Mechanical Landscapes

Category: Black and White

  • #521 – Old Negative Scans Part 1 – Cheadle Bleachworks

    #521 – Old Negative Scans Part 1 – Cheadle Bleachworks

    I’ve recently bought a proper Plustek 8100 negative scanner, which is damn slow as it only does one at a time, but the results especially when doing multiple scans of the same neg (a sort of analogue HDR) are much better than my flatbed. Obviously, like any neg scan or darkroom print without any work,…

  • #517 – Slater’s Terrace and Sandygate Mill, 2006

    #517 – Slater’s Terrace and Sandygate Mill, 2006

    I’ve recently been digging through my archive for forgotten or undiscovered images and I took a look through an album of photographs I took in 2006 around the Weavers Triangle area of Burnley. It was a bright Saturday morning and unfortunately I was shooting into the sun, a fairly elementary error in my planning which…

  • #515 – Cononley Lead Mine 2

    #515 – Cononley Lead Mine 2

    A spot of history – the mineral rights to the area were owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and to develop the mine he brought in the famous Cornish mining engineer John Taylor which would doubtless explain the Cornish style design. The engine house is thought to date from about 1840, and housed a beam…

  • #514 – Cononley Lead Mine 1

    #514 – Cononley Lead Mine 1

    The tin mines of Cornwall, or more specifically the beam engine houses are a unique site around the county. The high walled engine houses and the tall chimneys were some of the first mechanised deep mines in the country and a site unique to the south west. Or so I thought……. I was researching mining…

  • #512 – Professional Image Maker Article

    #512 – Professional Image Maker Article

    It’s been a busy month for me, so this is a little late, but this month I’ve had the privilege of having a 12 page feature in Professional Image Maker magazine, the journal of the SWPP. I think the last time I had my work featured was in Amateur Photographer, not that I’ve transitioned from…

  • #511 – Pincroft Dyers

    Lancashire 1938? No, 2018. It looks like polluting black smoke emerging from the chimney, but it’s actually just steam, the vignette I’ve applied has had the effect of darkening the vapour. This is Pincroft Dyers is one of the few remains of  Lancashire’s once dominant textile industry. I spoke to one of the shift managers…

  • #509 – 500 Post Retrospective – More Railways

    More from the East Lancs Railway, this time they are all from the works and yard at Buckley Wells in Bury. It’s not normally accessible unless you work there, but is sometimes open for group visits or for photographic night shoots which is where all these were taken. 60163 Tornado, 24th October 2010 70013 Oliver…

  • #507 – 500 Post Retrospective – Slate

    #507 – 500 Post Retrospective – Slate

    I’ve only visited two slate quarries (Dinorwic and Pen-yr Orsedd) but every time I visit North Wales I am reminded of the physical impact this industry had on the landscape. Although some slate quarrying continues, it is on a much smaller scale than in days gone by, largely due to the building industry’s preference for…

  • #506 – 500 Post Retrospective No.6 -Ships

    #506 – 500 Post Retrospective No.6 -Ships

    Merger – sat beached and rusting in Glasson Dock near Lancaster, this little dredger was my first experiment with ND grad filters. The results weren’t bad, just not as good as they could have been. I’ve not been back since and it doesn’t appear on the most Google Earth views, so I won’t get the chance…

  • #505 – 500 Post Retrospective No.5 – The urban and industrial landscape

    #505 – 500 Post Retrospective No.5 – The urban and industrial landscape

    Monckton Coke Works – a relic from a bygone age, this place has since closed and is now demolished. Lune Mills Lancaster – a vast site on the banks of the RIver Lune in Lancaster. It was once home to a giant linoleum works and had it’s own power station  (which still exists), and although…

  • #504 – 500 Post Retrospective No.4 – Iron and Steel

    #504 – 500 Post Retrospective No.4 – Iron and Steel

    Britain once had a huge iron and steel industry, but there’s not much left now. The closure of the Redcar works in 2015 meant that there were only two major steelworks left in the UK, along with a number of rolling mills and electric arc furnaces. There had been much retraction of the industry in…

  • #503 – 500 Post Retrospective No.3 – Mills

    The mills of the north of England have held a lifelong fascination for me. Growing up in Bolton in the 1980’s meant that the towns industrial heyday had long passed and while there were still plenty of mills around, hardly any were still spinning cotton and with every passing year, more and more mills were…

  • 499 – Sarsia Revisited

    499 – Sarsia Revisited

    After my first visit to see Sarsia, I had an idea – what would the scene look like using a long exposure? For that I’d need a cloudy, dry weekend day, which as the summer progressed were annoyingly infrequent, however a careful eye on the weather showed one to be upcoming. I was quite happy…

  • #496 – Denis Thorpe’s ‘A View From The North Exhibition’ and book

    #496 – Denis Thorpe’s ‘A View From The North Exhibition’ and book

    Cammell Laird’s 1988 I recently had the huge privilege of meeting Denis Thorpe at the opening of his ‘A View From The North Exhibition’ at Stockport Memorial Art Gallery. I’ve been a fan since seeing his exhibition at the Lowry a few years back and my copy of his book ‘On Home Ground’ is well thumbed.…

  • #493 – Teesside Industrial Tourism 4 – Brent Delta Oil in Monochrome

    #493 – Teesside Industrial Tourism 4 – Brent Delta Oil in Monochrome

    A few snaps of Brent Delta in monochrome.

  • #489 Forton Lake Wrecks

    #489 Forton Lake Wrecks

    I was down in Fareham, near Portsmouth, visiting a factory as part of my day job and had a few hours to kill. A hazy memory of some sort of abandoned wrecks came to mind and a few minutes internet searching led me to Gosport, about 20 minutes away from my hotel. Although I had…

  • #484 – Beehive Mills, Bolton

    OK it’s a visual cliche, but it’s a scene that will soon vanish. Beehive Mills, a grade 2 listed twin mill in Bolton will soon be demolished for more housing, so I thought it prudent to go and have a look while I still could. The first mill was built in 1895 with the second…

  • #476 – Telamon (Temple Hall) Shipwreck, Lanzarote 3

    #476 – Telamon (Temple Hall) Shipwreck, Lanzarote 3

    Last look at the Telamon, with a few in monochrome. I’d taken my ND filters to try some long exposures, as the weather forecast was for cloud. However it was a trifle windy and by the time I got there, the clouds had cleared but the wind hadn’t dropped, which didn’t make for ideal conditions…

  • #473 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 2

    #473 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 2

    In the past, Glasson Dock has been used for ship breaking (and building) occasionally, so it may well be that Merger meets her end where she now lies. I visited primarily to try out an ND filter, but found that the tide didn’t rise high enough for me to get the pictures I’d envisioned, but…

  • #472 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 1

    #472 – Derelict Ship at Glasson Dock 1

    I know nothing of this little ship, other than it used to be a dredger based at Glasson Dock. Named ‘Merger’,  internet pictures show it with an excavator positioned near the bow, presumably for clearing the channels of the Lune for the coastal shipping that uses this small Lancashire Port. It looks like its service…

  • #470 – Best of 2016 part 3

    #470 – Best of 2016 part 3

    So a (belated) third part to my 2016 retrospective continues with a quick look at Mutual Mills in Heywood – not an explore, more a drive by as I was in the area. I’ve a few more from the Manchester area that I’ve not yet got round to posting up – I’ll put these up some…