direct positive reverse prints

another one of these..  

jess hobbs

another one of these wee docos from ilford. community dark rooms are a rarity round these parts now. i remember not even twenty years ago i could locate one with ease. now, as far as i know, there's one that the local photographic club has but, beyond that, there's a privately run public access one about 40 miles away. plus, film is just expensive, and there's no two ways round that. that said, getting out, even with 'just' your phone is the easiest it's ever been. no excuses! 

macro photography basics

 

contact printing

 me, i've stuck with my direct positive paper, mainly for reasons of simplicity but a lot of my pinhole acquaintances swear by contact printing. here's ari showing how to make it easy.

lee miller

i wasn't taken by the trailer for the upcoming 'lee' film so here's this instead which, i think, is likely to be much more interesting 

using a light meter

 to be honest i've yet to be convinced that thrashing out the money on one of these light meters for pinhole photography is giving me much more than what i had with my app light meter - though to be fair i like the randomness of my eye over either! but it's a good basic guide in any case

pinhole photography

 another pinhole basics video from martin henson because.... martin henson! 

joe barnes

 i can't get enough of joshua charowjoshua charow's series on artists in their lofts. here's joe barnesjoe barnes 

gabrielle bones

 i seem to have a few self portrait photogrpahers dropping into my feed of late. love some of the work but i'm not over comfortable with the concept. so here's gabrielle bones to explain it to me

*note the line about her dad giving her a camera. it's so important to encourage kids into the habit of creativity esp in these times where arts education is being deprioritised

sebastiao salgado

 love his work. deserves all the recognition 

pinhole camera

analogue legend martin henson makes a pinhole camera, if you've got a scanner the method for measuring aperture is super useful. i did laugh tho when he was measuring for exposure - my metering is so often patent nonsense that i imagine that, either my meter is entirely wrong, the camera i'm using is somehow vastly different from what the manufacturer says it is, or the user error is so glaring that i can't recognise it! whatever, all my pinhole images are done on instinct, which is why there's such a relatively high failure rate - given the cost of analogue photography this gets irksome really quickly so if you do try it, do so with a budget you can afford to throw away! 

making a mini exhibition

 ari makes a mini exhibition. so much more satisfying than a session on photoshop! the expense of photo paper these days make it a less frequent pleasure tho! but you could do this sort of thing with any endeavour

filters

 an back to fiddling with filters. it's complicated-ish. here's a guide. 

hiroshi sugimoto

 hiroshi sugimoto  

macro and more

here's a vid about macro photography which, given the whole botany thing, has always been something i've been interested in. but it's not just about macro, or photography. the stuff he's on about can be applied to any endeavour. i'm doing it with drawing, different methods of pigment aplication and collage right now. just for a break, just for a laugh, but at the same time pushing my boundaries 

shooting in flat light

i feel very fortunate these days, as i'm playing with my digital camera (every frame a saving! lol) that my initial education re shutter speed and aperture came with my fully analogue zenit that i inherited back in my teens (initially with a light meter but then, sadly, not). there's nothing new or surprising in this video other than what's in this video needs explained. i guess if you can take a thousand shots, rather than 12/24/36, and then sort it in photoshop, it doesn't really matter. me, i've never given up the notion, that the shot is what you take at that moment in time and no jiggerypokery after! but, each to their own! this  is handy if you're not familiar whether it and, if you are, maybe a motivator to get put when the light's less good and challenge your technique 

*i'm looking at getting an old zenit again, not for film but so i can make mini tintypes. watch this space!

long exposure

 as i do a fair bit of pinhole photography (anthotypes on hold due to a chronic lack of sunlight!) long exposures are nothing new. but, seeing as photographic paper is such an effective way of emptying my bank account, weirdly enough i've been gravitating back to digital. point and shoot, beyonf my phone, doesn't interest me much, but getting my cameras on full manual and having a play certainly does, and i've finally found a way of enjoying digital that feels something like play. this vid's a decent intro

back button focus

 handy 

natalie oberg

 i'm really liking this my film story series. when i had small female relatives i found it much easier to get them motivated if i could show them women doing things they might only have associated with me!

budget lenses

 other than shooting film there's few cheaper ways of emptying your bank account quickly than money spent on lenses. i use the first lens in this vid a lot. so much so that i'd say it's almost moved me away from my expensive (and time consuming) film habit and back to digital. the images are so random that, with the camera set on full manual i get free range to experiment with actually camera technique and it really puts me in mind of my first ever camera, a zenit with a broken light meter that i used fully on eye, i really can't be bother ed with all the camera shenanigans, whether its complex developing with film, or horrible editing sessions with digital - i just like mucking about taking pictures. cheap lenses are a great way to do this, to free yourself up and actually enjoy what you're doing

* i'm in no way critcising those who like their photoshop/lightbox or for whom hours in a dark room is a day well spent. i love, esp the darkroom stuff, having a blether about all that but i don't really understand it and its not for me