I went to the cinema a few weeks back (to see Dune Part II, I think it was). In one of the car-parks at the shopping mall where the cinema resides, was a circus. The sky was heavy with dark cloud, but the sun was shining through and illuminating things nicely. I’m glad I had the XA3 in my pocket.
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 6 March 2024
Just a couple of pictures of unusual stuff today. The first is a shot of a giant micro-organism – an e-coli bacteria to be specific – that was lurking within Sheffield’s Winter Gardens. This larger-than-life model is 90 feet long, apparently making it five million times larger than it’s actual size. At this scale you’d have no problem spotting if your food was contaminated, I guess, although I tremble at the thought of the chicken that it might have inhabited!
You can find more information about the sculpture here: https://www.lukejerram.com/e-coli/
The second picture is of another sculpture, a steel willow tree commemorating the victims of Covid-19 and the unsung workers of the pandemic. It was unveiled in March 2023 and stands in Balm Green Gardens, close to Barker’s Pool in Sheffield.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken 21 October 2023.
This defaced and damaged phone box made for an interesting subject. I guess the neighbourhood watch wasn’t watching.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken 21 October 2023.
A new year has arrived, so it’s traditional to come up with some resolutions you intend to follow in the coming twelve months.
Mine are, in no particular order:
Let’s see how I get on with them…
Today also marks the start of my sixth year of daily blog posts. I sometimes think about stopping posting every day, but I guess I’m not ready to give it up just yet.
Apropos of nothing, here’s a picture of a seat.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken 21 October 2023.
A new camera arrived in the post today. I say new, but it’s both used, and also a camera I already own, so not even new “to me”. It’s another Yashicamat 124G TLR.
I’ve had my current Yashicamat 124G for almost seven years, and it’s a favourite to use. It was my first proper medium format camera (I had a Lubitel 166 Universal before this, but the Yashicamat really surpassed it in terms of quality). Unfortunately my current camera has some haze in the taking lens. While this doesn’t always have an impact on the photos, sometimes it does, producing the occasional image with a foggy, low-contrast look. As I like using the camera a lot, I decided it would be worthwhile finding a replacement without the optical issue.
Just before Christmas I was alerted to a sale at a film camera supplier here in the UK and they had a very nice model there with 10% off, so I took the plunge. The new camera looks in very tidy condition (although my original model is hardly looking rough), so I’ll have to find the time to put a roll of film through it to make sure all is well. After that I’ll look for a new home for my old camera as, despite the haze, it’s still very capable.
It certainly isn’t ready for the bin (a feeble link to today’s picture, I think you’ll agree…).
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken 21 October 2023.
Back in October I visited the My Brutal Life exhibition in Sheffield. The exhibition featured a variety of pieces from various artists, covering photography, painting, collage, poetry, and film, all linked by the theme of brutalist architecture.
The venue for the exhibition was the Moore Street Electricity Substation, itself a notable brutalist building that sits just on the edge of the city centre. While the substation is in active use, one of it’s floors is empty. This floor was originally intended to hold the equipment that would provide electricity to two foundries and a car factory that were never built.
It forms an impressive space – effectively a large concrete emptiness with no source of natural light at all – that was perfect for this exhibition. I had seen a number of the pieces on show previously – something that’s bound to happen when you visit local exhibitions featuring local artists and of local subject matter – but others were new to me, or at least not seen before by myself in person.
One of the artist’s featured was Jen Orpin, a Manchester-based painter who has produced a number of works featuring roads and bridges, notably concrete spans across motorways. I first came across her work in a feature in the Guardian newspaper and her compositions of brutalist bridges crossing mysteriously empty stretches of road caught my eye. There’s a photorealism to the work that evokes recognition and a sense of otherworldliness. You can see example of her work on her website: https://www.jenorpinpaintings.co.uk/
Although the exhibition space was far too dimly lit for me to take film photos (I had no tripod), I did take a number of pictures of the staircase that needed to be ascended to reach the exhibition space (126 steps!) and of the substation itself, which you can see here in this post.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken 21 October 2023.
It’s one of those days today where I don’t know what to write on the blog (although here I am, writing stuff about not knowing what to write…). Today I think it’s because I’ve got something preying on my mind at work. Nothing terrible, just something I need to do this week that I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for. Usually, it comes to pass that I’m stressing out about nothing and everything will go just fine, but that doesn’t stop my brain flipping into anxiety mode. The fact that I’m focusing on this one thing also means I’m not spending time on a bunch of other things I need to be doing, leading to a cumulative worry about, well, more stuff.
It also doesn’t help that I tend to procrastinate. And while I always pull things together in the end, there’s always the worry that one day I might not be able to. I seem find myself increasingly easily distracted from things I ought to be concentrating on in recent years, to the extent that I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out I have ADD (but that’s another story). I guess that tomorrow I need to just pull myself together, give myself a virtual slap across the cheeks to wake myself up, and just get on with what I need to do. In a couple of days the thing will have passed and I can get back to normal (i.e. worrying about the next thing…).
So, look at that – I’ve written more than I do on many other days. Good ol’ productive stress, eh?
Here’s a picture of a foggy scene. This is probably not disimillar to what it looks like inside my head right now. 🙂
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
This is the first of two photographs of bridges crossing the River Moss That I’ll publish – the second will be here in a couple of days.
I managed to get out and shoot a few rolls of film today, 36 exposures on some Superia Xtra 400, and a couple of rolls of 120 through my Bronica ETRSi (one HP5+, one Fuji Pro 400H). It’s the first time in ages I’ve shot so prolifically, and should mean that the wolves can be kept from the door for a while in terms of me having new photos for the blog. I’ll get the two rolls of C41 sent off for developing tomorrow and will maybe dev the HP5+ one lunchtime this week if I get the chance. I’ve got about a half-dozen more pictures from the GW690 to keep things ticking over until then though.
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
I think the left side of this picture is a little messy, but there was unfortunately no way to get around it short of cropping. The GW690 has a fixed focal length and, while using my legs to zoom is often a viable technique, in this case I was hemmed in by trees at either side, and in front of my feet the ground dropped into marshy wetness where the rushes are growing and I didn’t fancy a boot full of freezing mud.
Nonetheless, the foggy morning does a lot of lifting and makes the shot quite pleasing, I think, particularly the contrast of the heads of the rushes against the faded backdrop.
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
Trees. Big, solid, tall, impressive things, aren’t they. But what if you were a giant? What if you stood several hundered feet tall? Would a forest become a lawn? Would the people walking beneath their canopies become like bugs?
This is what popped into my head when I was composing this shot.
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
Steel City Snapper photography 