who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Who
I am a web designer professionally and a photographer through choice (but sort of professional in the sense I have made money from photography… but I still need the day job lol).
Self portrait 2009
I’m based in Deptford, London, UK and have a strong sense of location, an affection for the area specifically, and a love of London in general.
Why skinnyvoice? e.e.cummings has a lot to answer for1.
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
What
This is a blog to record my experiences in (re) learning how to use my film cameras. Despite the blog title, there are also many photos from Greenwich, Blackheath and elsewhere. Anywhere I have a camera really, but mainly based around Deptford & SE London.
Learning is the keyword here, especially with regard to developing film. I get more profficient as I do more, but the bar was low to start with. It has taken six months of trial and error to finally decide on Kodak Tri-X and Ilford FP4+ as my 35mm films of choice. Likewise Rodinal to develop the FP4+. The jury is still out on what to soup Tri-X with but it looks like it will be HC-110.
Now I’ve turned all that on its head because I’ve recently fallen big-time for medium format photography using 120 roll film… That seems to have settled down to FP4+ 120, usually at EI100 in Rodinal for between 15-16 minutes and HP5+ 120 @ EI 200 in HC-110 dil ‘H’ for about 8 minutes.
And now I have a 4×5 pinhole and a box of Fomapan 100 to go in it. Aaaah! What next?
Some digital stuff creeps in but mostly I deal with film. Let us not use the ‘A’ word2 either, which demotes film to the status of something like a big-chain ‘classic’ burger to market-segment it from its super-sized multi-layered over-engineered contemporary offering.3
UPDATE Winter 2009/2010: I’ve been using the Ricoh GRD III a lot recently as a sketchbook, hence there are lots of digital photos over this period. Film & digital can easily be filtered using the categories found on the menu above (eg all 120 format film here).
Some unashamed geeking in here too…
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Then
Photography began as a hobby in 1979 with my first serious camera, a Pentax MX and a std 50mm lens.
Amsterdam 1981. Squatted veterinary hospital we were living in on The Haalemmerstraat
I bumbled along until 1984 when I lost all of my gear and couldn’t afford to replace it. It kick started again in 1996 with a gift of a brand new (all manual) Nikon FM2n with some Nikkors – 28mm f/2.8 AIS, Micro-Nikkor 55mm, 105mm f/2. I fell in love.
I became interested in digital as it converged with my web work in 2002 (remember 1 megapixel cameras anybody?). I had access then to a Nikon D1 and it blew me away. Progressed to a Nikon D300 when it came out (through various iterations of the Nikon D* cameras). For some reason the new D3x holds no allure for me (which is lucky since I’d have to lose organs to fund it), though I’d like a FF digi at some point.
I also continue to use a Ricoh GRD (the original one). Stealth digi supreme, a P&S built for photographers.
However, I’ve also continued to use film cameras through the ‘digital age’, have had a Ricoh GR1v and continue to use a Nikon F4s and the FM2n as well as a couple of Holgas (6×6).
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Now
I use digital because I have to. I use film because I want to.
Swinging in St Alfege Graveyard, Greenwich 2009
In 2008 I acquired a pair of Leicas, models IF & IIF, LTM (thread mount) bodies long since eclipsed by the Leica M mount cameras. There is something exquisite about these ‘Barnack’ cameras (so named after Oskar Barnack their inventor). Easy to use they are not, but paradoxically they are an ergonomic dream. It is a truism to say that they ‘just fit the hand’ but they do. Beautiful engineering, mine probably work as well today as they did when they came off the production line decades ago. Possibly better because I’ve had them cleaned, lubricated and adjusted by Malcolm Taylor – Leicaphile and engineer extraordinairre. ‘Repair guy’ simply doesn’t do him justice, his knowledge is awesome and he is very generous about sharing it. I could listen to him for hours (and anybody who has talked to him knows there is a distinct possibility that you will hehe).
The Leica IIf was born in the same year as me and was irresistible, with a 35/3.5 Summaron, 50/2 Summarit and an Elmar 90/4 (from 1936 – somewhat older than me even). I have brightline finders for the lenses and the kit is a revelation to me. I absolutely love it to the exclusion of all others and it even got me back to developing my own films again. I have also come to realise that I prefer rangefinders to SLRs. They suit my style photography. Hopefully a distinct style will evolve.
From a practical point of view, doing street photography with an old rangefinder is a completely different experience than using modern DSLRs. Very few people feel ‘threatened’ by the rangefinder. In fact, many people, on spotting the Leica, actually come and talk to me! Sticking a D300 with a Nikkor 24-70/2.8 in people’s faces tends to bring out the worst. People still talk but usually from a distance and angrily. Hardly surprising really as the UK populace is currently being conditioned to assume professional looking equipment on the street means you are either a terrorist or peadophile.
I’ll be writing about this threat to freedom and photography and its wider issues in this blog, don’t worry. It drives me f*cking nuts when I get stopped – and I have a press card for what its worth, so I get more ‘freedom’ than others without.
Stop already! This is an ‘about’ page, but you get the idea…
I have some reluctance now when I have to carry several kilos of digi gear around with me for an assignment. Though oddly, the weight of the Nikon F4S doesn’t bother me. Tis a brick and has survived conflicts. You could brain somebody with it and still sell it on as a mint condition copy lol.
My main camera at the moment is a Leica M6 TTL which used to have a CV 35/1.2 Nokton living on it but I replaced it with an ‘affordable’ Leica Summarit 35/2.5 which in my humble opinion ROCKS despite the naysayer Leica snobs. It is a great lens. Update – I found a 1989 Summicron 35/2 IV for a good price and I’m bowled over… I give in gracefully. The ‘Cron is everything people say it is and the hood seems to control flare OK (The Summarit deals with flare very well, but then I’d expect that of modern coatings). The Nokton is wonderful though and I use it when I need the wider aperture. Great combination for the 35mm lover.
