Week 49 – Neopan Night

After my trip with Iain to Poland a couple of weeks ago, we were keen to get back to doing what we do, shooting carscapes and infrastructure, usually by night. Since 52Rolls has led to film photography taking over my life, I now take my Yashica along on these ‘fishing’ trips and shoot (lovely, lovely) Neopan versions of the scenes as well as digital.

On this occasion, we stayed fairly close to home. Initially we’d headed for East Midlands Airport. It’s having its runway re-layed and so a concrete plant has been built on-site. It is floodlit by LEDs and with its cloud of steam and dust, looks dramatic at night, particularly with aircraft landing close-by.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a decent shot, despite blundering around in the nearby hedgerows and undergrowth. So instead, we headed for an old favourite, the power station at Ratcliffe-On-Trent and the adjacent A453. The road has recently been widened to two carriageways, and the attendant roundabouts and bridges are also lit by LED.

If you’re at all familiar with my nighttime, long-exposures of brightly lit concrete, you’ll know that this combination is the sort of thing that I’ll find irresistible. Add in my favourite film, and this is the result…

On the way home from this shoot (and after a quick stop at the excellent Red Lion pub in Hathern (the pub is better than its website)), it was beginning to get foggy and was already about -4°C. I realised that this combination probably meant that in the river valley where we live, it was likely to be a photogenic morning. I set the alarm early and headed for the river…

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Gubbins:

Yashica-Mat 124G (meter busted so I used the digital camera to work out exposure. The night time shots were between 30 and 90 seconds), FujiFilm Neopan Acros 100, processed at home in Ilford Ilfotec HC for 6 minutes. When I processed the roll, it was 8°C in the garage. This meant that I had to mix the chemicals and stand them in a sink of hot water to warm them to 18°C for use. It seems to have worked.