Search results for: 'awai'

By Early Afternoon In 1997, while on assignment in Thailand, someone told me that one of the Thai borders with Cambodia was open and letting some people pass by. As a freelance journalist, I realized the opportunity and as soon as I finished my assignment, investigated the possibility of going to Cambodia. I knew that the UN Peace-Keeping Forces were in Cambodia and the Pol Pot army had mostly surrendered. But that was about it. It took me about two days to decide and prepare myself to go to Cambodia. W...

Introducing our 71st In Focus interviewee, Malik Rainey. Malik specialises in editorial and social documentary photography. However, Malik only became hooked on film when his friend Teo traded him his Pentax P30T for his bike. Section 1 - Background Share your favorite image/print shot on ILFORD film and tell us what it means to you. This image is an all-timer for me! I always find myself returning to this image because it’s perfect, from the little girl smiling directly at me to the boys playing baske...

Queer Representation I made the first photograph for The Queering of Photography in 2015. I had recently begun my doctoral studies and there I was, in the Royal College of Art studios, trying to make a start with an academic project on queer representation. My friend Ruth had agreed to sit for me and together we set up the studio. Once I placed a piece of masking tape on the floor, Ruth positioned themselves just behind, ready for the first frame. I had brought with me a handful of printouts from photobook...

'Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light'. Le Corbusier, 1920 Concrete Photography Brutalism as a style has received bad press. When we first hear the term, we all feel a logical rejection. The handbooks go on to explain that it comes from the French term béton brut, although the inventors of the term undoubtedly played on confusion, leaving an after-taste of je m’en fous, of bloody-mindedness, not giving a damn, in short. As a movement, as an a...

What it’s like to be a penguin Possession Island is a rock in the Southern Indian ocean, about the size of the Scottish Isle of Rùm. It harbours a small French research station (a couple dozen people year round), and half a million seabirds. We have been monitoring King penguin populations there for the past decades: fascinating birds, King penguins. They may look clumsy on shore, but each of these little characters has been scouring through the wildest seas in the world, year in and year out, weatherin...

“I’ll just fix it in the darkroom.” is the motto I’ve lived by for decades. I Was Too Deep Into Analog Studying photojournalism in the late 80s, I was taught to print well but never learned advanced printing techniques because we were being prepared for quick turn-around journalism assignments. Commercially available digital photography was in its infancy, so it wasn’t on my radar, and even when it became standard, I was too deep into analog to have any interest. I shot for a local paper for se...

 A History on the Road In May of 2023, I loaded up the car and I headed off to the North Cascades. The freeway had just reopened after a long, icy winter. I was desperate to break out of my work routine and follow my creative pursuits. Growing up in the American Southwest I spent my childhood in the back of my father’s pick up on our family’s retreats. Being from a blue-collar middle class family, we were never going anywhere fancy. We made pilgrimages to Arkansas in my youth where abandoned and di...

One Specific Speed Rating Us film photographers are used to the limitations of our medium. In fact, we often regard them as strengths, and not weaknesses. But even we can’t really take issue with the suggestion that as soon as we begin to expose a roll of film we are limited to one specific speed rating, making it more difficult to adapt to quickly changing light conditions. On digital: no problem. Just whack the ISO up to some implausibly high number, and keep shooting. Sadly we just can’t do that mid...

When I Was A Teenager Mine is a common story with photography in that my dad gave me his 35mm camera when I was a teenager. I shot his Minolta until I dropped it a few too many times and the light leaks became punitive. Soon after, I stumbled into the darkroom just as casually after I found my dad’s enlarger in the back of a closet and my friend, Joel, taught me the basics of printing in a few hours (I didn’t realize how difficult that would be). I didn’t have or know about filters and had no techniq...

Portraits Of Strangers I’ve always been fascinated with people on the street and how they carry themselves. Their faces, body language, the clothes they wear - everyone’s walking around with their own unique story, and I can’t help but be curious. I've spent a lot of time working with non-actors in commercials and documentaries, which has been a crash course in connecting with people quickly. It’s not your typical "stand here, do this" directing. It's about getting real people to open up in front o...