Week 23 saw me shoot my 41st and 42nd rolls through the 16th different camera of the project. The subject matter was the Great Central Railway’s World War Two weekend.
The GCR is the UK’s only two-way, preserved steam railway and runs between Leicester and Loughborough. Despite living nearby until a couple of months ago, I never really took pictures there before this year, but the nature of the place seems to lend itself to using old cameras there (as I did with a Lubitel in week 4, and my Nikon F2A in week 5).
Once a year it hosts a World War Two reenactment weekend. Each station along the line has a different country’s forces camped out for the weekend with the Americans in Quorn, and the Germans in Rothley etc. The people involved seem to take it very seriously with perfect period outfits, weapons and vehicles. There are women and children in 1940’s clothing (and hairstyles) oh, and some steam locomotives too.
As usual, despite the event having been on the calendar for a month, I didn’t actually make it to Rothley station until late on Sunday afternoon, about 30 minutes before the three days of action came to an end. While that meant was that I may not have been close to the German camp being overrun by heroic Americans (I heard the shooting and explosions), I did catch the troops in their downtime in the immediate aftermath, as they began to plan their trips back home.
(Click on the smaller pictures to see them full screen)
The Conquering Americans.
The German Camp.
I tried hard to keep modernity out of the pictures, hoping that they’d look like they were shot in the ’40s. They don’t of course, but I do quite like the results, especially of the guys in the Jeeps. I just wish that I’d guessed the exposure a little better so that I’d got a bit more detail in the shadows.
The Fujica proved its awesomeness once again. The huge negatives render massive resolution (don’t worry, I shrunk them before uploading) and are like see-through postcards. The reason I don’t shoot it more often though is the 8 shots per film; it gets expensive…
Gubbins:
I used my Fujica GW690ii and more Fujifilm Neopan Across, processed the films at home in Ilfotec HC and scanned the results on an aging Epson v500. As usual, I guessed the exposures and got them wrong, particularly the shots of the ‘Americans’ under the trees.
Reblogged this on yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah and commented:
Week 23 of my 52 Rolls project saw me visit the GCR’s WWII weekend with a Fujica…
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I love these. I actually think the under exposure adds to the photos a little and makes them more fit in to the time period. They do look exactly like so many I see from that time period. Very cool!
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I did not know there were re-enactments for wars this recent. Of course we don’t have any local war sites anyway unless you want to count slow massacre of native Americans by the Spanish missions. But enough philosophizing. These are nice and do have quite an authentic feel.
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I really like the silver look of ACROS underexposed, I have “Guessed Wrong” myself with it, and liked the results. The Americans under the trees are my favorites here.
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I’m in the slow process of putting together a WW2 “Canadian Film and Photo” Unit historical impression to go to such events and photograph the men and women as they would have been during the war.
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