Film Photography – Mechanical Landscapes

#530 – Old Negative Scans Part 10 – Dinorwic

#529 – Old Negative Scans Part 9 Belmont Bleachworks

Taken on a snowy Christmas Day in the early 2000’s when the bleachworks was still active, this was sadly the only photograph I got of the place before it closed. While it fundamentally still exists as a small business park, the chimney has gone, the units have been clad in some awful metal cladding and…

#528 – Old Negative Scans Part 8 – Huncoat Power Station

I made a few trips to Huncoat Power Station, as it was dead easy to explore and only about 30 minutes drive away. The first trip I primarily shot colour film (which I’ve not re-scanned yet, but my original scans from 10 or so years ago are here) and just a few black and white…

#527 – Old Negative Scans Part 7 – Albion Mills

I’d forgotten that I’d taken a few shots on film in Albion Mill, so it as nice to see them appear on my screen ftom the scanner. The mill was another empty Yorkshire mill of no particular significance, and it was knocked down a year or so after I had a look. A shame –…

#522 – Old Negative Scans Part 2 – Grove Rake

I’ve covered Grove Rake several times on this blog as it was an interesting site and I made some interesting images. I’ve been twice – 2008 and 2015 – and on the first occasion I took a film camera as well as my digital SLR to record some scenes. It’s a bleak location on the…

#397 – Library of Congress Images – Logging train

Although huge swathes of Britain were once forested, much of this was cleared in mediaeval times and before for use as fuel and construction materials (for buildings and ships). So by the time the steam railway came along, there wasn’t much left and there was no requirement for railway haulage out of the forests. However,…

#391 – Library of Congress Images – Switching (shunting) locomotive

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/npc2008011106/ This image was simply titled Bethlehem Steel in the Library of Congress archive, and had no supporting information other than it was published in the period 1910-1920. Interestingly, the engine has written Washington Terminal on the tender, which is confusing given the title of the picture. Wikipedia tells me that the Washington Terminal company…

#390 – Library of Congress Images – Mallett articulated locomotive

Although articulated locomotives were a British innovation, and Beyer Peacock built over a thousand of them, only a few Beyer Garrets and narrow gauge Fairlie’s ever saw service in Britain. However, articulated locomotives were quite widely used in other areas of the world, especially where huge amounts of power were required without the loading gauge…

#389 – Library of Congress Images – Ironton Blast Furnace

This photo is titled ‘Columbia Steel Company at Ironton, Utah a locomotive outside the blast furnace’. The Utahrails website gives an early history of the steelworks, but doesn’t explain its relatively short life of only 40 years. Despite the lack of established heavy industry in the area, Utah was home to deposits of iron ore,…

#380 – Library of Congress Images – The Long Stairway, Pittsburgh

The photographs of Jack Delano have been featured before on this blog, and these were the documentary images of and around the railway. This is a slightly different subject matter and style of photography. There are a few different variations of this scene on the Library of Congress website, but this one just works best…