Back in July I took a trip down to Newark-on-Trent to visit a photobook exhibition in a small gallery there. I was drawn mostly because there would be prints on display by British Photographer, Paul Hart, who’s work I’ve admired for a number of years. As it turned out there was only a single one of his prints on display (although the gallery owner was kind enough to show me another print he had in storage) and I might not have made the trip had I known that would be the case, but the exhibition was nonetheless still worthwhile, I had an interesting talk with the gallery owner, and Newark is only an hour away, so it’s not a huge undertaking to get there.
I also wandered around taking pictures, shooting with three different cameras: my Yashica Mat 124G, my Olympus XA3, and my Olympus OM-10. I’ll share pictures from the other two in due course, but the photos shown here today are all from the OM-10 which had a roll of expired Ilford Delta 400 loaded. I think I bought the film from a stand at Photo North earlier in the year. It didn’t cost much and I’ve had mostly favourable results with expired black and white film, sometimes with images that look like they were shot on fresh film.
As I didn’t know the provenance of this roll, I over-exposed it perhaps a little more than I needed (I usually go with half-a-stop per decade of expiry, but in this case went a full two stops). I think a stop, or maybe a stop-and-a-half would have sufficed as the negs were a bit dense when I took them from the developing tank. Nothing that couldn’t be mostly rescued in post-processing though. There are some mild signs of the films age – some frames on the roll (though not so much these) have blotches and spots – but that’s the risk you take when shooting old film, I guess.
I don’t know how long these particular signs have been in place, but the ones in the second image strongly evokes the 1970s for me. There’s just something about that little figure…
Within the grounds of Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings is the National Telephone Kiosk Collection which, amongst other things, includes every type of telephone kiosk used from 1912 to the present day.
I took some photos at the start of the day on 35mm film, and then just before I left on medium format.
Nikon F80 & Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 ED VR on Fomapan 400 (shot at 200asa) AND Yashica Mat 124G on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
I’ve still got some more images to post from Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings to come, but they’re either medium format pictures, or a few that I’ll bunch together in a themed post (a mix of 35mm and MF).
The pictures today didn’t really have a particular story to them though, so I felt it best to just do a big image dump.
Nikon F80 & Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 ED VR on Fomapan 400 (shot at 200asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
One of the buildings at Avoncroft Museum is a tollhouse which was originally located at Little Malvern, Worcestershire. It was built by the Upton-upon-Severn Turnpike trust in 1822 for a total cost of £56 (equivalent to around £6,400 today – if only new houses cost so little now!).
The house was manned by two volunteers – a married couple both dressed in vintage attire and carrying out tasks using the equipment of the day. The lady was in the kitchen, preparing a whole array of baked goods – bread rolls, rock cakes, pies, and a joint of pork to be roasted. While the food wasn’t being prepared for visitors to the museum, we went back to the tollhouse later in the day and were kindly treated to a sample of some of the wares. I had a rock-cake, which was very nice, but one of our party even went so far as to take some of the bread rolls – spread with fresh hand-churned butter – home with him!
The house was fully fitted out with period furniture and appliances, including this wash-stand in one of the upstairs rooms.
Nikon F80 & Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 ED VR on Fomapan 400 (shot at 200asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°