Nikon F3 at the British Iron Works

Like a lot of film photographers, I suffer with Gas Acquisition Syndrome and as soon as I see a charity shop I am in. Sadly, or maybe gladly to some of us, things ain’t what they used to be.  My third bedroom is full of cameras and books, most of them from GAS and a few left from my days as a professional photographer and qualified photography tutor.

Film for me, like a lot us, means anticipation and a slowing down of the digital machine gun approach, and out of all my SLRs, my Nikon F3HP is nearly always first choice.  I have had this camera since new and it still virtually in mint condition, its great advantage as a glasses wearer is its full screen viewing.

Legendary, classic, or the greatest SLR of all time as some folk see it, it is at the end of the day it is just an SLR, a film camera, small, beautiful and a joy to use. For film I much prefer black and white, but cannot get in the darkroom shed at the moment as I have cycles in there, so as I have a few colour films still in stock, decided to put a roll of colour in.

Film and processing costs for film are expensive, so I take my colour films to Max Speilman, have them developed and put on a CD, that way I can put them onto my ancient Windows 7 laptop, and with photoshop 6, make some slight adjustments and output them as digital images.

Always looking for something different to shoot, I decided to take to trip to Oswestry, where nestled within the heart of Shropshire, lies the British Iron works. A massive 70 acre estate, containing a nature reserve, and a sculpture park that is the largest in the UK.

The park offers a unique shopping experience with decorative metal work, inspiring sculptures and incredible art from around the world, enabling you to explore, dine and shop to your hearts content.

There is so much to photograph there, that one could easily shoot off a few rolls of film, unfortunately we were limited for time, so I just loaded up a roll 24 exposure of Kodak 100 Plus and wandered around.

They also offer artisan workers free workspace to work within the park. I have  over the last ten years run a small business called the Vintage Bike Stable in Rain ford, Merseyside which sadly I have recently closed, and just before the Pandemic arrived, the opportunity came for me to move over to the park, but that came to a very abrupt end due to Covid.

Anyway if you have kids and want a really, really exciting day out, I can heartily recommend it. It’s not cheap, but well worth the money for what is on offer.

One thing to remember though, is if you do go, and it’s a really busy day and the park is full of cars, remember where you car is parked, My partner and I spent an hour trying to find ours before leaving, and seven acres is a lot of space, to park a car, but there is a map available, which you will certainly need.

Below is  just a small selection of what is on offer to see.

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