Misty river

The River Rother on a foggy autumn morning a few weeks ago.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Ilford HP5+ (@1600). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°.

Taken on 7 November 2020

Out of the shadows

This was just a grabbed shot made when I noticed the way the buildings at the top of the street were lit by the sunshine. I like how the buildings to either side cast the foreground into shadow, taking us out of the darkness and into the light. The car is nicely placed and is mirrored to an extent by the lone person across the road. And, while I didn’t notice it at the time of making the picture, I’m quite happy about the letting sign that says “Sun Casa”, which also feels like it fits.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

Outside the cathedral (and new cameras)

I’ve picked up some new cameras this week. Today I collected a box very kindly gifted to me containing a Pentax ME Super, with 50mm, 35mm, 70-200mm and 70-150mm (Tamron adaptall) lenses. Oh, and a teleconverter. There was also a Topcon RM300 with 55mm Topcor lens and a faulty Pentax MG. The ME Super appears to work ok (although I’ve not done much other than dry fire it so far, and the previous owner had not used it at all, so we’ll see). The Topcon appears to work, but the film-advance lever is loose with a long stoke, so will have to see with that one too. It’s also missing it’s battery cover, so it can probably only be used with manual metering of some sort. The MG is in pretty tatty condition so I doubt I’ll do much with that.

Even if the other two cameras turn out to be faulty, the lenses are all hopefully in good working order, so I can use them with my Pentax P30T.

The other camera I got this week was a purchase – one that I’ve been mulling over since the summer when I put some money I’d saved aside. After watching the prices gradually increase, I decided to finally take the plunge and hit the buy button before they went above what I was willing to pay. So I’m now the proud owner of a Fujica GW690. I’m hoping to get time (and weather!) to try it out this weekend. It came with a roll of Velvia already loaded with one shot taken, so I’ll finish that off and hopefully get it developed next week. After seeing what this camera is capable of, I’m looking forward to it. While I was expecting the size – it’s not nicknamed the Texas Leica for nothing – the weight was a little unexpected. Someone else I know had described theirs as a “big plastic box”. I’m assuming that they must’ve had one of the more recent models because the one I have is built like a tank, and weighs about as much too!

Photos will appear here in due course.

All the photos in today’s blog were made back at the start of the month while walking past the cathedral on a day of lovely sunshine, which granted me some great contrast and shadows to work with.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

The Pennine Centre

The Pennine Centre is Sheffield’s largest office complex. Construction completed in 1975, having taken two years.

For many years, the structure was the home of the HSBC bank (or Midland Bank in its earlier years), but they have recently cacated the premises to move to new office space in the city centre. The service centre where I used to work did so much business with the bank that some members of staff were permanently on-site.

The building is currently vacant, but expecting new tennants. I spoke briefly with a security guard before making this photo and was impressed to hear that there are several floors of underground parking beneath the structure.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

Ship Inn

After yesterday’s shot peeking through the window of the Ship Inn, here’s the outside – or part of it at least.

I can’t believe that this was almost a month ago already. I’m in some sort of disturbance in the space/time continuum, surely…

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

Closed by Covid

This is a view through the window of The Ship Inn. On Shalesmoor. In Sheffield. And, to continue the alliteration, it is shut.

Many pubs in the UK are closed at present because of stricter lockdown measures currently in place. While the rules differ across the four nations that make up the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), here in England pubs must remain closed unless thay are providing takeaway meals.

This situation will remain in place until early December at least, when the current rules will be reviewed. However, given the desire to allow people to see one another at Christmas – something itself fraught with risk – I don’t expect that pubs will re-open to anything approaching normal rules for a long time.

I suspect there will be fewer pubs come the end of this pandemic.

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

Taken on 1 November 2020

Globe Works

Globe Works is a former cutlery factory situated in the Shalesmoor area of sheffield.

The building has a Grade II listed status and was renovated in the 1980s. The building is now home to a number of businesses, creative endeavours, and start-ups.

The works dates back to 1824 and was one of the largest specialist steel-making facilities in the world at the time, and possibly the first ever custom-built cutlery factory. As well as cutlery, they produced scissors, tools, and even specialised in the manufacture of Bowie knives for the American market.

The building has seen off a number of threats through its history, including a bombing by union activists in 1843, an attempt to remove the listed status by the town planning committee so it could be bulldozed to make way for a road, and, most recently – in 1978 – an arson attack that left the site derelict until the restoration work took place in the 1980s.

Long may it last.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

Signs of flooding

This is the corner of The Fat Cat, a pub in Sheffield’s Kelham Island area – somewhere I seem to make a lot of photographs, despite living nowhere near the the place.

The Fat Cat dates back to the Victorian era, being built in 1850. As a result of it’s age, and it’s position close to the course of the River Don, it was affected by the flood in 1864 when Dale Dyke resevoir collapsed catastrophically, killing over 240 people as the water descended it’s course to the centre of the city.

One-hundred-and-forty-three years later the pub was once again engulfed by flood water, this time caused by torrential rain. Three people lost their lives in this event.

The pub has two markers painted on it’s wall denoting the water level of both floods.

Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 1 November 2020

Early morning shopping

I got up early on the day that I made this photograph as I was hoping that there would be some mist. Across the road that runs in front of this Aldi supermarket (to the right of this scene) there is a meadow. The near half consists of an area where livestock graze sometimes – I’ve seen both cows and sheep in there when I’ve passed by. The fields border Renishaw golf course, and the River Rother forms a second boundary line, beyond which is further farm land where the ground begins to rise out of the valley.

When there is low-lying mist here at sunrise, it can look very beautiful (even if there is a line of pylons in the distance). Alas, on this morning, the hoped-for mist had let me down. Not wanting to return home completely empty-handed, I decided to make a picture of the Aldi. It’s not the most glamourous of scenes, but it has it’s own commercial charm. Plus, the pastel shades in the pre-sunrise sky behind the store were a treat.

I took three shots of the scene, which is unusual for me. I rarely bracket my exposures, preferring to try and maximise the number of unique images I can get from a roll of film. However, given the fussy nature of Velvia 50 when it comes to exposure and my slightly limiting (for this scene) incident meter, I decided to use a few frames to ensure a good chance of a decent result. It was a good decision as the first two images were very underexposed. This third one could have done with a bit more light in the foreground too, but I think it just about gets by with what it has.

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

Taken on 22 October 2020

A bit more autumn

Just a few days ago I said that I was at the end of my autumn colour images for this year. Well. turns out I’m not – I forgot about this roll of Velvia 50 that I shot on a walk along the Chesterfield Canal near Thorpe Salvin a few weeks ago.

The roll was tricky to meter with confidence. Given that I don’t have a spot meter (just a reflective setting that’s has a pretty wide angle and no meand to accurately point it) I almost always use incident readings instead. Incident metering usually serves me very well, but a canal withich has irregular tree cover along it’s banks makes it difficult to match the light falling on the meter with the subject unless it’s pretty close by, or you’re sure it’s in the same levels of light.

As a result, quite a few of the images on this roll are poorly exposed, and the ones here are probably the best from the canal-side walk.

Of the four, the sycamore leaf below is the best I think (even if it did keep attempting to blow away in the light but irregular breeze!).

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

Taken on 24 October 2020