Sun-dappled monochrome woodland

Making black and white photographs in woodland, or any other place featuring large areas of green foliage, can sometimes be tricky. Without well defined subject matter I find tht such scenes can become a mass of mushy grey textures. Differing shades of green that are easily discernible to the eye merge into less defined shades of varying brightness.

So I think a clearly defined subject is important, either seperated by brightness, contrast or texture, or isolated in some way, such as it’s placement in the composition, or by using a shallow depth of field to add separation.

I think the photo today uses a bit of both techniques. The trunk that is the point of focus is isolated here by the light that falls on it (or rather doesn’t) – there’re splashes of sunlight, but overall it is darker than the background where more light is falling. I also opened the aperture to throw the tree into focus while leaving everything else softer.

I’m happy with how the shot turned out – I have a number of similar photos from other outings that didn’t work as nicely!

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 22 June 2020

Powerlines, foxgloves & ferns

A couple more photos from my Dale Dyke reservoir hike, both featuring one of my regularly shot subjects: power lines.

These were the third and final shots from the roll respectively. I’m really happy with the first shot – the foxgloves add some nice, distinctive foreground interest.

I like the composition of the second image, but the foreground ferns are out of focus. I can’t remember if I’d opened the aperture deliberately to get a shallow depth of field, or if it was an accident – it’s not a shot that really benefits from a narrow depth of field if I’m honest.

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 22 June 2020

Crossing the Loxley

This photograph was the first shot from the roll of Fomapan 100 that I posted about yesterday. The scene looked lovely in the morning sun when I arrived at Low Bradfield around 8am, so I plonked the camera on the tripod, framed up the shot, and fired the shutter. When I returned back to the village a few hours later after my circuitous walk there were quite a few people in this area and the shot would have been more difficult as a result.

There are several ducks in the scene. Can you spot them all? 🙂

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 22 June 2020

Low Bradfield to Dale Dyke reservoir

I had a day off work last week and decided to go for a hike and make some photographs. I took my Yashica Mat 124G loaded with a roll of Fomapan 100 (plus a roll of HP5+ in case I needed more shots), and the Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 loaded with a roll of 2003 expired Ektachrome E200. I carried the cameras and other bits in a shoulder bag and the tripod in my hand. There aren’t any of the Zeiss shots included here bacause a) I haven’t had the developed negs back yet and, b) they might be rubbish as I suspect I might have overexposed them all!

I decided to drive to Low Bradfield, a village on the northern outskirts of Sheffield. Above (and below) the village are a series of reservoirs – Strines; Dale Dyke; Agden; and Damflask. My walk took me up the valley to Dale Dyke reservoir (famous because it catastrpophically failed in 1864, killing 244 people in what was known as the Great Sheffield Flood), then across the valley bottom below the dam wall. From there I climbed the northern side of the valley and dropped down to Agden reservoir on the other side, following the eastern edge of the water and descending back to my starting point. The total distance is a little under 8km.

All the photos featured here are from the first half of the walk – from Low Bradfield to Dale Dyke. There are others from this sequence that I’ll probably post in future.

This is the second shot on the roll. It’s on the first footpath I took out of Low Bradfield.

A structure close to the edge of the reservoir, possibly some sort of pumping station or water testing facility.

A view across the spillway bridge and the dam wall with the northern side of the valley in the distance. The spillway bridge is a nicely decorated iron affair and I’ve seen some attractive pictures of it. However, as it wasn’t obvious as to how I would find a suitable vantage point, and as the spillway was dry, I didn’t take any photos of it apart from this one.

A series of stone steps that descend down to the water at the base of the spillway. I used a wider aperture here to narrow the depth of field (most of the other shots – apart from the last – were shot at f/11 – f/16.

The next  is of the calm waters a little downstream from the base of the dam wall where low hanging branches dip down towards the water. The result wasn’t quite what I envisioned, but there’s something about those leaves at the top of the frame that I find really attractive.

I’m still getting the “dust” problems with the Fomapan 100 that I mentioned previously  here. This roll used water as a stop-bath which, while making some improvement to the situation, hasn’t resolved it completely, so it still took quite some time to clean up these images in Photoshop. I’ve not had issues with lab-developed Fomapan 100, so I’m wondering if it’s something else in my developing process, or perhaps an iffy batch of film?

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 22 June 2020

It’s too hot and my PC seemingly hates me.

