Blacksmith

Bradford Industrial Museum - There is a working forge at the museum. The blacksmith warned me to avoid the flying sparks when I was setting up my tripod. Kind of ironic, I thought...  I wonder if his chest hair is fire-proofed?

Soft and hard

Bradford Industrial Museum - studies in texture. A hamper full of raw wool and the pock-marked floor of the spinning shed.

Threads

Bradford Industrial Museum - After some experimentation, I decided it seemed more effective to focus in on the detail in the museum. Being housed in an old mill, it has huge windows which give good light but also create reflections on the metal and glass and mean you are shooting against the light, if you aren't careful. I'm quite pleased with both these compositions, one relying for impact on colour and the other on pattern. The top one shows the value of my new(ish) longer lens for getting an effective depth of field, something I'm still working at perfecting.

Beastly Machines

Bradford Industrial Museum -
When I visited there was a travelling exhibition of kinetic animal sculptures: Beastly Machines by Derbyshire-based artist Johnny White.
Made in metal, and using recycled junk, they were all quite wry and funny, commenting on current affairs or making a play on words. Many of them had buttons to press to set the pieces in motion. One even had an exercise bike so that you could power the movement by pedalling hard!

The top one is called frog cycle and had a frog pedalling a bike, whose wheel spokes were tadpoles at various stages of development. Clever.

Then there was a motorcycling thrush...

The flying pig, for some reason, reminds me of Richard Branson!

And the Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a boat that was not only pea-green but apparently made of large peas.

Spools

Bradford Industrial Museum - all the bobbins and spools on the machines are very photogenic. Perhaps there is a reason why the spool ends are painted different colours. I don't suppose it was just in order to delight photographers a century or so later!

Machine wheels

Bradford Industrial Museum - It always amazes me to see the huge variety of cogs and wheels in the machinery in the museum. I notice new variations each time I go. I like the different patterns and colours in the top image; three wheels, all different, all with a specific purpose.

The machine below was painted in muted greeny-brown colours but the red disc really stood out. I wondered if there was a reason this piece was painted red - danger, maybe? Seemed to cry out for a mono conversion and a colour-pop!

Bradford Industrial Museum

The coming series of photos were taken last year on a camera club trip, this time with the Ilkley club I belong to, to Bradford's Industrial Museum. I haven't had space to post them before. The museum is local for me and I have been many times before. I don't usually take my tripod but I did this time, as without one it is pretty tricky to get good, sharp shots inside.  I am not a great fan of shooting on a tripod, I have to say. It always feels like grappling with an octopus! (Even though it only has three legs.)

Maybe I have never been on a weekday before but there seemed to be a lot going on, with people working in the display areas and many of the machines actually working. It made me realise why so many mill workers ended up deaf. The noise of those spinning and weaving machines is incredible. Outside this old tram was parked up. It is a horse-drawn tram, pulled by a horse but running on tracks. Sadly the working horses they used to keep at the museum have been 'retired' as a cost-cutting measure.