STOP

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"Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life," Oscar Wilde, 1889

My career as a professional photographer has spanned over 40 years, which could be classed as over exposure. The same principal can be said in my silver-based film photography where I over-expose my black and white, Ilford HP5 film.

Recently, my teaching career has ended after only four years, which includes the one year of PGCE training, which can be classed as under-developed. Again, this mirrors the next stage of my silver-based practice whereby I would under-develop the roll of HP5.

Therefore, at the age of 60, my life is on hold, or stop, for the time being. This, once again, mirrors the next stage in my silver-based workflow whereby the film is placed in a Stop bath to arrest the development.

So, what happens next? I’m sure all my photographic industry friends will correctly be saying the word ‘fix’! Yes, I need to find a fix to my situation, in the same way I would need to put my roll of HP5 into a fixing bath to stabilize the images and make them permanent.

As to what the fix will be, my life is still imitating my art, and just like my roll of film, I will be keeping you in the dark until after the fix has progressed.

Developer tray, stop bath

Customer Testimonial and Peer Recognition - What Could be Better?

Great start to the day as this popped up in my email. A shot taken for the Hybrid MMA Academy in Marple as the talented Richard Boyd is refreshing their website. Brilliant to not only get great customer feedback but also peer recognition from some of the best international editors around at Leica Fotografie International.

Really enjoyable to combine both my advertising and documentary photography expertise on an assignment for a client.

I was also very impressed by how good the Leica M10-R camera performed and how perfect this camera was for what I wanted to achieve in the conditions that were available.

Leica Camera Ltd

Leica Camera AG

#advertisingphotography #documentaryphotography #editorialphotography

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Analogue Photography Examples

#FilmPhotographyDay - April 12th

To celebrate film photography day, I thought I’d post some examples of the work I used to shoot regularly on film before I switched to digital early in the early 2000’s.

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My main analogue cameras for all of my industrial and commercial photography were the medium format Mamiya RZ6x7 and the Sinar P2 monorail camera.

The Mamiya used 120 roll film and gave you 10 shots of 6cm x 7cm per roll. The Sinar used both 5'“x4” and 10”x8” sheet film, self loaded in double dark slides which gave you two sheets of film per slide.

I only ever used the 35mm format when the client needed a slide show using projectors or if the assignment needed more flexibility as the shot above on The Prince of Wales Bridge illustrates.

Shooting film gave me a great education and grounding in professional photography, especially in key areas of lighting and understanding dynamic range. Some films were considered good and others not so good, all part of being a pro photographer to have a knowledge of the different types of film to use.

The films I mostly used were made by Kodak and Fuji, and nearly all of the time they were transparency or slide films as opposed to negatives. It was critical to get the exposure accurate to within 1/3 of a stop in exposure for the scene or else you would lose detail in shadows or highlights.

If you’d like some mentoring on shooting film, by all means get in touch via my contact page.

#filmphoto #filmphotography

Analogue Film Archiving and Scanning

Finally getting round to organising my analogue archive properly after all my spare transparencies have been gathering dust in numerous cardboard boxes and old lab job bags.

I'm giving them a new home in nice Secol pocket sleeves that will live in Kenro folders and slip cases. I've decided to create digital contact sheets from each page by shooting each sheet on my old light box and even brought my old Nikon D3 out of semi-retirement to do the job. Raw files, 1/40th @ f8 with a base ISO of 200 and processed in CaptureOne. A bit contrasty but easily rectified in C1.

Overall a very therapeutic, long-term project, helped along the way with some weekly scanning of certain images that float my boat. This is Julie Goodyear and Danielle Nicholls from the pantomime, Snow White, circa Y2K.

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What Camera Bag Should I Buy?

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What Camera Bag Should I Buy?

Naturally that will depend on the type of camera you want to put in there, the lenses and accessories you want to carry with you and where you are going to be going with it. For example, if like me, you want to take a single camera body and 3-4 prime lenses or a couple of smaller zooms and go hiking around a city or in the hills, then I’d recommend a backpack.

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360° Spin Photography

360° Spin Photography

Good to be back in the studio yesterday after the Christmas break. Interesting to do some pack shot and 360° Spin tests for a global workwear and PPE manufacturer. I haven't used my Nikon Intervalometer for a while and the rotating turntable worked really well. You'll have to forgive my own well worn PPE shoes though!

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A Hoverboard at Christmas

That's me finished for Christmas, the last job turned around in just over an hour including product drop-off by the customer, three different angles shot, digital processing, proofs delivered to the clients phone whilst he enjoyed a walk around the local beauty spot at Dove Stone Reservoir, collection of his product and digital delivery of his files via email whilst he drove back to the office. Pretty good for two days before Christmas and the first time I've shot a hoverboard!

All the best to everyone for Christmas and the New Year.

#packshot #productphotography #studiophotography #hoverboard

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