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A black and white film community
Since film is no longer the primary domain of professionals, it’s been adopted again in earnest by passionate individuals that produce legitimate work. In this age of instant gratification, infinite dynamic range, and auto-everything, it’s nice to rely on a predictable and high-quality medium.
I shoot HP5+ almost exclusively. It’s everything I want in a black and white film. It’s flexible, widely available and fits right into my workflow. I’ve played both...
A little background
I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. My chosen field of study was production engineering, but was I taking photography classes in the evenings and began working for a super cool magazine called Urbe, which is a bit like what Vice is in the UK now. I quickly became the chief photographer shooting all kinds of amazing and interesting people, and it was then that I knew that this is what I wanted to do with my life. Looking back it was quite an interesting time - I’d be learnin...
A former life . . .
Before my life as a photographer I worked in Social Services for many years advocating and caring for adults with severe intellectual and psychical disabilities. It was an aim of mine after completing my photography studies to somehow incorporate my former work with my new creative profession.
A film connection
Shortly after going freelance I was contacted by a Diversional Therapist from a Sydney hospital who had a client with a Traumatic Brain Injury who, before a tragic accident som...
I’m Anil Mistry and I’m a photographer. I shoot a whole variety of work, including headshots, documentary, portraits and personally initiated projects. Whatever interests me and helps me to improve my body of work.
I’ve been asked to talk about an area of my photographic work that I have a real passion for. In my case, that's the capturing of street portraits.
Why do I take street portraits?
There’s two main reasons I do it, and I’ll try to go through them succinctly:
It’s not easy
...
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...
An appreciation of Ilford FP4
The greatest pleasures can be taken from the simplest of things. An appreciation of something old that gets passed by while everyone tries to keep up with the crowd or the relentless progression of technology. For me Ilford’s FP4 is one of those little pleasures.
The RAF
I was a photographer in the Royal Air Force from 1986 -1995. At my RAF unit we had little choice of film stock. It was FP4 and HP5 for black and white. Being stationed at a headquarters unit mean...
Taking the plunge
I'd had this roll of Ilford HP4 for a good few months and was hesitant to put it through a camera. The fact that it was so pristine in it's condition made me feel that whatever I used it for had to be significant. I had to wait for the right opportunity.
As the weeks passed, I began putting unnecessary pressure on myself to plan a shoot around this one film. It was sitting on a shelf, judging me. At this point I decided to stop procrastinating and just shoot the roll, regardless of w...
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 ...
It is my opinion that some photographers mistakenly regard ILFORD HP5 PLUS and its predecessors to be a somewhat cheaper, lower quality response to Kodak’s Tri-X. I hope to demonstrate in this review that this assumption simply isn’t the case.
There’s much more to HP5 PLUS than meets the eye – something that regular shooters of this film will be more than aware of (you folks can leave now, nothing new here).
For those of you who haven’t shot this film before, this review will give you my tak...
Spoilt for choice
We love weeks like this one, where we’re spoilt for choice with loads of great images to choose from for #ilfordfridayfavourites
@RobFraser #JustAdd experience and time. Yorkshire Dales farmer Harry Hutchinson of Uldale shot on FP4 large format
@StephenPrunier Shot and developed #IlfordPanF thinking it was #IlfordHP5 I think I lucked out!
@DrMarsRover Sonwdonia, Wales Ilford HP5+ film, print made on Ilford MG fiber Classic
@OlafSudan Ilford Panf+ ’30’...