Frugal Film Project 2023 - October

 With Keith staying at my place for a few days he wanted to go further afield for a photo adventure and asked if my wife and I wanted to go to Blacpool for an afternoon of photography followed by a drive through the Illuminations before heading home. We have been basically housebound for a few weeks and reckoned the sea air would do us some good. I loaded a roll of Kentmere 400 into Baldy the Baldax and off we went.

In our defence, it was sunny when we set off, but as soon as we parked up, the clouds began rolling in and the light was very challenging to say the least. Keith and I both had a light meter and made the best of the it whilst we could.

I haven't visited Blackpool for over 20 years and a lot has changed in that time whilst remaining exactly the same. The famous Blackpool Tower hasn't changed much, it's a fine piece of engineering built in the early 1890's and opened to the public in 1894. Since then it's been painted regularly to fend off the corrosive effects of the sea breeze and festooned with modern lights that are switched on after sunset.

Across the Tram lines from Blackpool Tower is the Comedy Carpet, a place where catchphrases and one liners from Britains finest comedians and variety performers over the years are written large in letters made from granite and encased in white concrete on the Festival Headland section of the Promenade. People are welcome to explore and find their favourite artists and it was well worth the time we spent there.

A veritable who's who of British comedians and variety entertainers have graced stages in Blackpool. A residency at the Joe Longthorne Theater at the end of North Pier was once the highlight of many a career. Summer Season shows are still very popular and all part of the Blackpool Experience. We enjoyed our walk to the North Pier and along it to try to get a shot of the Central Pier and Blackpool Tower, but all too soon the light had gone and we had to head back to the car before our parking time ran out. We didn't want a parking ticket on this trip.

After stowing away Keith and my wife's chariots, we headed towards Bispham, just to the north of Blackpool Prom and found a takeaway to help warm us up. It may have been a dry day, but the sea breeze had an autumnal feel to it and a hot meal would warm us up a bit. The final part of our day out was to drive through the world famous Blackpool Illuminations. 

October is slap bang in the middle of Blackpool Illuminations season, a 6 mile celebration with brightly lit displays and a multitude of coloured lights over head along the Promenade. It was good to drive through the Illuminations before heading home, thoroughly worn out after a great wander along Blackpool Promenade. It finished our day out nicely.

I developed my film a couple of days later in Zone Imaging 510 Pyro for 11 minutes at 20 celcius, stopped with flitered water, fixed with Fotospeed FX30 and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I was pretty pleased with the film despite the dull conditions we faced on the day. It looked nicely exposed, but the proof is always when you process it further, either in a proper darkroom or as I do with my Nikon D700, Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm f/2.5 macro lens and process the RAW files with Affinity Photo 2.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from our day out at the seaside. I said last month how much I was enjoying using Baldy The Baldax for the second half of this years Frugal Film Project, and that still holds true. I have really grown to appreciate such a simple camera that still produces reasonably decent photos 90 years after it left the factory. As always I have placed them and more in my Frugal Film Project 2023 album on Flickr that you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Frugal Film Project 2023