The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled.
We use cookies to make your experience better.To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies.Learn more.
Man of science
I love alternative photographic techniques like dry plates and brushed on emulsions. I am a darkroom fanatic – always exploring new ways to mash up digital with traditional analog techniques. I love all kinds of print processes – cyanotypes, salts, van dykes to name a few. I shoot all formats right from 35mm half frames up to 8×10 large format.
I am also an avid camera collector but prefer to be a user rather than an admirer of my cameras. I currently use a Nikon F3, Leica M-A, Hasse...
On Reading — stealing from the best
Nearly all of my photographs organize themselves into loosely defined, open-ended projects that are never finished but often stop at an interesting place for a portfolio, show, or hand-made book.
People often ask; “Where do you get ideas for your projects?” British photographer and educator, David Hurn says; “Our advice to photographers is best expressed by Calvin Trilling: ‘The immature artist borrows; the mature artist steals.’ So steal from the best....
Self-portraiture as Catharsis
My photography is a form of therapy, a personal, emotional and sometimes turbulent struggle with the complexity of emotions. I feel my life and art have become intertwined and to bury this mental state deep within would only allow it to thrive but through my use of photography, I am offered a sense of catharsis.
My self-depictions manifest within the same four walls, my bedroom. The room I believe is the keeper of my trapped and repressed emotions. This often heavily constr...
Sharing my skills
I’ve recently started working as a lecturer on BTEC and HND photography courses at Swindon College. A job which I’m enjoying immensely. Teaching was something I’d never considered before, until I started helping friends who were studying on the same BA Photography course as me. I enjoyed helping them but most of all I enjoyed seeing them understand and use the skills that I’d shown them.
I now teach mainly 16 – 20-year-olds, which is enormously satisfying. Watching thei...
Tranquility
Alan Brock searches for a sense of calm in his images. He shares how he achieves it below
Technical info
Film Used: Delta 100
Format: 4x5
Camera: Intrepid 4x5 II
Lens: Nikkor 180mm f/5.6. Shot at f/45
Exposure time: 40s
Other equipment: Gitzo 1545T Tripod
Location: Parksville Lake Tennessee
Firstly, tell us the story behind this image. What inspired you to shoot it?
I like to search for a sense of calm in my images. In a lot of ways this fits my...
Going digital
If we go back to 2002 a close photographic friend convinced me (against my better judgement) that film was a thing of the past, and that to hold my own in the professional photographic world I had to go digital. Eventually I succumbed to his argument and traded in my Leica film cameras (I had 4) and started on the dizzy road to digital photography.
In those days some fifteen years ago I thought it would be just like changing film brands: OK it may take a bit of getting used to a different ...
Images with feeling
The most attractive element of analogue is its delicacy. The analogue process has remained so ingrained into my practice, I can't imagine working in any other way. Seeking images which stir a feeling within and seeing that image through each stage of the process to finally create a hand-made darkroom print.
The print may not be perfect, I do not tirelessly work on test strips creating a technically perfect image, I never leave the confines of the darkroom to inspect the print once it...
Double exposures can be really tricky to get right. Lucy Ridges shares the secrets behind her ship / nude image below.
Ship
Technical information
Shot on:
FP4 plus medium format film
Camera
Mamiya RB 67
Exposure time
Double exposure, each exposure 1/60 F5.6
Other equipment
With bowens studio flash (1 x large soft box)
I shot this image at my photographic studio in Manchester, located within Rogue Artist Studios
The story behind the image
My work for many years has encompassed a love for mul...
An experiment in chemical possibilities
When I took up a camera after a few years’ hiatus in 1990, I was surprised to discover that I could no longer get a black & white film developed through the nearest camera shop, never mind through the local pharmacy. If memory serves, I was told it would cost $40 for a single film. Naturally, I returned to processing my own film just I had done when I first took up a camera in the early 1970s. The world had moved on, and colour film was the default medium f...