A6187

December 2, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This is the A6187 road. It runs thirteen and a half miles from Fox House Inn on the outskirts of Sheffield (close to where this photo was taken), to the village of Castleton – famous for it’s caves and Blue John.

The section here veers in from the left where the trees are, crosses Burbage Brook and angles up towards Surprise View carpark – which is just beyond the birch woods in the middle -right. Shortly after that the road takes a 90-degree turn to the right and decends into Hathersage and the Derwent Valley.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Shanghai GP3 (expired).

Taken on 22 November 2019

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Packhorse bridge

December 1, 2019 fishyfisharcade5 Comments

This packhorse bridge spans Burbage Brook below the ancient hill fort of Carl Wark in the north-eastern Peak District National Park. The bridge is grade II listed and dates to around 1750. The bridge still gets regular use by hikers as the only span across the brook between the A6187 to the south and Ringinglow Road to the north.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Shanghai GP3 (expired).

Taken on 22 November 2019

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Outdoor manufacturing

November 30, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Today’s post shows an abandoned millstone on the moors near Mother Cap.

These stones were all carved by individual masons who were capable of producing around 16 pairs of stones per year.

The market for these stones collapsed when white bread became popular in the mid 18th century. The gritstone that these are carved from would turn the flour grey, so french millstones that didn’t have this effect began to be used instead.

When their business disappeared, the masons fought back by destroying the French stones until eventually the military were brought in to put a stop to it.

The millstone lives on however as it is now the official symbol of the Peak District National Park.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

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Murky moorland days

November 29, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

This photo was taken on the edge of a small abandoned quarry, up on the moors near Over Owler Tor. It’s likely that gritstone was quarried here for the manufacture of grinding wheels and the like. You can’t see the quarry in the shot – the large boulder is atop the opposite side – but there was a significant drop just in front of my tripod.

The weather was gloomy, misty and damp on the day. Not what you’d usually get excited about, but I’d booked a day off for the trip out a few weeks in advance and had little foreknowledge of the conditions (although, it being November in the UK, I should have had a good idea). I did consider just staying at home, watching TV and reading books, but pushed myself to go out – I’d only have regretted it otherwise – and was glad I did. The conditions were still far from ideal, but the murk and low cloud are atmospheric in themselves and much better than the blanket of featureless flat grey that I’d seen when I got up that morning.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

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Mother Cap

November 28, 2019December 21, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

A couple of photos today that I took while walking on the moors around Over Owler Tor / Higger Tor / Carl Wark last weekend. I actually shot a couple of rolls – one Delta 400, and one Shangha GP3 – but I’ve only scanned the Delta so far.

I made a concerted effort to remember to use the mirror lock-up on the Bronica this time – a roll of Velvia I shot recently had resulted in a number of shots that were less sharp than I’d hoped, which I’d put down to camera shake caused by mirror slap. All the shots this time were nice and sharp – even those shot at slow shutter speeds (half-a-second and the like). The only downside was my lack of experience in shooting the camera with the mirror locked up. The process is:

compose the shot
lock up the mirror
fire the shutter
unlock the mirror
wind on to the next frame

If you forget stage 4 and wind the film on, the mirror remains in the locked up position until you take another shot. As a result of this I had a few double frames where I had to take a second, identical photograph (although I altered the aperture in some cases just for the hell of it) as it’s imposible to recompose while the mirror is up.

Anyyway… here are a couple of images of Mother Cap, a gritstone outcrop just below Over Owler Tor in the Peak District national park above Grindleford. It doesn’t look too big in the first image, but it’s a decent size when you’re up close – being maybe 20-25 feet high. The guy at the left of the frame was taking his own photos of the rocks when I caught him up, and was interested to see the view through the Bronica’s waist-level finder.

