Never one to let a photographic opportunity pass him by, David Simper took his twin lens reflex film camera down to the Aunty Social building to join Blackpool Community Darkroom and explore the surrounding Heritage Action Zone.
I got to Aunty Social on Topping Street reasonably early due to Sunday bus times and the need to load the camera, however there were already plenty of friends and new faces already there.
Aunty Social created a community darkroom space for people to share, learn and refine their photography skills. Run by a collective of local photographers, it launched at the start of the year offering workshops, photowalks and more.
I still had plenty of time to prepare my Yashica 635, fixing my usual yellow filter and slipping in a roll of a favourite HP5 film.
Twelve shots is a useful number for an exercise of this kind and virtually guarantees that the camera will be cleared, or that’s what I thought. In fact I could have done with another few frames.
The light wasn’t the best with not a lot of contrast in the sky. Even with the yellow filter, the sky’s still pretty washed out. On the other hand, the light was even and there were few harsh shadows to contend with, meaning that detail is well rendered and highlights are not burnt out. It was bright enough to set the camera on f5.6 with shutter speeds between 1/125 and 1/250, for sharp and deep images.
We set off into the Heritage Action Zone area and worked our way from East Topping Street, onto Cookson and then Church Street, into the town centre before walking down Coronation Street and back up Adelaide Street behind the Winter Gardens. My pictures track the trajectory and you can see how my film ran short. I lost a frame when a chap walked into the shot unexpectedly as I pressed the release. ‘Bother!’ I said, because I’m English.
There was more of the tour to do, but I knew that there was tea tasting and music at the Tea Amantes cafe that afternoon and being close by that point, decided to peel off to Albert Road and join this. Bye bye to all! After all, I was out of film.
At Tea Amantes the tea was tasty, as was the food, the company congenial and the music, a solo guitarist, was entertaining. While it would have been nice to finish the tour and chat with fellow photographers, this was a pleasant end to a morning walk and an afternoon chill session.
Here are the results, I hope you like them.











Out of film! Tsk!
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