As Lightroom and Photoshop have decided that this extremely hot and humid day would be the perfect time to test my patience by stealing all my PC resources thus making even the simplest copy-and-paste action into a chore, this will be a short post (it took nearly 40mins to back up the catalog! Why! Why do this to me today!!!). If you don’t see any more for a while it’s because my PC has met with an unfortunate accident and fallen out of the window!

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

Trafalgar Warehouse

It’s extremely hot anf muggy here today. Despite having a fan blowing air all day, working hasn’t been much fun. As a result, I’m going to keep it short today so I can enjoy the bliss of a cool shower!

A couple of photographs of Trafalgar Warehouse near Sheffield city centre, a former warehouse building dating to the1930s which now serves as an events venue (presumably closed at present due to the pandemic).

There are 136 glass blocks visible in this next picture, in case anyone is remotely interested. 🙂

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

Pandemic scenes #12

14 June was the day before the reopening of non-essential retail stores in the UK. Signs were apparent in windows, both those of retailers re-opening on the 15th, and also those who would remain closed for now. Debenhams, a UK department store, was one of those re-opening it’s doors and there was a sign in the window of it’s cafe area (although I don’t think that this part of the store will resume business just yet).

Elsewhere, there are still signs of the contruction project to renovate and re-develop part of the town centre into a new “retail quarter”. I wonder how the impact of the pandemic will affect the plan, particularly if retail is slow to return to previous levels (if it ever fully recovers)?

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

A door for disinfectants

While walking around the eerily empty town centre a couple of weeks back, my route took me behing the town hall building. There I noticed a door which looked like it might make for an interesting photograph. The door itself is labled “Town Hall” via a plaque afixed to the wood, but carved into the masonery on the lintel above the entrance is the word “Disinfectants”. In all my years of living here in Sheffield, I’ve never noticed this before.

A quick bit of searching online reveals that this dates back to the Victorian period and formed part of a strategy to rid the city of the disease and vermin which would have been rife in some of the slum conditions that existed at the time in industrial cities. As the poorest members of society would not be able to afford the cost of purchasing disinfectants themselves, these would be given out by the local authority via this entrance to the town hall building.

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

Pandemic scenes #11

I had wondered if I might have come to the end of this series of pandemic-related photographs given the relaxing of the lockdown here in the UK, but I’ve got a few new images of scenes in the new, post-lockdown world.

The weekend before last was the final one before non-essential retail was allowed to re-open on the 15 June, so I took a trip up town to see how things looked before the shops returned to life.

 

The town centre was largely empty, with the largest groups of people I noticed being construction workers and homeless folks. It was a little eerie and the weather – dank and grey – felt more akin to a winter’s morning than one approaching the summer solstice. There were pigeons in the Peace Gardens and I wondered if they’ve been forced to work harder for their dinners given the lack of humans feeding them or dropping scraps?

 

The city has been given new signage outside some shops (although it seemed somewhat hit and miss as to which shops did – it certainly wasn’t all of them), and benches and the like feature signs requesting they not be used, or to keep your distance from others.

 

I’ve made a couple more trips since this one (and still have more pandemic-related photos from this roll yet to upload), so I guess this series will continue for a while yet.

Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020

Garry Winogrand and wonky veg

My favourite photographer’s quote originates from Garry Winogrand: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed“.

This quote pretty much encompasses why I make many of my photographs. I’ll see something, be it a scene or an object, and I’ll be inspired to see how my camera will render it as an image. How will the lens make it look?; What if I use a different aperture or focal length?; What about the film I’m using – how will it render the contrast / grain / light / colour? etc.

I’ll still make pictures of more obvious, traditional compositions, but even then the impulse is still the same – how will it look as a photograph? It means that pretty much anything might be a suitable subject for a photograph to be made, whether a beautiful landscape, or a dirty, rainwater-filled plastic cup left on a window-ledge after someone’s night out. Anything can catch my eye. Given that all my photos are made with an audience-of-one in mind – namely myeself – everything is good. I’m sure that some people will wonder what the hell was I thinking when I raised the camera to my eye, but all that needs to be understood is that I saw a photograph that, to me, was worth creating.

Today’s photgraph falls firmly into this remit. The first shot on a roll of HP5+ I shot last weekend, depicting the box of “wonky veg” that was sat in the window of a ground-floor flat close to where I’d parked my car. The rising-sun motif, the grain of the wood, the Pepsi can, and the slightly dirty window all caught my attention.

This is the first roll of film I’ve pushed and then home-developed, and the Ilfotec DD-X has done a great job.

Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 June 2020