Focused.

Dissertation is finished

2012-03-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well, almost.

Final draft is to be sent tomorrow and I finished writing last night so today I treated my self to a trip to Edinburgh to goto the Pinhole Photography Festival.

Day started off a bit poorly, missed the train - though that meant I got the one that my gf was getting to work - then my sodding PC laptop wouldn't read the mac formatted memory stick I had put my dissertation on. Thought I'd do some grammar and formatting corrections on the train through. I had to make a brief visit to the National Portrait Gallery to use their wifi to download it from Dropbox so I could work on it on the way home.

Anyway, I eventually made it to the Botanic Gardens and turned left and walked for about a half hour to find the pinhole exhibition where if I'd turned right I'd have found it in 5 minutes.

Oh well, the Botanic Gardens are pretty nice anyway, as you can hopefully see.

More on my Flickr.

Chamber of Horrors

2012-02-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, not quite, but the Hunterian's anatomical specimen displays certainly aren't for the weak of stomach. The exhibits include a preserved womb, complete with 5month old feotus inside (above), enough human body parts to build Frankenstein a bit on the side and some pals to goto the pub with, and several examples of deformed animals.

Wouldn't like to get locked in there overnight!

Selection of images below and more on Flickr.

Tower-block project

2012-02-19T06:42:00.000-08:00

New project on my, err, projects page!

Images are on Flickr too.

Portfolio

2012-02-19T06:24:00.000-08:00

I've just updated my Portfolio page with some more recent images so give it a click and have a look.

Sore legs

2012-02-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

From walking all over town.

I popped into the GOMA to have a look at the Alan Dimmick exhibition - which is really good and definitely worth a visit - then upto uni to do some work in the library. After that I walked up to the canal, along to Maryhill and then back down into town.

The weather was pretty nice until I got back into town so I got plenty opportunity to use my newest purchases, an R-D1s and a Voigtlander 25mm Snaphot Skopar.

From inside the GOMA to Royal Exchange Square.

The rather imposing structure of the North Hanover Street campus hiding behind another building.

The canals in Glasgow are really interesting, really make you think about the industry that must have been built up around them but is now mostly long gone.

It seems like everywhere you look in Port Dundas/Maryhill there's barbed wire. Keeping us out, or in?

Strange juxtaposition of natural and artificial structure and development under the M8.

Decontextualising

2012-02-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

Murdoch, A. Odeon building, W. Nile Street. 2011

Murdoch, A. Untitled. 2011

Tonight, instead of writing dissertation - but at least linked to it in some manner - I am pondering context in the photographic image.

Does withholding information which would provide the context for an image - through either how the image is created, titled, printed or in any other way - really decontextualise an image or does it actually drive the viewer to think about the context on a deeper level than an image which makes it's context blatant?

Are we so conditioned to consider the camera as a 'recorder' that it has become impossible to look at a photograph in a purely formal way?

If this is the case, would it ever, really, be possible to use a camera to create an image that could be considered as abstract impressionism?

Perhaps simply providing the information that an image is photographic imposes a context upon it.

Murdoch, A. Untitled. 2011

New pages

2012-02-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Yup, some new pages which you can get to with the buttons up ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ there.

The Projects page only has one project on it just now but it will feature something new and exciting pretty soon!

The girl with her head in the clouds (and other such pinhole images)

2012-01-31T17:01:00.000-08:00

Ever since I sold my D3 I haven't really had a camera that could do double exposures very easily in camera (coz doing it in post is cheating). Enter the pinhole Holga. Need to do more of these me thinks.

This next image is probably the archetypal "poor" photograph, zero detail in the sky and the shadows are all blocked up too. Do I care? Should I? Ask me in another 6000 words - I'm writing an honors dissertation on breaking the 'rules' of photography just now.

A bit of Sally Mann in these other images, or at least I hope there is. I saw a piece on her in American Suburb X recently and was reminded of it when I saw the stagnant water in this place.

Networking

2012-01-31T15:54:00.000-08:00

So I got my 'In Your Bag' photo featured on the amazingly good Japan Camera Hunter site today.

Japan camera Hunter is an awesome site if you're a camera geek like me. Bellamy sources rare cameras for his customers and he posts about all the best ones before passing them on. The latest camera he found for someone was a super rare Leica MP Titanium. How does it go? "One day, oh yes one day...", I'd love to be in a position to send Bellamy off on a hunt for something for me.

The In Your Bag feature is really interesting, you get a lot more insight into the way other photographers go about their practice than you'd expect to reap from a simple bag shot.

