Tractors and boats

I’ve been away on a short break with my wife for the past four days. The weather has been mostly dry and also mostly cloudy, but I still managed to shoot three rolls of film – well, two-and-a-half, as one was already partly shot before we left. All the rolls were colour stocks, so I was somewhat disappointed to not get some sunshine to show off the colours but there were glimpses of nice light here and there, and I still have my fingers crossed that even the shots made in overcast conditions will look ok (because if they do, it may break my rule to avoid shooting colour film on dull days). But I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll take them all to be developed tomorrow, but it will take me a while to scan them, and I also have a bit of a backlog of other stuff to publish first, so it might be a week or two before they begin to appear here.

In the meantime, here’s a colour shot made on a nice sunny day back in June.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

Seaside homes

There always seems to be a dinstictive look to houses in seaside towns. Not so much the style – which can vary – but a general air about them. A lot of them have rendered walls, such as the ones in the picture today (perhaps this gives greater protection against the sea air?) and you can often see little stains of rust where metal objects on the walls have been corroded by the salt and stained the walls below them, although not the case here. But even where walls are not rendered, there still seems to be something about the dwellings that instantly says “seaside town”.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

Steps to the beach

There was a pleasing zig-zag to this set of steps leading down to the beach at Hornsea. A couple were descending the steps when I reached the spot and I wondered about grabbing a shot quickly while they were in frame, but they were looking straight at me and it would have been one of those slightly unnerving “they see me“-type pictures where I feel like I’ve somehow been caught. I’m not sure why I felt like that – I take lots of candid pictures – but sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it’s the right thing for some photographs.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

Erosion in action

Another pebble, albeit one that appears more natural in character than the giant housebrick pebble I posted on Sunday. It’d be cool to rewind time to see this little lump of rock’s history. Where has it been, where was it sited before it entered the sea? How far has it travelled, and for how long? Was it a bigger rock that has been whittled down to size, or was it always this small?

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

A house behind a hedge

As the Ronseal advert goes, it does exactly what it says on the tin or, in this case, the title.

Apologies for the very short post – I got involved with something else.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

A man on a bench looks out to sea (now in colour!)

A quick post today as I’ve spent the past few hours constructing a new computer desk for one of my sons (the new desk being necessitated by me breaking one of the castors off his old desk when moving it recently, so the whole enterprise is my fault). Anyway, the desk is now built and everything is plugged back in and working.

So, because I really just want to jump in the shower now, here’s another shot of a man on a bench sitting out to sea, almost identical in composition to the one I posted a few weeks ago, and taken within a minute or two of that picture, but this one was shot on Kodak Gold with my Olympus 35 RC.

The black and white version perhaps looks a little more calssy, but I think I like this one equally. It’s got that nice amber and teal(ish) thing going on with the sky and the bench.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

South along the sea wall

If you look very carefully at this picture (you may need to click on it to see it larger on Flickr), you can just make out some of the footprints in the sand that featured in the picture on my blog a few weeks ago. I can’t remember if I took that picture before, or after the one shown here, but they were taken within fairly quick succession either way.

The building you can see is a pub called The Marine. I took a couple of pictures of the pub but neither one was particularly interesting in retrospect, so I didn’t upload them anywhere.

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

A man-made pebble

A few weeks back I mentioned in this post that I’d found, and photographed a large “pebble” made of housebricks. I’d not yet finished the roll of film containing the picture at that time, but I have now, so here’s a picture of the somewhat unlikley looking product of erosion.

It actually looks quite interesting, and I’ve idly wondered how it would look if polished to a smooth finish and used as the top for a small table or something. It would certainly be a talking point.

I also wonder where it came from? Someone’s house, a clifftop wall? And how long has it been subjected to the forces of nature to reach this state?

Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 20 June 2022

The start of the Trans Pennine Way

I’ve posted many photos taken along the Tranbs Penine Way on this blog, mostly because a section of it – the southern spur that leads to Chesterfield – is only half a kilometer from my home. The photo today shows the very first time I saw the starting point (or, I guess, the finish if you travel the other way) for the main east / west route. This post marks the easternmost point at Hornsea on the Yorkshire coast beside the North Sea. The far end of the trail lies in Southport in Lancashire on the edge of the Irish Sea.

I’ve never been to Southport before, but perhaps a trip will be in order someday – I do like seaside resorts after all, and it would allow me to pair up both ends of the trail.

Olympus 35 RC & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 20 June 2022

Grand Central

I like this picture – of Birmingham New Street railway station’s main concourse – because there’s a lot to look at. The people going about their business, looking at the departures board, chatting, eating, drinking – even riding a bicycle! It’s like a slightly less busy Where’s Wally (or Waldo, for my American friends) scene, or perhaps something from a Richard Scarry book, but with humans instead of animals (although wouldn’t it be great if Lowly Worm was found in there somewhere?). It’s a busy, busy world indeed.

Olympus 35 RC & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.

Taken on 18 May 2022