my favourite of the pair. I like the simplicity of the lone tree, but more than that, I like the layered tones created by the fields which neatly divides the picture into thirds. I’m not sure what focal length I used for this one, but expect it was somewhere between 150mm-200mm.
I like the second image too, but I had an ulterior motive when composing the shot to see what it would look like if I utilised the Tamron’s full 300mm range. The image falls apart a little when viewed larger, although I’m not sure how much of that is weakness in the lens at 300mm, and how much is atmospheric effects from zooming in through what was quite hazy air.
One of the trees form the picture in yesterday’s post can be seen again in today’s picture, lthough it has been relegated to a supporting role in this shot. Instead, the star of the show today is the head of some dried cow parsley which was growing (or had been growing) at the edge of the country lane I was walking down.
As I already mentioned yesterday, I’m very happy with a lot of the pictures that I got from, what was in effect, a test roll.
Considering this outing was primarily to shoot a roll of film to test my semi-stand developing process, I managed to get quite a lot of pictures I really like. Including this one.
This is the type of scene that I would miss without a telephoto lens. It was a bright, sunny day, but as well as whisps of high-altitude cloud, there was a haze in the air which meant the landscape became layered as it fell to the distance. This is a relatively mundane scene, but the layering provided by the mist makes it into something much more interesting, and the farm is placed so it doesn’t become too obscured, I think.
I did wonder about cropping out a lot of the sky and going for a more panoramic frame, but in the end decided against it – I quite like the way the distant wind turbine protrudes into the emptiness.
All three of today’s pictures were taken while walking along a narrow lane that led me out of Whitwell and towards the main road (the A619, or Clinthill Lane) and from there, back to where I’d parked my car in the layby in front of Whitwell Woods. The weather was fine and I had to remove my fleece long before I reached the road.
I like the middle shot the best. The power pole almost feels like it’s beckoning me closer, and then point the way I need to go.
One of the landmarks near Whitwell is Steetley Dolomite, a large quarry and refining plant to the south of the village. The large chimney can be seen from some distance and, even when the rest of the works is obscured by the low hills in the area, the top of the chimney is often still visible.
The two shots below were taken from the same spot, with my stabilised Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens earning its keep.
A mini selection of buildings I found interesting when wandering around Whitwell. The first building contains apartments but was originally a pub named The Boot and Shoe.
Again, the semi-stand development worked well for these shots.
A few weeks back I shot a roll of Agfa APX 100 during a trip to Lincoln. It was only as I went to rewind the roll of film after shooting all 36 frames that I realised I hadn’t set the ISO dial when I loaded the camera, and that the meter had been set to 400asa for every shot.
If I had been shooting Ilford HP5+ of something, I would have just push procesed the film -something I have done with good success in the past – and, indeed, I thought this would be my plan for the APX 100 too. Unfortunately, there is much less data available on push processing this particular film stock, at least beyond a one stop push to 200asa.
Asking around for advice resulted in a number of recommendations for stand or semi-stand development and, after looking into this further, I decided the semi-stand approach might be the best approach. However, as this would be the first time I’d ever attempted this method of developing film, and as I had an idea there would be some shots from my Lincoln trip that would be worth keeping, I decided that I would have a trial run on another roll of film first.
So, a week after visiting Lincoln, I took a shorter trip to the village of Whitwell and shot another roll of APX 100 at 400asa so I could test out semi-stand developing.
I have two developers to hand at present – Ilford DD-X, and Agfa Rodinal. As there was far more information available on performing semi-stand development with Rodinal, I opted for that. It also has the advantage of being much cheaper than DD-X. My research suggested that a 1+100 solution would be the best option, with a couple of extra millilitres of developer added to compensate for the push processing , so I made up a mixture of 500ml water, with 7ml of Rodinal (again, based on research online). This is more developer than I would need for a single roll of 35mm film, but I wasn’t sure how much extra developer to add to 300ml to compensate for the push as the online advice had stated a 500ml volume of water.
I’d also read that a pre-wash would be a good idea for semi-stand, so before adding the developer I gave it a soak in 20° water for 5 minutes, agitating it for a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if the agitation was necessary at all, but I didn’t think it would hurt.
After emptying the pre-wash water, I added the developer and agitated the developing tank with inversions for 1 minute. I then gave it a tap on the counter and left it to stand undisturbed for the next 30 minutes. After this first half an hour I gave it another single firm inversion, another firm tap on the counter to remove any air bubbles, and then let it stand for a further 30 minutes.
At the end of the hour I emptied the developer, used 20° water as a stop bath for 1 minute, and then a further 5 minutes in the fixer. After this I washed the negatives in tap water using the Ilford method, soaked them for a couple of minutes in a wetting agent solution, spun the reel in a salad spinner to remove most of the water, and then hung them to dry for 3 hours.
I was very happy to see nice looking negatives as I removed the film from the reels. They maybe looked slightly thin, but nothing to cause great concern and I was able to get results I was happy with when scanning and post processing the photographs.
The final results are pretty good, I think. There’s maybe a little more grain than there would have been had I shot and developed the film at 100asa, but it’s nothing I’m concerned about, and the images are sharp, have good contrast, and the highlights and shadows contain plenty of detail.
I don’t think I’ll use semi-stand development all the time, but I will certainly use it again in some situations. I’m already curious about shooting a single roll of film at different exposure settings, for instance, and I have a roll of Fompan 400 that I plan on shooting with my Holga sometime soon which I might develop as semi-stand.
Steel City Snapper photography 