Another view of Monsal Dale (these will come to an end in a day or two, in case you’re fed up of seeing the place). It’s from almost the same vantage point as the colour version I posted a few days ago but this one was made after I’d walked down to the valley floor, across the bridge you can see middle-right in the picture, followed the river beneath Headstone Viaduct, past the weir, and then up a deceptively long and, in parts, steep footpath back up the other side to my starting point.
If you click the image and zoom in, you can make out a person stood in the courtyard between the two houses you can see at the bottom of the dale.
Another bridge picture today, this one crosses the River Wye not far upstream from the Headstone Viaduct but is of a much smaller scale.
I shot another roll of my expired film this morning so I’ll hopefully (if the film gods smile down upon me) be able to post some results from that before too long.
A couple more photographs of the packhorse bridge at Ashford-in-the-Water today. I shared another photo of the bridge a couple of days ago and mentioned that the sheep paddock at one side of the bridge contained only ducks on this occasion. You can see a couple of them (well just the back-end of one) in the second picture.
The photo in today’s post is a few years old – it was taken on a cold, but bright, February day back in 2018 on the edge of the moorland near Surprise View in the Peak District national park. I don’t think I’ve published this picture online anywhere before now.
I re-scanned it, and the rest of the photos on the roll, yesterday, using Vuescan to make a linear RAW DNG file and then Negative Lab Pro for the conversion in Lightroom.
Now I understand how to use NLP properly (or at least much better – there are still a bunch of controls and sliders that I stay away from!), I’m very pleased with the ease of getting colours that I’m happy with almost straight out of the box. I still tweak things a little, first using NLPs controls, and then maybe some minor tweaks in Lightroom itself (usually adding a little clarity and sharpness), but there has been none of the annoying mental gymnastics where I can’t decide if the colours are “off” in some hard to define way.
Obviously, colours are subjective, whether it be someone sat at home trying to get what they think Portra or whatever film stock they’ve used to look “right”, or a technician in a photo-lab making adjustments in the Noritsu software (or whatever it is they use) on the behalf of the photographer. So far, Negative Lab Pro has given me colours that feel correct with very little faff on my part, and for this I am thankful. I love black and white photography, but this new found ability to get results I’m happy with from C41 film is making me want to shoot more of the stuff (and re-scan some of the photos where I had less than satisfactory results in the past). It’s just a shame I need to sell a kidney to afford colour film these days!
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Portra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I think it’s the balloon that does it but there’s a definite cheerful look about this Fiat 600. The front of the car itself (something which resembles a face in pretty much all vehicles to a greater or lesser extent) also has a somwhat feline aspect, the chrome bars and logo resembling a nose and whiskers. Or is it just me?
A car has a face Anthropomorphisation Is what it’s called
More vintage rally photos, this time a couple of vintage Chevy pickup trucks. I’m no expert on such things (as I’ve pointed out more than once on this blog), and I’m British and these are American trucks to boot, but a bit of Googling has given me the models. At least I think it has. As always any expert opinions correcting my errors are gratefully received.
Anyay, the first is, I believe, A Chevrolet AK, which were produced between 1941 and 1947, placing this particular vehicle near the end of that production run.
The second truck is around three decades younger being (again, I believe) a Chevrolet Blazer. I’m tentatively dating this one to the late 70s – 1977 onwards – due to the 5×3 grid on the radiator grille. Again I could be talking out of my backside though!
Maybe I hould have asked the truck, although it has a slightly worried looking expression… 🙂
American trucks Gas guzzling automation Moving the masses
Last weekend I visited another vintage rally, this time the Smallwood Vintage Rally in Cheshire. It was a little smaller than the Astle Park event I visited a few weeks earlier and missed on some exhibits like the persiod funfair rides – there was still a funfair but it was mostly modern attractions. I doubt I would travel across the country to visit it again (hopefully the more local events will be back next year), but it was good to meet up with some fellow photographers I know via an online photography forum. As we all shoot film cameras, and as a few of us had proposed bringing folding cameras along, an informal competition was devised where we would each attempt to photograph something from the same decade as the camera.
I still had just over half-a-roll of HP5+ in my 1950s era Zeiss Mess-Ikonta, so would use that for the challenge. I also took my Yashicamat 124G on the day. As the Yashicamat if much easier to use than the Zeiss, I endeavoured to use up the partial roll in the folding camera first and completely forgot about the competition. Luckily though, one of the pictures I made was of a bubble-car that, upon later research, turned out to be an Isetta 300 manufactured and first registered in 1959, just squeaking through the competition rules. There’s no prize, and probably not even any judging, so I didn’t have anything to lose, but I’m glad I got something that fit the bill anyway.
50s bubble-car Fifties made, like my camera Here to save the day
We’ve had a visitor this evening, so just a quick post today. I’ve dug a picture made a couple of years ago during our trip to New York from the archive. It depicts the view north up 10th Avenue from the High Line where it crosses the junction with W 17th Street.
So, New York New York Great place to make some photos Maybe I’ll return?
Another victim in the declining pub trade in the UK, the Farfield Inn stands at the western end of Neepsend Lane at the bottom of Hillfoot Road, not far from the busy route that is Penistone Road. There used to be pigeon lofts on the steep hillside along this stretch but those, like the Farfield Inn, have fallen into dereliction, their skeletal remains vaguely apparent in the brush that has grown to take their place.
“Fancy a nice pint?” Would once have been said by those Who visited here
Steel City Snapper photography 