I also use a Bessa-T rangefinder with a CV 21/4
Lurking in the background is a Kiev 4a rangefinder (imported to the UK in the 1970s with one careful owner. It is a good copy from a time when FSU quality control was dismal) and a couple of Holga 120s, one modded to take 35mm film. Also some Lomo cameras like one that takes four images at once. Yay, I’m a sucker for toy cameras too.
Update Summer 2009: I have a Rolleiflex and a number of folding 120 rangefinder cameras…
Infact I’m now using the Rolleis (4 of them, the 3.5, 2 Automats and a Rolleicord) together with a Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta. I just love the 6×6 format.
And as it turns out, the 6×9 format of the Fuji GW690III and the Bessa Voigtander RF. The negs are to die for. I can feel Large Format photography is out there waiting for me. If so, it will be a progression through the pinholes. I have a Zero 2000 6×6 and have just aquired a Zero 4×5 with three sections which will allow 25mm, 50mm and 75mm effective focal lengths. The first two on 4×5 are seriously wide!
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Why
I try to capture the errr, spirit of what I’m seeing, so I include photographs that are are not technically perfect. Mmmmm. Lo-fi photography alert! My excuse.
Abstract expressionism sometimes has a lot to answer for.
And recently, it seems the CIA may also have had something to answer for in this respect too, slush-funding/bunging the buying of American artists’ work in the 1950s to ponce their market value and status and put a dampener on that ungodly commie art from Russia. You can’t make it up. Myself, I’ve always wondered how Cy Twombly got such a rep but apparently some works of his hang on a hidden wall in Langley or wheverer these people hang out.And the real pisser is that it worked! Twombly’s work is worth a fortune now.
But back on track, if I knew how to take a good picture, I’d do it every time. Somebody said that, not me.
I like narrative, so documentary, street and photojournalism interest me more than ‘fine art’ photography.
New Year 2006, London
I’m fascinated by the meaning of photographs too, in the meta-sense of how we see what others have photographed.
Paul Hill’s seminal book ‘Approaching photography’ is recommended. It concentrates on what is produced, not how it is produced. It examines the ‘language’ of the photograph, ie how we ‘read’ them. We (I) take much for granted and this was an eye-opener (poor joke) for me at least.
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Inspiration
Catching up with the 20th century…
These links all open in a new window.
- Eugene Atget – Genius Parisian photographer from 1880s. I can look at his photos for hours. Genuinely inspirational.
- Robert Doisneau – Recorded ‘ordinary life’ in his Paris banlieue for decades. Also known for his work for Life, Vogue etc.
- Paul Strand
- André Kertész – One of my all time favourite photos is ‘Stairs, Montmartre‘. Taken in 1926 with, I think, an early Leica. A modernist classic. And ‘Meudon‘ (1928) has to be up there too simply for the masterful composition. I’ve seen the contacts for this roll of film. If I remember correctly, the first shot had no train and no people. The second shot is what you see, full of mystery and interest. So I’m guessing he must have waited for a while knowing exactly what he was looking for, not wasting film. Amazing.
- Walker Evans
- Gary Winogrand
- W Eugene Smith
- John Deakin – Documentary & street. Hired & fired twice by the same editor of Vogue. He had one or two problems…
- Saul Leiter – Especially for his colour work. Check the dates & think of the processing. His B&W photography doesn’t suck either.
- Helen Levitt – Pure poetry on the street.
- Lee Miller – I REALLY REALLY wish I could have met her
- Robert Frank – Not just for ‘The Americans’.
- Ray Moore
- Larry Burrows – Vietnam photographer killed in action. I grew up watching the Vietnam war on television through my childhood. Burrows resonates very deeply for for me. Compare to photojournalist coverage of subsequent wars conflicts such as Iraq & Afganistan. Burrow’s photos probably wouldn’t get published now.
- William Eggleston
- Lee Friedlander – God status for me. What a family. His son Erik is one of the greatest and innovative cellists. How is this allowed to happen? Serious talent.
- David Plowden – Simply stunning B&W
- Daido Moriyama – Stark and dark
- Danny Lyon
This end of the 21st century I’m really liking:
- Hin Chua
- Stephen Shore
- Vanessa Winship – Total Balkan coolness
- Taryn Simon
- Eugene Richards
- Debra Bloomfield
Not photographers but about photography & media:
- Walter Benjamin – Marxist cultural critic, died 1940. Visionary writing.
who | what | then | now | why | inspiration | use
Copyright & use
If by some chance my photos could be useful to you please ask for permission to use them. I’m not happy about them being used or captioned inappropriately.
Contact
Get in touch with me via the contact link in the menu above if you have anything to say or wish to use any of the photos. Or leave a comment at the end of a post.
1 the skinny voice by e.e. cummings – From Tulips and Chimneys, New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923
the skinny voice
of the leatherfaced
woman with the crimson
nose and coquettishly-
cocked bonnethaving ceased the
captain
announces that as three
dimes seven nickels and ten
pennies have been deposited uponthe drum there is need
of just twenty five cents
dear friends
to make it an even
dollar whereuponthe Divine Average who was
attracted by the inspired
sister’s howling moves
off
willanyone tell him why he shouldblow two bits for the coming of Christ Jesus
?
??
???
!nix,kid
2 Analogue – damn, I used the A word
I have cooked many of them for other people though – we have to survive.
