Drawing with light
Sir John Herschel is generally credited with bringing the term photography into circulation. From a union of the Greek phos and graphein, it boils down to drawing with light. Bright light, dim light, fleeting light and interminable midday sun; all remained essentially impermanent and ephemeral until a quarter of the way through the 19th century, when a few individuals started to make progress in capturing that light. Initially, due to the long exposure times—minutes, if not hours—it was stationary objects and scenes that were recorded. The first photograph of a person was of someone in France, receiving a shoe-shine; they stood still long enough to become an incidental element in a street scene. From 1826 until 1889, a variety of processes was tried: the crude Bitumen of Judea used by Nicephore de Niepce and the exquisite but unreproducible polished silver images created by Louis Daguerre; the paper Calotype negatives of Fox Talbot; collodion glass plates that could be printed again and again, but which required great care and speed in use; durable flexible film negatives eventually made popular by George Eastman. The twentieth century brought colour emulsions, motion pictures and very high sensitivity to light.
When I started pointing cameras at things, the technology was very often heavy and metallic. Automation was a relatively recent development, with just a handful of cameras offering automatic exposure control—although fully automatic exposure was still a decade or more away. Indeed, I started with a Kodak Box Brownie, a SIX-20 C, but rapidly progressed to the dizzy heights of a borrowed Yashicamat. Since then, I've shot through large-format lenses and finely-crafted pinholes; on black-and-white and colour film; negatives and transparencies. I've loved FP4, Ektachrome 400 and Cibachrome; diluted D76, HC110 and Paterson chemicals. I've observed and ignored guidelines; abused materials and processes; taken all the care in the world, and rushed things to get a quick result. Sometimes, I've produced photographs that satisfy me.
Lately, I have embraced the world of digital photography, although there are aspects of it that have not sat well with my preferences. For a start, I have an aversion to using LCD menus (see Keeping Calm: 1, 2, 3, 4.....): I'd much rather have conventional shutter speed and aperture controls. For that reason, I'd be more at home with a Canon F-1 than a 5D, but the increasing difficulty of accessing processing services and the modern expectation of seeing photographs immediately means that use of my film cameras has declined almost to the point of total cessation. But I still love them. In fact, virtually any camera made prior to about 1975, made of metal and leatherette, will find a loving home chez moi. I have an embryonic collection of such devices, which I am happy to have saved from oblivion. I wouldn't call myself a collector though - far from it - but won't turn away anything interesting.
When I started pointing cameras at things, the technology was very often heavy and metallic. Automation was a relatively recent development, with just a handful of cameras offering automatic exposure control—although fully automatic exposure was still a decade or more away. Indeed, I started with a Kodak Box Brownie, a SIX-20 C, but rapidly progressed to the dizzy heights of a borrowed Yashicamat. Since then, I've shot through large-format lenses and finely-crafted pinholes; on black-and-white and colour film; negatives and transparencies. I've loved FP4, Ektachrome 400 and Cibachrome; diluted D76, HC110 and Paterson chemicals. I've observed and ignored guidelines; abused materials and processes; taken all the care in the world, and rushed things to get a quick result. Sometimes, I've produced photographs that satisfy me.
Lately, I have embraced the world of digital photography, although there are aspects of it that have not sat well with my preferences. For a start, I have an aversion to using LCD menus (see Keeping Calm: 1, 2, 3, 4.....): I'd much rather have conventional shutter speed and aperture controls. For that reason, I'd be more at home with a Canon F-1 than a 5D, but the increasing difficulty of accessing processing services and the modern expectation of seeing photographs immediately means that use of my film cameras has declined almost to the point of total cessation. But I still love them. In fact, virtually any camera made prior to about 1975, made of metal and leatherette, will find a loving home chez moi. I have an embryonic collection of such devices, which I am happy to have saved from oblivion. I wouldn't call myself a collector though - far from it - but won't turn away anything interesting.
On the Portfolio page can be found links to some of my work. My photographic presence is at Redbubble, as well as a retrospective collection in book form, published via Blurb.
