There’s a definite autumnal feel to the picture in today’s post, I think, despite it being made in early February.
It’s the colours that do it, lots of browns and oranges here in the buildings, bricks, and boughs.
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400. Lab Developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 5 February 2023.
I returned to work today following a week-and-a-day’s leave. The whole week I was off, the weather was dull and overcast, which kinda spoiled the days of photography I’d hoped for. I still went out and took pictures, but I knew the light was poor and they wouldn’t be what I might have hoped for.
Today, back at work and unable to venture out to take pictures, the weather has been lovely all day. Blue skies with smatterings of cumulus clouds and nice light. Sometimes it feels like I am being punished…
Here’s one of the pictures from last week, took while walking alongside the River Derwent in the Peak District near Calver.
Chroma 4×5. Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Fomapan 100. Fomadon R09 1+50 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 3 March 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.
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.
Sorry, no time to say anything much today – been spending time dealing with a problem and have no time to write. Normal service (such as it is) will be resumed shortly.
Yashicamat 124G with close-up lens #1 & Ilford Delta 400 . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 20 January 2023.
Two sets of power lines en-route to the large substation at Canklow meadows a few miles away.
I liked the contrast between the organised and regular structures of the pylons and the organic shapes of the two trees flanking them on the horizon.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 December 2022.
An insanely blue sky thanks to Fuji Velvia 50. It works pretty well with the golden birch leaves, I think.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Fujichrome Velvia 50. Lab developed & home scanned.
Taken on 4 November 2022
On the morning I took this, I’d hoped for clear skies and an autumnal golden-hour, but this was somewhat scuppered by a fast approaching band of rain. But because the wet weather was approaching from the west, it made for an attractive rainbow, and the front of this otherwise mundane office building was thus transformed.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Portra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 15 October 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
On the day I tried out my first roll of the new Kodak Gold 120 variant, shot with my Yashicamat, I also took the Holga with me. I still had a couple of rolls of the “bad batch” Fomapan 100 (the one that liberally sprinkles little white specks on the resulting pictures), and it seems a good fit to shoot it with the Holga as, while I don’t want to use faulty film with the camera, it is great at covering up such defects due to its uniquely rendered images. I also have quite a stash of film at present and aim to try and get through some of it this year.
This was the first time I’d used the Holga in over a year – the last time was for some snowy shots back in January 2021 – and it’s easy to forget how much I like the pictures it produces. While this roll didn’t produce twelve bangers, I still got several I was happy with, and so I’ll post them here today and tomorrow.
I developed the roll in some of my remaining trial bottle of Adox Adonal (Rodinal in all but name) and used a 1+24 dilution which gave a pleasingly short 4 minute developing time. I’m pretty happy with the way they’ve turned out.
Holga 120N & Fomapan 100. Adox Adonal 1+25 4mins @ 20°.
Taken on 10 April 2022
Steel City Snapper photography 