Category: Film Photography
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#649 – Imperial Mill Blackburn
I lived in Blackburn for a few years in the late 90’s / early 2000’s and used to work near this place, Imperial Mill. I took some photographs of it that I don’t think I’ve ever put on here but you might have seen the one above on my website if you’ve ever visited it.…
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#530 – Old Negative Scans Part 10 – Dinorwic
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#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…
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#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…
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#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 –…
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#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…
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#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,…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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,…
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#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…
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#379 – Locomotive and a watertower at the Erie Railroad yards, Jersey City
This was a bit of a one off in the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection on the Library of Congress website. It doesn’t appear to be part of a series and I can find no other railway photographs in the same collection. But it’s a good ‘un nonethless, even though it’s needed…
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#368 – Library of Congress Images – a trip on the Santa Fe in Black & White
People talk about how in the digital age, there is a lot of ‘machine gunning’ of scenes with dozens of photographs taken, and not all with a great deal of care and attention. In looking through the photographs of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway it seems that the practice wasn’t unheard of in…
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#367 – Library of Congress Images – Santa Fe in Black & White
Going up? Or down? Wheel shop. Not sure what the significance of the white painted ones are – dummy ones for works use only? Or maybe ones that are waiting for machining / new tyres? This almost has a production line-like feel to it. The workshop is clearly quite large and by british standards quite modern. Interesting to…
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#366 – Library of Congress Images – Santa Fe in colour
A few more images of the Chicago and North Western railway to complement those I blogged recently. In some respects, the outside environment probably suits the film better (Kodak Safety Film again), as by modern standards it…
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#365 – Library of Congress Images – Chicago Railway Yard
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001045480/PP/resource/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992001024/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992001028/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001045487/PP/resource/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001045474/PP/resource/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001046046/PP/resource/ Having explored inside the railway works, Jack Delano continued his documentation of the Chicago and North Western outside in the switching (shunting) yards. One tends to forget the enormous size of American steam locos until you see them with people next to them, and those depicted in these…
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#363 – Library of Congress Images – Chicago Railway Workshops in Colour
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000703/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000725/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000693/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000724/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000693/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000647/PP/ In my nightschool studies of the history of photography, we…
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#297 – Ratten Clough Barn, Brinscall
I used to live in the village of Brinscall, a small slightly industrial village on the edge of Chorley. It’s notable primarily for its swimming pool, an unusual facility for a rural village with a small population, but you’d be surprised at how many people I meet who claim to have learnt how to swim…
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#290 – Book Review – Detroit Disassembled
Andrew Moore’s ‘Detroit Disassembled’ is a book that’s been on my wish list for a couple of years now. I’d discovered it just after it came out, as it was released at a similar time to the eye-wateringly expensive ‘The Ruins Of Detroit’ by Yves Marchand, but at about half the price. It’s certainly got…
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#264 – Recommendation – Poundland £1 Kodak Film
Boo! Everytime I walk past the Poundland shop in my local town centre, I always remember the Trigger Happy TV sketch where Dom Jolly walks round a pound store asking how much everything is to the increasing exasperation of the shop assistant, it goes something like this: “So how much is this?” “A pound” “What about…
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#61 – British Industry
I took this photo about 5 years ago on an old film camera, and developed the film myself. For some reason, it’s one that I keep coming back to and remains one of my favourite industrial images. The composition was almost forced upon me as I just poked the camera through a fence and hoped,…
Mechanical Landscapes 