There's loads of other great articles on the site too so I definitely recommend checking it out.

I slid a wee link to my Flickr into the blurb I gave Bellamy to go with my bag shot so today I have had more views than ever before and I've been added by loads of people, and some people even managed to find me on Instagram (which I also mentioned) gonna try and work my way through everyone and look at their/your work.

Cheers Bellamy/JapanCameraHunter!

Tuesday

2012-01-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

was wet.

Scopophilia

2012-01-20T08:38:00.000-08:00

Scopophilia or scoptophilia, from Greek "love of looking", is deriving pleasure from looking. As an expression of sexuality, it refers to sexual pleasure derived from looking at erotic objects: erotic photographs, pornography, naked bodies, etc.

Alternatively, this term was used by cinema psychoanalysts of the 1970s to describe pleasures (often considered pathological) and other unconscious processes occurring in spectators when they watch films. The term was borrowed from psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and Otto Fenichel.

Critical race theorists, such as Bell Hooks, David Marriott, and Shannon Winnubst, have also taken up scoptophilia and the scopic drive as a mechanism to describe racial othering.

Books

2012-01-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

Instead of working on my dissertation this afternoon I finished off two books that are now be available through Blurb.

Click here to goto my bookstore.

The first is of the images I took using a digital pinhole camera for a uni project. You might have seen the images before on here and they are on Flickr too.

The second book is the highlights of all the colour film I shot in 2011. I don't shoot much colour film, infact, much colour at all, and it turns out that 95% of what I shot last year was in what we loosely refer to as summer.

We all need a wee reminder of the longer, brighter, more carefree days when we are entrenched in the pit of depression and pinnilessness that is January so there you go.

There's a preview of this book available on the Blurb bookstore here so give it a click or look after the jump for some images.

If you made it this far you get a Brucey bonus, go here for Blurb.com voucher codes. The first one on the list worked for me today but the discount is only on books you author so can't save you any money on my books I'm afraid.

Trip doon the coast

2012-01-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I had a job in Clydebank in the morning then another in Port Glasgow (a small coastal town near the port of Greenock) in the afternoon. I had a couple hours between so took the opportunity to have a walk and take some photos. The weather was shit but I tried to not let it put me off.

First up, the view from near where I was working in Clydebank.

A couple from my walk along the shore.

Once I started to head for the school I was working in I came across this rather sorry looking housing estate. I presume this was a mixture of council and privately owned housing, some of the properties were still occupied though I don't know how long this will last, redevelopment had taken hold further up the hill and I imagine these buildings will soon be gone.

Although at first glance this looks like a pretty rough area there were so few people left around that I felt quite safe wandering about taking photographs.

More Pinhole

2012-01-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

So now that I have submitted this work to uni I guess I should let more people see it.

The idea behind this project was to take some sort of traditional photographic technique and integrate a digital element into it.

After messing about with scanners and enlargers for a bit I settled upon working with a pinhole digital camera. I like the idea of cameraless photography, a term which seems to be in vogue with those using analogue photographic materials just now, but I found that to create digital images without a camera was quite a bit more difficult than with analogue materials so I settled for lensless photography.

The use of a pinhole comes from right back at the birth of photography so it seemed quite appropriate to be using this with a digital camera.

I have ignored the more normal pinhole technique of mounting the camera on a tripod and instead I have hand held the camera for these images, intentionally introducing a large amount of movement during the exposures.

The subjects of these images are a variety of things, bound together by being intrinsically bound by time and it's passage. They are all treated similarly and rendered equally impenetrable.

Instead of these images being a 'decisive moment' they are many seconds (if not minutes) long. The combination of traditional pinhole equipment, digital capture and atypical technique creates images which challenge notions of time and the basis of photography.

Check the link after the jump for the entire series.

More of the series on Flickr

Pinhole

2012-01-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Holga/Lomo phase had so far passed me by but this Christmas my father bought me a pinhole Holga after seeing my work with the digital pinhole (more of that soon).

Image quality is actually pretty good out of what is little more than a plastic box and so far it's only sprung apart on me once!

The following were shot on iso 400 HP5, I've just today received some iso 50 Pan F which should make for some pretty interesting exposures I hope.

Hurricane Bawbag

2011-12-23T13:46:00.000-08:00

A wee while since this was 'trending' but nevermind.

Hopefully a bit different to most of the weather pictures that have been doing the rounds recently.

No trampolines I'm afraid.

