As I get older I am occasionally reminded that I am in fact, knocking on a bit. The trouble is, I don’t feel any older than I did in my mid thirties.
A similar feeling pervades when I think of my standing as an artist/photographer. Am I well known, or still a small contributor whose work [...]
Have you amassed a large collection of negatives since you began photography? how about transparencies, prints, your camera collection?
What is going to happen to all this stuff when you die?
I have amassed a very large collection of all of the above, plus a collection of other photographers prints, glass negatives, books and ephemera.
I have my [...]
I have been out on a number of occasions since writing the last post. Some of the films are processed, but not all. We have had days when I could get to my darkroom and lots of days when I could not. I have had to scan the negatives to show the results here, but [...]
It’s almost a year since I started this blog and one of the first articles I wrote was about shooting in the snow on Ortho film (See ‘High contrast snow scenes’, Feb ‘09). I also wrote another article on achieving higher contrast by altering the film ISO and increasing the development time (see ‘Flexible film’ [...]
Although the weather is turning much colder now here in the UK, I really want to get out and do some more night photography. I’ve not done any serious night stuff for a while now and keep seeing shots while I’m driving or at other inconvenient times. I try to make a mental note of [...]
Just over a week ago I found myself in the northern UK town of Bolton. I was there for two days with my university students who were doing a street photography project based on the ‘Worktown’ pictures of Humphrey Spender.
Spender was part of a group of people who were involved in a mass observation project [...]
One of the most important areas of photography is the processing of negatives. The quality of your images is dependent on how much care and attention you take with your developer, dilution, times, temperature and agitation. Following much of the literature which has been published on the matter though, could give you too many things [...]
Earlier this year I was shooting a lot of 10×8 and was convinced that I’d never pick up a 35mm camera ever again. By August I was fully in love with the 35mm format once more! Now, in September I am shooting 5×4, seeing pictures everywhere and producing images that I am really happy with.
I [...]
Today I did the third of my video interviews for this blog. I am interviewing other film photographers and darkroom printers in the uk. The videos will be uploaded at a later date when they are all edited and finished. Today it was a photographer who I have known for over thirty years and who [...]
My posts have been delayed recently because I have been away a couple of times and had a number of teaching workshops to do.
In my personal work, I have been using a 5×7 inch Kodak Specialist camera with old Ilfospeed paper in the back. This technique can produce lovely results, but often the paper negatives [...]