Tucked away beside this pond in the middle of the Leeds University campus, sits this duck house. I didn’t witness any ducks coming and going, but that was because they were happily parading their new brood of ducklings around the place.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins 30 secs @ 20°
Taken 25 March 2023.
This is another of those scenes that I’ve photographed on more than one occasion. The subject almost cries out to be photographed and the location features in the photographs of many others besides mine.
You can see an earlier picture here, when I walked the same path three years ago.
Some nicer light would have been good, but, hey – the UK…
Chroma 4×5. Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Fomapan 100. Fomadon R09 1+50 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 3 March 2023.
The only real photography I did in December (apart from the odd snap here and there) took place on Christmas Eve. The weather was bright and clear and I wanted to run a roll of film through my Yashicamat 124G which I had taken the lens off the week before in an attempt to remove some haze. The haze was between inside the rear lens element and I couldn’t remove it unfortunately, although I otherwise gave it all a good clean. This outing was to see if the camera was still working and hadn’t been destroyed by my meddling.
I went out with good intentions, taking a tripod and cable release with me in case I needed to shoot in lower light locations. What I forgot to do was to afix the quick-release plate on the bottom of the camera before I left the house, rendering the tripod useless. As a result I had to make quite a few shots on the roll at wider apertures or with slower shutter speeds than I would have liked. This was annoying as I wanted to make sure my attempted repair hadn’t affected the cameras focusing in some way, and any hint of softness due to camera shake or shallow depth of field would make this troublesome.
I think a few shots on the roll suffer in this way. Not terribly, but if I zoom right in I can see some softness. Other shots are plenty sharp however, so I guess the repair was successful (insofar as me not having broken the camera, at least – the haze is still present).
The shot shown here today is one from the roll and shows a view across Ulley Reservoir with a tower on the far shore – I presume this is used as part of the boating activities that make use of the lake.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 December 2022.
When I took this picture it was the reflection that attracted me. It was only later, when I scanned the photo, that I realised it looked like a window into the world beneath the ground where the tree’s roots spread otherwise unseen.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko Auto-W 35mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 12mins @ 20°
Taken on 29 November 2022.
The modern building in today’s picture is The Diamond, a facility owned by the University of Sheffield which houses engineering facilities and lecture halls. It stands on the site of the original Jessop maternity hospital (where my eldest son was born) and parts of the original listed structure still remain, incorporated into the modern architecture.
Reflected in the glass is the tower of St. George’s church, now redundant as a place of worship and acting as a lecture theatre and student accommodation.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 23 September 2022.
Today’s picture shows the same house I posted a photo of a few days ago. This shot was made on the same day, although mybe half-an-hour of so later. It was also shot with a different camera and film, and from a different vantage point – this one involved me venturing into the edge of the river (thankfully not deep or fast!) to get a composition I liked.
A little downstream from here is a small weir and I ventured down past it to try and get a picture of a bridge. The picture didn’t really work as the weir kinda seperated the foreground of the scene too much in the frame, but it did result in an amusing experience when a duck, just upstream of the weir, spotted me and swan towards me – perhaps expexting some food – and just nonchalantly paddled right over the edge and into the water below with a “plop”.
Olympus XA3 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.
Taken on 30 April 2022
We have a long weekend here in the UK thanks to the annual spring bank holiday being moved to Thursday (it’s usually on a Monday), plus the extra bank holiday we got yesterday to commemorate the Queen’s platinum jubilee. I’m not particularly fussed about the jubilee stuff but expected that I might use the extra time off work to get some photograpy done. As it stands though, I’ve been feeling pretty uninspired to go out (not helped by the dull weather that we currently have where I live), so have spent the last couple of days just loafing around the house watching TV (mostly Australian Survivor on Amazon Prime – I’m not a fan of reality shows at all, but really enjoy Survivor and The Amazing Race for some reason. It’s just a a shame we can’t see the US version by normal means here in the UK) and playing videogames.
I feel a little guilty for this, but sometimes it’s nice to just veg out and not put any pressure on yourself. I’ve still got enough new photos sat waiting to be published to keep the blog going for at least a couple of weeks of daily posts, plus plenty in the archive in the event I run out (which I don’t expect to), so that impetus is lessened for a while. I had planned on going out today if the sun had shown itself – I had an idea of an area I might photograph – but it will have to wait.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Ektachrome 100 EPP (expired 2003). Lab developed.
Taken on 30 April 2022
The same buildings that could be seen in yesterday’s post, but this time focused on the reflection.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 15 January 2021
I have to pick one of my sons up from college today, so I won’t have time to write the blog later (well, I will, but I’ll probably want to do other stuff instead :)). So today it’s a quick and somewhat random post with a picture of the back of the bowling green pavillion that featured in testerday’s post. It was the ripples on the water and the birds on the roof that caught my eye but it’s not much of a shot if I’m honest. Look at me, treating you all with such treasures! 😀
The truth is that I’ve still got most of this roll of film still to scan and am limited on shots to pick until I get on with that. The roll also seems to have some sort of marks on a lot of the frames. At first I thought they were drying marks, but they don’t really correspond to other drying marks I’ve seen. I’m now wondering if it’s something else – maybe I didn’t let the film defrost before loading it and caused condensation or something? Or perhaps it’s just an artefact of the film being almost twenty-years past it’s use-by date. Luckily I’ve been able to photoshop out the worst of it, including this photo.
Olympus XA3 & Kodak Tri-X Pan (expired 2003 – shot at box speed and pushed a stop in development). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 18 December 2021
Here’s me, some other people, and a bunch of other old cars reflected in the shiny boot of this Lanchester.
Shine like a mirror
Reflections of the world appear
In the bodywork
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 4 September 2021
Steel City Snapper photography 