The Obree Way

2011-12-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

Graeme Obree came to the bikeshop where I work to do a book signing last night.

As much as I enjoy cycling I have never been too into following it's professionals so don't know much about Obree.

From what I saw of him last night though he seems to be a pretty decent bloke, he took time to chat to everyone that bought his book and didn't mind me snapping the odd picture of him.

You can get Obree's new book "The Obree Way" here.

Winter light - film

2011-12-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

Some film images from my wander about Glasgow at the weekend.

Winter light

2011-12-17T16:07:00.000-08:00

Some pretty nice light in town today.

Busiest shopping day of the year supposedly but streets were still empty enough for my favourite single person against a big building shot.

The city at night

2011-12-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday night (well, evening but it's dark so early now that it felt like night) I went for a walk about town and I posted a couple of the digital images I took here and here.

I really like shooting at night, the city seems so different under streetlight as opposed to daylight, somehow foreign even.

Well here's some prints from the film I shot that night.

Every time I print

2011-12-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

I remember how good shooting film is.

Sometimes I think about selling all my digital kit and buying hunners of film with the money.

Especially with Kodak looking like they are on their last legs.

What will I shoot if Tri-X is no more?

Scans tomorrow.

Digital from the Highlands

2011-12-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

Some digital images from my trip to Fort William and Ballachulish. Wet print scans of film images will come soon.

No street photography today

2011-12-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

Up in the Highlands for a few days so black and white mode has been deactivated and ISO has been turned back town below 800 to do some landscape stuff.

Image by Roz Dallas

2011-12-04T04:02:00.003-08:00

Ande Murdoch.

A couple images from a Saturday night wander about town.

2011-12-04T04:02:00.001-08:00

Ande Murdoch.

A couple images from a Saturday night wander about town.

2011-12-03T04:03:00.000-08:00

Ande Murdoch.

Partick, Glasgow

2011-12-02T04:03:00.000-08:00

Ande Murdoch.

Partick, Glasgow.

And now for something completely different

2011-11-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

Untitled by Roz Dallas

Some very unique and mesmerising images from my girlfriend, Roz Dallas.

These images are for the same unit at uni as the pinhole images I posted a few days ago, as you can see, the short deadline for this unit has really got us all thinking creatively.

More after the jump.

Check out more of this series and other of Roz's projects on her Flickr.

Double take

2011-11-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

Two photographers, two non-traditional cameras, someone elses shoot.

Mine.

Dave Fallon's

He was using his iPhone, I was using a pinhole adapted 5D.

Fan from Japan

2011-11-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

A couple images I've added to Flickr recently have been favourited by a member going called t-miki.

I always like to check out who has been looking at my stuff and was quite impressed to find that t-miki is a photographer from Tokyo, Japan.

Some of my favourite photographers right now are Japanese (Moriyama, Sugimoto, Tomatsu etc) and Japan is somewhere I really want to visit so to have my work catch the eye of a Japanese photographer is quite the ego boost.

t-miki has some really nice work in his photostream so head over to his Flickr and check it out.

Untitled by t-miki

Kuramae, Tokyo by t-miki

Sneak peak

2011-11-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to post any of these images until after they were handed in - I don't know why really, maybe just because they are such a departure for me and I'm not sure what kind of reception they'll get - but I have nothing else to report today so might as well.

The project has very aesthetic roots but is also based around the concept of time and the photograph as a record of a moment in time. I guess these are about as far removed from HCB's Decisive Moment as can be, more like a decisive half minute.

Lots more in the series but only showing a couple today.

Wet weather

2011-11-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

So I could probably have gotten this posted before midnight and stuck to my daily posting target had Safari and Lightroom not just crapped out on me and crashed at the same time!

Anyway, here it is now.

Went out to the westend today to see James at Deadly Digital about getting some prints done and I had intended to shoot some photos of the shops and people on Dumbarton Road after but it was pissing down so we went and had a coffee instead and I annoyed my girlfriend by taking photos of her. I can't help it, she is so pretty and my new Fuji x100 is so good in low light.

Daily posts?

2011-11-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

I keep falling behind with posting stuff on here.

Work, uni work, fixing bikes, it all adds up and sometimes I just forget.

So I'm gonna try and be better from now on. Daily posts? Maybe not, but I'll try.

For today, here's some prints that I just scanned.

iPhoneography

2011-10-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

While I was picking up the enlarger from Simon he mentioned that he had a constant daylight balanced head he was throwing out if I wanted it. Not really the kind of thing I'd make much use of (though I prefer constant light to flash when I do use supplemental lighting) but I knew a man that was in need of just such a piece of kit.

