Towards the Great Orme

When I visited north Wales, back in July, I took my Rolleiflex along with me for some slower paced photography. This also gave me the opportunity to use up some of my film stash, including a couple of rolls I’ve had for ages which have now passed their ‘shoot by’ date.

I started off on the west shore of Llandudno, walking towards the Great Orme, shooting a roll of Fuji Pro 400H - a film I bought in Cambridge years ago and have been waiting for the right moment. Fuji stopped production of this emulsion in 2021 so this one was definitely likely to be past its prime! One of the unpredictable elements of shooting with expired film can be the colour. Over time the emulsion changes and sometimes this results in curious colour shifts. As I expected, the negatives had a slightly green hue when developed, but with a little tweaking in Lightroom they don’t look too far from the reality I saw before my eyes.

My second roll of the day was some Silberra Color 160 - a film that’s been in my stash for a very long while. With this one the colour shifts were even more extreme, with a distinctly orange glow to the shadow areas. I’ve made some adjustments in Lightroom, but some of them retain this somewhat surreal, Martian look. This unpredictability comes with shooting expired film and I quite like the effect, even if they don’t quite reflect reality!

The west shore of Llandudno definitely doesn’t have sand quite this orange - distinctly martian!

A photo from later in the day as I drove round the Great Orme.

Despite its warm hue, I rather like this one - my favourite photo of the day!

Photos taken 19 July 2025

Ferry across the Mersey

The morning after my blustery day on the waterfront at Liverpool the wind had dropped and grey skies were replaced by glorious sunshine - time for a jaunt on the River Mersey! On my speedy walk downhill to the water I passed the concrete luggage which sits on the pavement in Hope Street and just had a to stop for a quick photo.

I made it to the river in time for the first of the day’s river cruises on the Mersey Ferry and loaded my pinhole camera with film ready for some action photography as we travelled up and down the river. With so much sun none of my photos took long, but a shutter speed of a second or two was still enough to capture a sense of movement.

I received a few inquisitive looks as I walked around the boat with my wooden camera and tripod, but in general most people were focused on enjoying the views across the Mersey…

Of course, with so much sunshine there were bound to be some dramatic flare in at least some of my photos….

As we headed back to where we started people began to gather on the deck to grab one last view and some sunshine.

Photos taken 17 April 2025