Large Format Slides

I recently came across a few boxes of large format colour transparencies, shot on 120 film (6x6cm or 2.25x2.25inches). They were shot on a Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex camera that I bought in the early 1970s mainly to take wedding photos with, that being my job at the time.

But I also shot lots of stock photos for magazines etc. The film I used for colour slides was Ektachrome64, rated at 64 ASA or ISO as we would say now. I used to process this myself using Barfen chemicals, which had to be kept at a constant temperature around 40 degrees centigrade, which was achieved by filling the bath with hot water and floating the tank containing the film...

The slides have not fared well. The containers are not airtight and they are heavily contaminated with 30 years worth of dust. I've removed the worst of it but the photos are still not exactly best quality. Short of spending hours on each, they are going to stay that way I'm afraid!

St Annes Road West, the main shopping street of St Annes on Sea just south of Blackpool. When the Lancashire mill workers flocked to Blackpool, the mill owners took their holidays in St Annes and Lytham. So much more refined you know...

Lytham Windmill in snow. We don't see a lot of snow on the Lancashire coast so shots like these were quite saleable to magazines and I used to make the most of any snowfall we might get, often driving out before the snowploughs had been out.

The impressive front of the Harris Library and Museum in Preston. Shots like this often find themselves on the front covers of local magazines, though on this one I haven't left enough space for text to be added without obscuring the columns.

More to come!

Large versions of the photos: st annes, windmill, harris library

Preston Curiosities

I've had a couple of days off work with Miss Franny this week and to celebrate I caught a horrendous cold and sneezed my way through the night and most of yesterday. This didn't stop Miss Franny from allowing me to take her out to Preston for a look round though - she's made of sterner stuff than to allow a simple cold to keep her in. Even when it's mine...

Ages since I was in Preston though. I worked at Preston College for 12 years and used to go down to the town centre at least once a week, preferably when the market was filled with junk stalls! The above photo is the Harris Museum and Art Gallery.

I took the camera with me to take my mind off coughs and other violent expulsions and left Miss Franny going round the shops whilst I went off to find ... er... these shops...

This is the Miller Arcade, a Victorian shopping arcade based on the Burlington Arcade in London. It is, as can be seen from the photos, a little quieter than I remember the Burlington Arcade being!

Outside the main entrance, offset to each side is a matching pair of oblong spaces, surrounded by railings and what appears to be an entrance arch. No one seems to admit to this but they remind me very much of entrances to underground toilets, lots of which used to exist. The provision of public toilets these days is a dying art, helped along by the main use of them these days seeming to be the sale and intake of drugs, with any poor unfortunate who just happens along at the wrong moment to wash the stones being at substantial risk. Anyway, if anyone can confirm whether these oblongs were once staircases leading down to palaces of relief, please add a comment!

This is Stoneygate, looking back towards the centre of town. Preston had several gates, and a few streets are still named appropriately: Friargate and Fishergate etc. This was once the most pleasant approach to Preston, having come from the bridge over the River Ribble. Of course that was contested at times in the past - Preston has hosted not one but two battles... One on the Civil War and one when the Scots came down, only to be defeated and then hunted down ferociously - there's enough to devote a future entry to these at some time.

Somewhere near Stoneygate as remembered by this "Near this site" blue placque, the Cock Pit was where Joseph Livesey first drew up the public pledge and started the Temperance Movement. He said "I can't be doin' wi' all this drunkeness when we're tryin' to concentrate so as we can bet on which bird'll rip t'other to shreds..."

Also very close to here is the Arkwright House. The white portion of the building shown was the house of Richard Arkwright. Born in 1732 he kick-started the Industrial Revolution by inventing a spinning and carding machine that produced a thread from raw cotton. Cottage industries became replaced by large mills, with housing being built around the mills to house the workers. Not everyone was overjoyed at this. It was a time of unbelievable change for the English way of life. We now live through another similar age of great change.

I remember being shown around the engineering department of a large college in 1986 being shown lots of empty rooms with computerised equipment whilst the Head of Engineering pointed out each one saying, "This one will do the work of a hundred men..." Those hundred men today are all out of work and it doesn't stop. Self-scan tills, computers where you can self-register a visit to the doctors or check-in at the airport. People won't be necessary at all in the future and the chances to meet someone else and share a casual conversation is doomed to become a dying art. I'd predict, because I see the beginnings of it already, that people will become more and more isolated and distrust anyone else, becoming either fearful or aggressive. I don't want to be around to see it and in that I'm sure I'm echoing every other generation since Richard Arkwright's time if not before.

The Industrial Revolution caused lots of resistance against machinery, long hours and exploitation. Those who found themselves out of work were put into the workhouses, to be separated from their wives and husbands and set to work on a diet of thin greasy leavings. Workhouses were meant to be harsh - they were meant to give people an incentive to work as they were the last resort of starving families. There's no easy answer to this because our less harsh regime today means lots of out-of-work families get more in benefits than some workers could ever hope to earn.

In Preston, mill owners acquired mini arsenals of weapons and ammunition to defend their factories from smashers and machine wreckers. In 1842 there was a strike by workers after wages were cut by 25%. A crowd gathered and was opposed by a troop of militia. Sam Horrocks read the Riot Act but was hit by a flung stone. The troopers levelled their guns and fired over the heads of the crowd. Thinking they were firing blanks because no one had been hit, the noisy crowd advanced. With the next volley five fell dead. The sculpture commemorating the event outside the Corn Exchange is close to the exact spot but the protagonists are facing the wrong way - they were the other way about. Lively place, Preston...

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