Dave Fallon, is taking a break from getting girls to take their clothes off infront of his DSLR to shoot an entire project on his iPhone. Hopefully Dave will be doing a talk at the Apple store about the iPhone and it's photographic merits sometime soon.

Keep an eye on Dave's Flickr for more iPhoneography.

DARKROOM!

2011-10-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

In my bedroom!

Was lucky enough to be procrastinating on my dissertation the other day by looking at Facebook when Simon Murphy posted up that he was wanting rid of some stuff as he was moving, amongst other items he had "an enlarger" that he wanted rid of, free to anyone that'd pick it up.

I jumped at the chance, not really sure what the hell I'd do with an enlarger but since it was free I might as well take it.

When I turned up at Simon's flat "an enlarger" turned out to be a mint condition LPL c7700 and it was accompanied by several trays, tongs and a print washer (still trying to figure out how exactly that works).

No way I was just having an enlarger that good sitting around not being used so I got my finger out and a quick re-organisation of some surfaces and installation of a blackout blind later I had myself a darkroom.

It's a bit cramped and the blind I found does a good enough job at night but isn't up to blocking out daylight but it's great to have this resource at my fingertips, no more booking days in advance to use the darkroom then struggling to setup the easel etc, I could be printing in 5 minutes on an easel left the way I want it and there's even a strip of my negs sitting in the enlarger. Bliss!

Some prints after the jump.

All shot on my lovely new Konica Hexar. Decided to file out a neg holder I had to print the rebate as the Hexar puts a little notch in the side of the frame that I thought was quite cool, had I seen the price of replacement LPL neg holders before doing so I might have been less willing to hack into it!

SHIT

2011-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Well the weather certainly was.

I headed out to the Scottish Hardcourt Intercity Tournament today to shoot some pics with the intention that they'd end up in SOGO magazine (this is why they aren't my more usual high contrast b&w style) but the poor weather meant I didn't really shoot all that many pics.

Here's a bit of what I did shoot.

My 1D is for sale

2011-10-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

I need to sell it to pay for film and film gear and because I have too many cameras that don't get enough use.

It's a 1D mark 2 so it's 8.2mp APS-H (1.3x crop).
Has just under 59k clicks on it according to the exif info.
Comes with:
3 batteries (1x Canon 2X 3rd party)
Charger (double)
Straps (shoulder + hand)
All leads (inc a firewire cable so you can put your copyright info in the camera and change some advanced settings)
2x 512mb CF cards
Little gubbins to cover the eyepiece (body has a built in eyepiece shutter though) and hold usb cable in place more securely (for tethered shooting)
AC adaptor so you can hook it up to the mains and save the batteries in the studio
Card reader
Manual
Original box

Looking for £550 ono

Pics after the jump.

While waiting for my car to be MOTed...

2011-10-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

... I took a walk through the park and shot these.

It passed the MOT by the way.

Graduate evening

2011-09-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Made it to my 1st Graduate Evening at Streetlevel tonight and it was well worth it. Got a bit of a talk by Alan Dimmick and Rachel Thibbotomunuwe then we had look at each others work.
Wasn't too many people there but there was another street photographer there with a little gem of a camera in his bag.
The photographer in question was Dave Ferrie and the camera in question was this,

An Epson RD1, even nicer in real life than all the pictures I'd seen of them before.
The dials on the top are so nicely made, turning it on is like turning the key in an old sportscar or something and the inclusion of the thumb lever is excellent too!
Check Dave's site or Flickr to see how he puts it to good use.
We talked briefly about working together so look out for that in the near future.

New bag

2011-09-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

Gotta love TK Maxx. The one at Silverburn has these awesome Penfield bags in just now. Just what I've been looking for to throw some kit in for walking about doing street photography. Best of all, the liner from my old Hama bag fits inside it with room to spare so I can keep my cameras protected. I might need to get rid of a bag or two though, think I have more than my missus.

Student guiding

2011-09-20T02:45:00.001-07:00

2nd day as a student guide @ UWS in Paisley. At least I'm outside and get a nice view.

Assisting @ SWG3

2011-09-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

I assisted Paul Cameron on a shoot yesterday in the studio in SWG3.

The last time Paul had been there it'd been a really nice open daylight studio but they have changed things around recently (including having built a pretty swanky infinity cove) so the shoot wasn't quite what he had planned.