The second shot is a close-up picture of part of the the formation – this is the actual angle that the layers are at.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 22 November 2019

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Padley Gorge

November 22, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

Padley Gorge is a steep sided wooded valley situated in the north east of the Peak District national park, not far from nearby Sheffield. The sides of the gorge are packed with interesting twisty trees and the ground is littered by gritstone boulders of all sizes, many of which are covered by moss and lichens. Burbage Brook runs down the middle of the valley, carrying runoff from the moorland above. It really is a beautiful place.

When I visited last weekend we’d had a considerable amount of rainfall over the preceding weeks and the brook was in spate. It’s always nice to see, even when the flow is gentle, but when the water is a torrent it’s very impresive indeed.

Despite the somewhat grim weather meaning I had to keep putting my (non-weather-sealed) cameras back in the bag at frequent intervals, I had a really nice time walking to the bottom of the gorge – where there’s an excellent cafe the does a great job of filling the bellies of passing hikers – and then back up to the top where I’d parked my car.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Velvia 50.

Taken on 23 October 2019

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Mossy topped rock

November 21, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I shot my first (ever) roll of Velvia last weekend, and today’s picture is the first of them that I’m posting. It’s a fairly simple shot of some autumnal leaves atop a mossy rock.

I underexposed most of the shots as I wanted to try and get nicely saturated colours, and they’re definitely there on the transparencies. Scanning them satisfactorily on my Epson V550 flatbed has taken some work though and they’ve needed quite a bit of Lightroom faffery to get them close to looking like the originals.

I think part of this is down to shooting it in somewhat gloomy conditions – I think I’ll try shooting something in better (or at least sunny) weather next time. I also noticed that a number of photos are a little soft. I have a feeling that this is down to the longer shutter speeds that I needed. Although I was using a tripod, I have a feeling that I ought to have made use of the mirror lock-up switch for these to prevent vibrations.

Oh well, I’ll try that next time.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Velvia 50.

Taken on 23 October 2019

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Another Whitwell Woods photograph

November 6, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

I managed to miss a picture out of my post yesterday, so here it is, last but not least. It’s captures the sidelight on the mossy tree-trunk quite nicely, I think, although the background is perhaps a little messy with all the undergrowth.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Provia 100.

Taken on 3 November 2019

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A walk in Whitwell Woods

November 5, 2019 fishyfisharcade4 Comments

The weather has been typically November-ish of late which, for the UK, means grey, wet and somewhat miserable. I’ve got several rolls of slide film with “Autumn” written all over them, but I’m starting to think that it’s going to be a somwhat lacklustre year for the colour. We’re in a situation (or at least we are in the part of the country where I live) where many of the trees have already turned and lost their leaves, while others are still largely green.

Despite this, there was a short break in the grey weather on Sunday, so I took a trip out to Whitwell Woods to see if there was anything to be seen and photographed. It was my first trip out with the Bronica in a few months (I think only the third time I’ve shot it, for that matter), and the first time shooting it without the metered prism and speed-winder / grip. As I took a tripod and lightmeter with me I didn’t envisage this being an issue, and it wasn’t.

That being said, my slight unfamiliarity with the camera resulted in my wasting three shots at the start of the roll, and for a couple of shots where I decided to open the 75mm lens to it’s widest f/2.8 aperture, largely missed focus. I’m not sure why this was as, although the depth of focus is pretty narrow at this aperture – particularly when the subject is close to the lens – I was confident that it was in focus in the viewfinder (with a split-prism screen). I think I might set up a test shot in a controlled environment to see if it was user error, or something else.

The woods themselves were very pleasant to walk through, although the paths were a bit squishy, and here are a few pictures.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Fujifilm Provia 100.

Taken on 3 November 2019

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

A path through the barley

July 24, 2019 fishyfisharcadeLeave a comment

When thinking of a title for the picture shown today, I was forced to find the answer to that age-old question that has puzzled our species for so long: Is it wheat, or is it barley?

Turns out it’s barley. The main visual differentiator, so I’ve learned today, is that barley has a long beard (the bristles that protect the kernels). So there you have it.

Anyway, here’s a photo of some ~~wheat~~ barley.