Radcliffe on Trent Power Station

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Chris
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I've been taking shots from various viewpoints of the Radcliffe on Soar power station. It really dominates the landscape near where I live, and basically guarantees that we never get any real snow, and that there are always a few "clouds" in the sky. Looking for a bit of a project to learn my new mamiya, I figured this was a pretty good one to go with. I also just noticed I called this Radcliffe on Trent power station, it aint. Its Radcliffe on Soar.

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures, both on TriX @ 400, developed in Rodinal 1+50.

1)
Power-station-and-train-lin.jpg


2)
power-and-river.jpg


I have a few more, and hopefully will be able to add more over the next few weeks, maybe even some colour if I can send some films away.

C&C welcome chaps & chapesses.
 
I love the 2nd shot, it seems to convey the power and dominance by just showing a tiny bit of chimney in an otherwise pretty landscape.

and an RB67.... yum. still the nicest sound made by a camera in my book. :D
 
:agree: with Daz ... the second has a certain illusion of the power beyond ... (y) ... not sure the first does the same and I think the sky is a little flat ... :shrug:




:p
 
Thanks guys.

I've got to say I agree with you, number 2 is my favourite as well. I knew as soon as I saw it it was the shot of the day, and when I saw the neg and knew it had worked I was well chuffed (y)

I've had another go at the sky on number 1, hows this for you?

Power-station-and-train-2.jpg


I've got to agree about the RB as well, its an incredible camera, it just feels so right. I think I might have a go at a bit of street photography with it, the waist finder should hopefully give a different viewpoint.

Hopefully there should be another couple to come shortly.
 
I've been taking shots from various viewpoints of the Radcliffe on Soar power station. It really dominates the landscape near where I live, and basically guarantees that we never get any real snow, and that there are always a few "clouds" in the sky.

On the doorstep! RaTcliffe on Soar is visible in the middle distance from the bedroom windows of our house, the kids call it "The Cloud Factory"

It doesn't stop the snow, but you've got to realise that its about the furthest you can get from the sea within the UK and its not far above sealevel. Snow is therefore less likely locally anyway. The big friday night blizzard of wet snow in 90(?) brought down a lot of those big powerlines in the Soar valley.

Great shots, most of us know it from afar from the hills or from the M1 and A453 but you've got out into some unusual viewing angles. Nice work. It always looks very clean and dull to me, you've made it gritty and smouldering with intent, I'm impressed.
 
The power station just serves as a nice scapegoat for a lack of snow almost as far back as I can remember, apart from a little bit of slush every now and then. Cloud factory is a brilliant name for it, thats exactly what it is :)

The shots from the castle are soo far away, especially with the lenses available to me for the mamiya. It might be worth a look in the summer though if we get some nice blue skies.

I'm hoping to get some pictures from around the other side as well, plus hopefully some really close shots. Almost everything I have ever seen is from far away, so I'm hoping to get a different take on it.

Heres number 3, one of the more stereotypical far away shots, but I like it anyway, despite the flare and burnt out areas. I like the way its still dark, even though the sky is fairly bright.

power-station-over-lake-1.jpg
 
Thats beautifull ^
Hope it wasn't too much of a trek with all that gear, RB's are total tanks.
Theres some variation in grain, 400 isn't usually that grainy.
Sometimes you need to be heavy with usm and it brings it out, or Rodinal can be a bit...thorough.
I like them with grain whatever..(y)
 
you've got to be clear on this, it's Ratcliffe on Soar with the power station,
Radcliffe on Trent is to the southeast of Nottingham and gets Holme Pierrepont as a neighbour instead of cooling towers. Common mistake.

Ever been to the old tudor manor house at holme pierrepont? beautiful place, went to a wedding there, unfortunately (fortunately?) the camera film jammed and we didn't get a shot of the 21 bum salute . . . ho hum

the wife commutes past the power station early each morning and likes the view of it with the river mists hanging across the fields.
 
This probably makes Nottinghamshire the county with the most power stations of this kind. This one at Ratcliffe and the other three towards the north of the county - albeit one of those is now 'offline' the county has three of these working stations. North Yorkshire has two...

.....anorak off now.....
 
locally Donnington has been levelled, but at Willington they've left the cooling towers up while levelling every other building, strange, almost as if somebody at the last minute shouted "wait, we may still need them!"
 
Cheers for all the comments.

Never been to the Manor house I'm afraid, might be worth a visit though from the sounds of it. Last place I went was Rufford Abbey with the family at xmas, but lost the film due to completely knackered developer :(

I'm hoping I can get down to the river early in the morning, maybe on Saturday. It does seem a bit wierd the number of powerstations you see around Notts, just lucky I guess.

Maybe they are going to turn the cooling towers into giant blocks of flats? would be a much more interesting use for them than just destroying them.
 
coal fired power stations use lots of cooling water, hence alongside BIG rivers, originally with an emphasis on being navigable for big barges eg Trent & Soar. Also local to coal supplies, remember them? - Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Notts. Now also important for limestone for the desulphurising process, the output from which is significant quantities of gypsum hence handy having British Gypsum's existing gypsum mine down the road from Ratcliffe and they make plasterboard from it.
 
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