Still, a great day, some new friends and picked up some tips about balancing constant fill light with available light too.

Some of you might have been to gigs or club nights in SWG3, well we were a floor up which is shared between various artists - housed in little partitioned cubicles - and the photographic studio. The artists spaces certainly proved to be an interesting place to wander around while the girls got their make-up done.

Bicycle polo

2011-09-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't played in a while so went by tonight to drop off mallets and balls for other people to use and took some photos while I was there with my Nex and Konica 40mm f1.8.

GMBH in the Lighthouse

2011-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Good to see the GMBH shop has found a new home in the Lighthouse.

Some quality publications on offer and some ridiculously expensive ones too!

I picked up a copy of Boneshaker as it has some nice photos by a friend of mine, Radek Nowacki.

Back to black (and white)

2011-08-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have been doing lots of colour photography recently and I'd forgotten how rewarding black and white photography can be.

The last time I was in the darkroom was before the end of term when I was working on my Streetworks project so it was good to get back in there and spend a day in the dark again...

As I say, I've been shooting mostly colour recently but I still had a few black and white films hanging about that I hadn't printed yet. Also some 120 film from before I sold my Mamiya at the start of summer.

More @ Flickr

Inter Cultural Design Camp

2011-08-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

Once again, I haven't been blogging much recently. I have got a good excuse this time though. I've been working my ass off lately in preparation for coming to the Inter Cultural Design Camp 2011 in Grebbestad, Sweden.

Well I'm not quite there yet actually, tonight I'm staying in a pretty swanky 5 star hotel in Gothenburg.

Below are some shots from the journey over here and the day I got to spend here.

Keep checking Flickr to as I'll be adding to the set on there as the camp proceeds.

35mm scans

2011-06-20T14:22:00.001-07:00

When I shoot c41 film I get it developed and scanned at a local lab.

I was showing my girlfriend all the stuff I've had done there and realised I have a ton of images that I've never done anything with.

They're a bit of a mix and shot on loads of different types of films and cameras, some more successfully than others!

There's a few here and more on Flickr.

UCI Downhill World Cup

2011-06-20T13:57:00.001-07:00

Seems like ages ago but the weekend of the 4th and 5th of June saw Fort William host the Scottish round of the 2011 UCI Mountainbike Downhill World Cup.

I blagged a press pass and went and stayed with my gran for the weekend.

More pics after the jump and more still here.

Been a while

2011-06-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've been well busy with finishing up uni work, puting on my end of year exhibition then tearing it down again, then going on holiday so I have been a bit lazy about updating here.

I'm back from holiday now and well and truly finished with uni for this year (I got a Distinction by the way!) so time for some bloggy bloggy.

Here's some pics from my trip to Tallinn last week, more of them here, along with some from my trip there earlier in the year.

Degree show

2011-06-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

All very busy today organising The WASPS Factory for our degree show tomorrow night. It certainly took a while but all the work is finaly on the walls and the place looks about ready to go, sure it will be all polished up by half 6 tomorrow anyway so if you're in the neighborhood or at a loose end, pop along to WASPS Factory in Hanson St for some music, drinks and photos.

My hands

2011-05-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

As a bike mechanic, my hands are always getting filthy. I use coffee grounds and dish soap to clean them and I'm always intrigued by the transformation that takes place. In this case my hands actually got dirty from working on the car but I was at home near my camera which I'm not when I'm in the bikeshop.

Flickr stats and reblogging

2011-05-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

I know that my blog doesn't exactly have a huge readership and I know there's probably a lot more I could be doing to attract people to it so it's nice when I get a bit of recognition from someone who has seen my images. Even better when they spread the word and provide a link back to me.

I was checking out my Flickr stats recently and noticed that Benjamin Taylor's blog was one of the referrers to my images of the Etape Caledonia.

There's a load of cool cycling related stuff on Benjamin's blog and it's pretty awesome to see my images in amongst it all.

Thanks Benjamin.

Video

2011-05-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

I've been playing about with the video function on my NEX recently and one thing I'd noticed is that it's pretty hard to hold the camera steady.

To that end, I have made myself a wee handle out of B&Q shelf brackets that should hopefully sort things out a bit.

Etape Caledonia

2011-05-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

I decided to celebrate getting almost all of uni out of the way with a wee trip oop north to see the Etape Caledonia.

My girlfriends uncle was participating but unfortunatley I decided to go go get a coffee just as he cycled past me so only got his back. You can't tell but he looks cool as a cucumber after just cycling up Schiehallion Road. Nutter.

