...a plethora of creative nonsense...
Posts and tutorials relating to technical aspects of photographic practice, both film and digital
Reading Time: 4 minutes And so, back again to the dreaded Lomography. It is funny how it always ends up there. One thing I will say is that the Lomography crowd have an almost insatiable desire for hacking things, making cameras do weird and wonderful effects and sometimes I …
Reading Time: 4 minutes Following on from my post on stand development in Rodinal a few days ago, this seems as good an opportunity as any to write about another film for which I used this process, along with some digital trickery to create some exciting hybrid images. The …
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sometimes I wonder about my sanity. A long time ago, I bought a random collection of old film from that den of iniquity that is Ebay. I think I was pulled in by the fact that it had a couple of 126 Cartridges, which are …
Reading Time: 4 minutes I was asked by work to attend a meeting in York the other day – so with my best bargaining head on I agreed to this if I could have the rest of the day off, as York in the run up to Christmas is …
Reading Time: 7 minutes Don’t worry, this isn’t an advert on finding a cheap ‘experience’ or anything like that (if you want that you can go here), it is about doing film macro photography with retro tools that you can often find very cheaply. I love finding interesting bits …
Reading Time: 3 minutes Kodak Ektachrome Professional Infrared EIR Film has become a bit of a holy grail for experimental photographers, and I have seen it command prices of over £100 on ebay. I was lucky enough to get hold of a roll in a mixed bundle of old films (along with 2 HIE Black and White infra-red rolls for about £14 – I guess the guy didn’t know what he had!).
EIR is a ‘false colour’ technical film, coated on an Estar base with a sensitivity from 380-900nm – this covers the full visible spectrum and some of the near-UV and all of the near-IR range. Near Infra-red wavelengths are rendered as a deep visible red, and due to the ‘Woods Effect’ (reflection of n-IR wavelengths from foliage) this means that foliage comes out in this colour creating strange and bizarre visual effects.
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s been a busy weekend here. I must confess I was a little apprehensive about all this. Not really by choice, but simply because I haven’t really found many people as obsessed as I am with taking pictures , much of my photography has been …
Reading Time: 2 minutes As a photographer, like anything, there is always a possibility that nature will not play ball. I think this rates highly as one of those. The International Space Station actually passes quite frequently and visibly, but this was supposedly a good show, where it would …
Reading Time: 12 minutes Focal Length, Field of View and Depth of Field… These all sound very exciting. Or maybe not. Perhaps they just sound slightly frightening. They are the sort of thing that you can delve into in quite some complexity, or try to avoid as much as …
Reading Time: 7 minutes I have recently got back from my first family holiday since my son was born, staying in a lovely cottage managed by my mother in the village of Cwm Penmacho in rural Conwy. This little village lies at the head of the Machno Valley, about …
Reading Time: 4 minutes …I have been discussing this work with another photographer, Andreas Andrews, who also uses light trails and long exposures in his work, though often in his case with a very steady set up so that the background is rendered sharp and the trails very clean. I think that both styles have their appeal – there is a definite calm to clean straight trails, but sometimes the atmosphere of a place is better rendered with some chaos and confusion…
