The path through the marsh

Taken on a pre-work walk last week where I noticed the nice s-curve in the footpath through the marsh.

Olympus Trip 35 & Fomapan 400.

Taken on 28 March 2019

Potatoes

On the edge of the village* where I live there is a farm. It’s located on a tight bend in the road, but the narrow verge is always well-tended, and through the gate and gaps in the hedge, you can often see ducks, geese and chickens milling around. The farm also sells a range of produce, and signs such as the one in my photograph are affixed to this tree and at other places. Once upon a time the farm probably backed out onto an undisturbed river floodplain, but this was taken over by a railway marshalling yard when the local coal mine was still in production (it’s been closed nearly 35 years now), and in more recent times now carries the A57 bypass via a viaduct across the valley, which is what can be seen in the middle part of the picture, just behind and above the hedge. Despite all this, there’s still a peaceful air around the farm, especially when the rush-hour traffic has subsided.

*I use the term “village” in its loosest sense – it’s actually just a suburb of Sheffield, but like many satellite settlements that have been absorbed into the wider metropolitan mass, it’s still known as “the village” be local people.

Olympus Trip 35 & Fomapan 400.

Taken on 28 March 2019

Crooked

The Crooked Spire is the dominant landmark in the town of Chesterfield, not too far from where I live. It sits atop the Church of St Mary and All Saints and there are a number of legends as to how it became this way, but the actual reason given is that it is due to uneven heating on the lead coating of the spire from the southerly sun, which results in uneven contraction and expansion, and that the original structure was both made from unseasoned wood and not designed to bear the weight of the lead.

Olympus Trip 35 & Fomapan 400.

Taken on 14 March 2019

Three wise men

Taken on a morning wandering around the flea market. I used my Olympus Trip 35, which hasn’t had an outing in quite some time, but it’s a lovely little camera. Unfortunately the weather was windy with frequent showers so the market was underpopulated both with visitors, and also with stalls themselves. I still managed to get a few nice shots on the day though.

That said, the Fomapan 400 negatives are quite thin – this is the third time I’ve had this (with three different cameras), so I’m not sure what’s amiss. I’ve not had any issues with the film under-exposing before that I can recall. Oh, well, back to HP5+ for my next 400 speed shoots anyway.

Olympus Trip 35 & Fomapan 400.

Taken on 14 March 2019

Manchester town hall

The clock tower of Manchester town hall. At first glance I thought there was a scratch on the negative to the right of the lamppost, but it’s actually a passing aircraft. The same with the two lesser marks at top left. I thought about removing them in Photoshop, but decided against it.

Olympus 35 RC & Fomapan 400.

Taken on 15 February 2019

Leading lines and power lines

Or is it “lead-in” lines? Or does it matter, both seem to be correct anyway?

This was taken while out on a walk about a year ago and has just been re-scanned on my Plustek 8100. The colours look far better and much more natural now, as does the sharpness of the image (albeit the focus is more on the barley than the distant pylons).

Anyway, it’s quite a nice image, I think.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Agfa Vista Plus 200.

Taken in April 2018 (I think!)

Jewellers

I was attracted to this store-front by the clock and managed to get a nice and contrasty photograph out of it. The little Sure Shot has done its usual good work providing a nice, sharp result.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 14 March 2019

Sally Army

The Salvation Army band adjust their instruments between Christmas Carols in Bakewell, Derbyshire, UK in November 2018.

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 26 November 2018

Life among the ruins

This shot was taken not too far from the S1 Artspace building which had an exhibition last year entitled “Love among the ruins” which was a collection of photographs taken of people going about their lives in the Park Hill Flats complex in the 60s, 70s & 80s, so the title of today’s shot is a spin on that.

This shot isn’t linked otherwise, but sometimes a weed growing out of a crack in some concrete steps makes for a pleasing photograph.

 

Nikon F70, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & Klick XD200 (expired in 2001).

Taken on 16 March 2019

Nice for the time of year

This was taken back in February, when we had a mini heat wave in the UK, resulting in record-breaking temperatures. I’ve re-scanned the image today as I’ve just picked up a Plustek 8100 35mm film scanner. I’m keeping the Epson V550 fot medium format scans and other flatbed related stuff, but the Plustek produces notably better scans on 135 format negatives (not tried slides yet). I’ll scan most frames at 2400dpi to save on file space, but the shots I like that contain plenty of detail will be scanned at 3600dpi (which is supposedly the scanner’s actual max resolution – although it will scan at higher dpi rates than that).

Canon Sure Shot Telemax & Ilford HP5+.

Taken on 20 February 2019