Think I'll have a go next year.

More images here.

Single edition book

2011-04-21T10:45:00.001-07:00

Picked this up today. Lots of nice blank pages to be filled with a mixture of high quality digital prints and original hand prints from the darkroom.

Totally one off.

Price on application.

Streetworks book

2011-04-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

Talking of my travels to Tallinn and my Streetworks project, the book is now available through Blurb.

It's 116 pages long, printed on premium quality paper and contains almost 90 of my most recent images and a very nicely written intro by Victoria Cheape of Omnino.

I'm limiting it to 100 copies and offering to sign and number your copy for free.

Colour

2011-04-19T15:40:00.001-07:00

I put some colour film through my new Ricoh R1 and my was-leaking-but-hopefully-now-fixed R10 to test them. My guess that the leak on the R10 was from the window that lets you see what kind of film you have loaded must have been right because now that it's taped up there's no leak. If only I'd done that before going to Tallinn!

It's not often I work with colour film because I can't print it myself in the darkroom but now that I have two working and not leaking Ricohs that I like very much I might keep one loaded with colour and one with black and white.

I've modified the R1 to shoot full frame in 24mm mode - it'd normally have panoramic curtains which would come in from top and bottom and restrict the height of the image - and while this is pushing the lens beyond what it's meant to do, I quite like the slight darkening of the corners.

See more images from these rolls on my Flickr or my Streetworks Tumblr.

Sunday Times

2011-04-19T15:35:00.001-07:00

One of my images made it to the front page of the Sunday Times this week. First time I've been front page, hopefully the first of many!

Ricoh R1

2011-04-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Because I loved the R10 that I took to Tallinn and discovered had a light leak, I bought myself an R1. I've already modified it so that the panorama curtains don't come in and I can shoot full frame at 24mm, al be it at f8. Images coming soon.

Cobblecat

2011-04-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

To coincide with the Paris - Roubaix, Glasgow's hardest cyclists took to the city's cobbled streets and raced hard and then partied harder.

I only have images from before and after because cycling on cobbles is hard enough without trying to hold a camera too.

Prints in RIG

2011-04-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

RIG is Glasgow newest bike shop and is aimed at the courier/fixed gear/singlespeed side of the market.

They stock a lot of handmade items like courier bags, frame pads and foot straps and they also have a load of really tasty vintage parts for sale.

They now also have two framed prints from my Courier Life project.

The prints are for sale and you can find more details of them on my Printlife blog and more about the Courier Life book in the Blurb bookstore.

Jordanhill College of Education

2011-04-07T03:13:00.001-07:00

It's not been called that since it became a campus of the University of Strathclyde but in some parts of it, not much else has changed for quite a few years.

New blogs

2011-04-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

I have started another 3 blogs.

First up is Streetworks. A place for me to put all my street photography so that this blog isn't so full of it.

Next is Luonto. I sometimes enjoy photographing the natural world so that's what in there.

And finally Printlife. This blog is for the sale of photographic prints. If you have work you'd like to sell then give me a shout.

Light leaks

2011-04-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

So I printed up some frames from the films I shot in Tallinn that I thought were ruined and it turns out they aren't too bad.

I always knew that the work I did for this project would be but one step in the direction of becoming a better (street) photographer, less concerned with things like sharpness and exposure and more interested in capturing the mood or feeling of a moment and I feel lucky to be able to say that it's been a bigger step than I imagined it would be.

I can hardly believe that for the last few years I had been willing to haul my D3 and several lenses along on every trip and holiday I went on because I thought that I needed my best camera to get worthwhile images.

Now I can take a compact camera that I got on eBay for less than a tenner and even when I find out it has a light leak I'm still really happy with the images I've created with it.

More here.

Under the weather

2011-03-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

My misfortune with the films I shot in Tallinn had me bit depressed but after talking to people at uni today I've decided that all is not lost and that I'm going to try printing some of the affected frames anyway.

The project that these images will be part of is really just a big learning curve for me anyway so the lesson to always fire a test roll thru a new camera is one well learned.

I was on my way out to play polo tonight (on a bike not a horse) when I spotted the sky in the top image. It seemed to fit well with my feeling that every cloud has a silver lining so I took a few pics of it.

The second image was shot while driving home and relates to my work for the extended development unit which is about light in the city. I think I may broaden this approach to include weather conditions within the city too.

What do you get...

2011-03-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

...if you forget to shoot a test roll through your new camera before you go to Estonia?

