Autumn trees

I was going to say that this post features the last of this year’s crop of autumnal pictures, but I have a few more on a roll of 35mm Kodak Gold still to be uploaded, so there will still be a few more to share (although I expect it will be after Christmas before that happens, unless I move them up the schedule).

The two pictures here were taken near the village of Barlow in Derbyshire, not too far from Chesterfield. I’ve driven past the lone tree pm a few occasions and noticed that it has a handy public footpath running through the field beside it. Whit it was the main reason I got out of the car with my camera, I think I prefer the first shot of the woodland, which has a nice selection of autumnal tones against the slightly hazy blue sky. The lone tree is ok, but I think there is a better photograph to be had.

I’ve managed to shoot (almost) a couple of rolls of 120 Ilford HP5+ this weekend during an overnight trip to York with my wife to visit the Christmas market. I’m not sure how they will turn out – I rarely make my best pictures when I’m out with someone else, and always feel like I’m rushing or missing things. I’ll hopefully get a chance to develop them soon though, so we shall see…

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC / Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 25 November 2023.

Atop a church and beside it

Following the churchy (is that a word?) theme from yesterday, here’re a couple of pictures I took of St. Swithin’s church at Holmesfield.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 25 November 2023.

Church and willows

A few miles south from the Herdings Twin Towers that I posted about yesterday lies St. Peter’s church at Greenhill. The church was built in 1964/65, so is a relatively modern structure. It’s slightly squat spire always has an air of a witches’ hat, I think.

The early morning light was casting a beautiful glow onto the willow trees that grow beside the church. I don’t think my photograph does proper justice to the light.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 25 November 2023.

Herdings Twin Towers

This pair of residential towers are a Sheffield landmark. Not particularly because of the way they look, but their location at the top of the Herdings district means they are widely visible from across the city and can be seen from many miles away, particularly from the east.

They were built in 1959 and there were originally three towers named Leighton, Morland and Raeburn and were referred to as The Three Sisters, but Raeburn was demolished in 1996 when it was deemed unsafe following the discovery of a fault in the ground where it stood. The remaining two towers were renamed as Queen Anne Court and Queen Elizabeth Court and are now sometimes known as the Herdings Twin Towers.

I’ve driven past them at sunrise before and always thought they would make for a nice picture, so a few weeks back I decided to go and make one. The light was nice on the day, but I’d have preferred a bit of cloud to break up the blue sky. The image is also vey slightly soft despite me using a tripod. An excuse to re-visit the location at some point, I think.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 25 November 2023.

On Remembrance Day

I took this picture on my way home from my autumn walk in the Peak District (which I ‘ve posted about over the past three days). I was driving through Coal Aston, a district that sits about halfway between Sheffield and Chesterfield, and saw how the morning sun was illuminating the front of this church and making vivid the colours of the Remembrance Day poppy displays.

I found a place just down the road where I could park and then walked back to take the photograph from across the street. The lady in the purple jacket walked through the scene as I was focusing the camera, and then stopped to look at the bus timetable at the bus stop, so I got a human element in the picture, which is nice.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 11 November 2023.

Scenes from an autumn walk part 3

I wasn’t going to include these pictures as part of this sequence of autumn walk posts but, given they were shot on the same outing and also depict autumnal conditions, it seemed a bit silly not to.

These were among the first pictures from a roll of Kodak Portra 160 and were shot in Padley Gorge, which is right next to the Longshaw Estate where the earlier photos were taken.

They’re not the best pictures I’ve made at this location, but they’re not horrible either, and I do like the one with the leaf on the boulder quite a lot.

Getting down to the side of Burbage Brook which runs through the gorge can be tricky. The sides are steep and laced with slippery roots, unstable topsoil, and a large volume of rocks – some slippery with moss, some unstable underfoot. Without care, it would be quite easy to gain an injury, potentially a serious one. Beside the brook is where the best photos are to be had though.

Still, I managed my descent safely – something made simpler when I spotted another photographer taking a much easier route. Even better, I was able to escape again afterwards!

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE / Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 11 November 2023.

Scenes from an autumn walk part 2

Following on from yesterday’s post showing pictures taken on Lomography Color Negative 400, here’s a (smaller) selection of images that I shot with Fujifilm Pro 160NS.

I’ve already posted a couple of images individually from this roll here and here. Despite taking the full fifteen images that the ETRSi provides per roll, I haven’t uploaded that many of them. Many of them felt samey, or I didn’t get the results I’d hoped for. Also, while the day had great light, by the time I shot this roll the sun was already higher in the sky and starting to feel a bit harsh and this, coupled with the lack of clouds in the sky, left a few of the images looking a little bland. I might be able to tweak the editing to get more from them, but that’s something for another day (if I do it at all).

This first shot of the fungi-covered tree stump is my favourite of the set, but the third picture found it’s way into Flickr’s Explore selection, so received a lot more online popularity.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE / Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 11 November 2023.

Scenes from an autumn walk part 1

Blessed with fine weather and on a day where I could take advantage of it, I headed out to the area around Padley Gorge and the Longshaw Estate one Saturday morning in early November with the hopes of catching some autumnal scenes.

The pictures posted today are ones I shot on a roll of Lomography Color Negative 400 with my Bronica ETRSi. Tomorrow I’ll post another, smaller set, that I shot on Fujifilm Pro 160NS.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE / Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 11 November 2023.

Tree trunk (not a Christmas tree trunk though)

After yesterdays picture of a somewhat worse-for-wear tree trunk, here’s an altogether healthier looking example.

We put our Christmas decorations up today. This has been done with some trepidation as we have two kittens in the house, both of whom have never experienced Christmas before and who, no doubt, the experience will be full of new things to cause mischief with.

One of them had her curious little snout into everything while the tree and the rest were put up, the other is seemingly afraid of Christmas and went upstairs to hide (although she has since come back down and tentatively poked at the festive garland above the fireplace, and also stolen a small sprig of artificial spruce from a display and hidden under the kitchen table with it). The tree is still standing for now, although a length of tinsel was found to have mysteriously fallen off earlier this afternoon.

The outdoor lights are getting whipped around in the wind, and a section of them seems to have blown into the guttering. That can wait until tomorrow to be remedied though…

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE, & Lomography Color Negative 400. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 11 November 2023.

Animal damage

The trunk of this tree looks a little worse for wear. I assume the damage is the result of animal activity – there are lots of sheep and also deer in the area. Plenty of squirrels too, although this amount of impact looks a little severe for those bushy-tailed creatures.

I’m not sure if it’s the result of teeth or horns / antlers, but it caught my eye and I took a picture.

The original is a colour image but it’s one of those frames that, for some reason, Negative Lab Pro had trouble with and the results had a nasty green and purple tint. The conversion to monochrome resulted in a more satisfying image. It’s not the first image that I’ve had these sort of issues with – sometimes I can spot frames that might be problematical – but this was not one of them. Maybe a visit to the NLP forum might help resolve the issue.

Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE, & Fujifilm Pro 160NS – converted to B&W in Lightroom. Lab developed, home scanned.

Taken 11 November 2023.