I’ll shoot what he shot

While I was in Hornsea a few weeks back I noticed this man photographing something on the other side of the seawall. To be fair, I knew exactly what he was photographing – the waves crashing against the defences – but I wanted in on this sweet ocean action so, after taking a quick candid, I waited my turn and then made my own picture.

The guy in the photo looked like he had a telephoto attached to his camera, which probably benefited the scene when compared with the fixed 42mm glass on my Olympus 35RC, but the best camera (and lens!) is the one you have with you, right?

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

Taken on 20 June 2022

Flags and bunting

Something I’ve noticed when taking photos this summer are the number of places flying flags or draped in strings of bunting. While the reason for this is not hard to fathom – it was the royal jubilee just a couple of months ago – it’s still quite striking how much of it is still there in abundance. Perhaps people have decided they don’t want to spend the effort required to take it back down or, probably more likely, that it just looks nice and they want to see it for as long as they can. It certainly makes for prettier pictures.

Here is a row of decorated shops in the Yorkshire seaside town of Hornsea.

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

Taken on 20 June 2022

Water works

Never one to shy away from seeking out the most beautiful of locations, I present today a photograph of a water works in Hornsea. I really don’t care about the subject matter though, to be honest. The fact that the building here is functional and mundane doesn’t distract from the nice way it shows the light, it’s orange bricks contrasting against the flower-speckled grass, and the cornflower blue of the sky above. The couple walking their dog adds some scale and a dash of interest to the scene.

So, it may just be a water works, but it’s also a nice picture, at least in the eyes of this beholder.

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

Taken on 20 June 2022

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

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

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

Weather-worn groyne

I wonder what this wooden groyne looked like when brand new? And when it actually was brand new? It would be interesting to know how many years of being pounded by waves, pebbles, and sand it took to reduce it to this somewhat broken-toothed appearance.

Yashicamat 124G & Fujifilm Acros. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 20 June 2022

A man on a bench looks out to sea

I like this photo. It has a clean, minimal feel to it. The sky is clear of cloud (bar a couple of barely discenible whisps) and the lines of the horizon, fence, and bench add an element of structure. The man sits slightly off-centre, adding a small sense of discord to the picture.

I wonder what the man was thinking about as he sat there, looking out across the North Sea? When I see picture that I have taken such as this, I sometime wonder if I should have spent more time taking in the view myself, rather than trying to photograph it. I sometimes feel that I’m spending too much time trying to capture a moment to be enjoyed later when the reality is right there in front of me. But the camera, it draws me…

Yashicamat 124G & Fujifilm Acros. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 20 June 2022