185 useless frames is what.

Playing hooky

2011-03-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

Spending the day in the darkroom sounded like a much better plan than going to a lecture on post-modernism and pop culture. That said, I really should make some time to get my head round modernism, post-modernism and whatever comes next some day soon.

These are some prints I did today, they were all shot in a city somewhere and some were developed in plain X-Tol for a bit longer than suggested and some in X-Tol plus a few drops of R09. If you're really geeky and want to know then I'll figure out which are which but I don't think anyone really cares do they?

There's more like this on my Flickr. Particularly here.

Tallinn

2011-03-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've been back from Tallinn for a few days now but only just getting round to editing some images. I've still got the film I shot to develop but that's going to wait till I get into the darkroom and see how my experimentations with adding R09OneShot into a standard mix of X-Tol have gone.

There's more images on my Flickr and you can see Dave's images that he shot while we there on his Flickr.

Holiday essentials

2011-03-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

Off to Estonia tomorrow with Dave Fallon to do some street photography for my 3B project.

Wonder if I'll have room for my toothbrush now.

Alternative Industries - Ben Harman

2011-03-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

This is the first of what I hope will be a long running series of interviews with people who are employed, mainly within the creative industries, in a position directly linked to photography but who are not employed as practicing photographers.

As class rep for my degree year I could have tried to arrange for these people to come into the uni/college and give a talk but I thought that doing it this way it would be easier for people to read the interview in their own time and the blog entry will be around and accessible for a long time.

The first interview is with Ben Harman.

Please state your name and occupation.

Ben Harman, Curator of Contemporary Art for Glasgow Museums.

What does your position involve? Talk us through a typical day in your job.

I am based at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (GoMA) and with one other Curator (my colleague Sean McGlashan) I am responsible for the Glasgow Museums collection dating from 1960 to the present day. My main responsibilities are: to research, manage and display the prints (including photographs), installations, videos and films in our collection, to research and manage approximately 5 temporary exhibitions a year ranging from displays of our collection to new commissions of works by Glasgow-based artists, to manage the acquisition of new works for our collection by artists from Glasgow and from artists based outside the UK.

A typical day for me involves a lot of desk work including phone and email communication, answering enquiries, planning exhibitions, internet research, completing forms such as fundraising applications. In addition to this I have regular meetings with colleagues, for example to discuss our exhibition programme. I also have regular meetings with external colleagues, Curators and artists. I try to spend time every day checking works on display. On approximately 3 afternoons or 3 mornings a week I am away from my desk attending meetings at other venues. I try to allow for approx. 1 afternoon a week to visit exhibitions in Glasgow and to undertake studio visits with artists.

Before you took this job did you have an interest in photography?

Yes. I have always been interested in photography. I have previously worked in galleries that have had a strong commitment to exhibiting photography.

Do you do any personal photography and if so, what form does this take?

Only snapshots of family and friends.

Could you give a brief outline of the career path you have followed to get to where you are now?

I studied the History of Art at University in Cambridge. The course I took only briefly touched upon contemporary art and photography but this

became very interesting to me. When I left university I worked for a variety of galleries in Cambridge, London and Glasgow over a period of 9 years before

taking a full-time position at GoMA.

When did you realise that photography/modern art would be a major part of your life and career?

I have been interested in the history of art since school but it was only at University that I realised I was primarily interested in contemporary art and photography

and how it relates to the art of the past. As a recent graduate working as a volunteer in galleries I was exposed to some very powerful contemporary art that happened to employ photography as a medium. Artists that spring to mind include Jo Spence and Jeff Wall.

Was it a difficult decision for you to take a position in the field of art/photography where you are not employed as a practicing artist/photographer?

No. I have never been a practising artist or photographer.

Do you think that not being paid to produce artworks/photographs has had an effect on your approach to these things and the amount of personal work you do?

n/a

In the context of students studying for a degree in photography, what advice would you give to anyone who wished to pursue a career like yours?

Consider work experience in a gallery or museum and if possible a post-graduate course in museum studies or Curatorial studies. Take as many opportunites as possible

to visit galleries and museums and explore the work they do and how they operate. Consider how they differ in terms of staff, money, intellectual and philosophical agendas, political influences and priorities. All this knowledge will be valuable in pursuing a career in a Curatorial post.

Can you offer any advice to students who aspire to having work exhibited in highly regarded venues such as the Gallery of Modern Art?

Explore all options for exhibiting and investigate venues before sending off a proposal. Most importantly, be persistent in finding a way to continue to make work.

