Photography - Monochrome night shot

I took this photo a few years ago at around 11pm. The factory in the shot is a sugar beet factory in Spalding, Lincs, UK.
I had gone for a walk and as I crossed the bridge over the river the light playing on the steam from the factory caught my eye.

I almost always carried my camera at that time. I had a fairly simple Olympus OM10 SLR at the time but it did for me. As it was night time I had a bit of a problem. With the longest exposure needed I couldn't stand and hold the camera as I would just get blurry images. I had no tripod, nor cable release/remote action lead (in the day before timers on cameras were standard). What could I do?

I placed my camera on the wall of the bridge - not too close to the edge to risk it falling into the river below. I looked best I could through the viewfinder (no 3.5" led screen in those days). Once I had it all set up to my liking I very gingerly pressed the shutter release. I did this three or four times and hoped I'd get one good shot at least.

As this was way before digital photography I couldn't tell if my picture(s) would be any good until I got the film developed. In some ways that was part of the excitement but it could also be very frustrating. Especially when it was a one off chance of a photo. Luckily my partner at the time and I had a darkroom set up at home, so when I returned I developed the film and voila! One of the pictures turned out good enough.

The best of the bunch was still a little fuzzy but not only was I pleased with the picture but the sense of achievement in doing that was great - I feel that is lost nowadays with the digital, print immediately photo-culture. Don't get me wrong, it's great fun nowadays too, I just think that something that was good got lost.

@juliank