I'd like to thank Ben for taking the time to answer my questions.

If anyone reading this has any suggestions of interviewees or questions they'd like me to put to anyone I interview then let me know.

Another new toy

2011-03-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

Got myself a wee Sony Nex recently. I wanted something digital that I could stick in my pocket but that I could have a bit more control over. I had to prefocus on my finger or intentionally set a low iso (the only thing I had control of) on my previous digital compact in order to trick it into taking images like this. Much easier now, and the Nex will shoot half decent video, watch this space!

Smelly Hands

2011-03-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

I can never stop sniffing my hands after I've spent the day in the darkroom. The people I pass on the street must think I'm bonkers.

For a change

2011-02-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Not sure how long it's been since I posted a colour image but it's been a while.

I borrowed a little Pentax Espio mini from my dad and it had a 4 year old colour film in it which I had to use up before I put Tri-X in it.

Edinburgh

2011-02-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

I spent the day in Edinburgh yesterday doing a sort of test shoot/experimentation exercise for my Photography 3B project at uni.

Shot a mixture of digital, 35mm film and 120 film. I've not devved any of the film yet so here's some of the digital images.

Check out the rest at my Flickr.

Assisting Paul Cameron

2011-02-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

Paul Cameron dropped into uni the other day looking for some assistants for a fashion shoot today.

Given that fashion is not what I would call one of my strong points I was surprised when one of the tutors suggested me for the role but I jumped at the opportunity.

Also assisting Paul today was Radek Nowacki who is in HND year 2 at the moment.

Paul has an interesting technique, working mostly with available light and supplementing that with constant lighting where needed.

This requires Paul to make longer exposures so it was difficult getting the model to hold still for shots but his images speak for themselves and have a depth and quality of colour to them that can only be obtained through this way of working.

I took along a little compact digital camera and given that I didn't want to interrupt Paul by using flash I knew I would not have much luck to take 'normal' images so I chose to take inspiration from Paul's slow shutter speeds and also from the likes of Sarah Moon and create some images which I think capture the atmosphere of the day quite well.

30 Steps

2011-02-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

For our first week of Photography 3B we were asked to choose an envelope, goto the location contained within and set about taking 30 images within 30 steps of that place.

The idea was to try and get over the "shoot like mad and hope for something good" way of working that digital photography seems to have made so commonplace.

I got the front of the GOMA as my place and being a film user I found it quite easy to keep to a limited number of images.

I took the opportunity to practice some covert shooting techniques that I will be using for my main 3B project.

These are my favourite images and you can see the rest of the set on Flickr.

Fixed & What

2011-02-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

I check the Prolly blog pretty much daily coz John is always posting really interesting articles and images and last week here was a post about Fixed & What.

Fixed & What is a London based blog centered on fixed wheel bikes and the surrounding culture.

Run by Andy Cook, Fixed & What has gathered a healthy following and Andy has decided to team up with a graphic designer by the name of Nick Shea and produce a high quality printed periodical. This looks like it'll take what the blog does a step further and be something quite different to anything currently available in print.

Andy and Nick are looking for contributions so give them a shout at fixedandwhat@gmail.com if you have something for them.

Daido Moriyama

2011-02-03T02:59:00.000-08:00

I saw a video about Daido Moriyama and how he uses a compact camera for his street photography recently and it prompted me to look into him a bit more.

He makes amazing and beautiful images with the simplest of equipment and the idea of movement is evident in many of his pictures.

Daido manages to have completely disregard many of the rules that it seems most modern photographers follow without even meaning too and I think this leaves him free to make very expressive images that often look more like paintings or charcoal drawings than photographs.

The best thing about cameras

2011-02-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

Is they don't tend to end up looking like this when you take them out in manky weather.

Getting the train back from work recently because it was too wet, cold and windy to cycle all the way home.

Magic Hour

2011-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

First brief for the new Extended Development class at uni was to create 3 images that could be "interpreted as illustrating Photography in the Magic Hour".

Now I took "interpreted as Illustrating" to mean that I didn't actually have to get up at the crack of dawn and shoot during Magic Hour. There was stuff in the brief about manipulating light so I went with that as my main point of consideration.

I had been playing about with a circular polarising filter and noticed the difference it made to reflections, reflections are light so I decided to produce a triptych of images where I used the polariser to get a different view from one place.

I'm sure there's a metaphor or 5 in here about truth and how beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how we sometimes can't see the forest for the trees - or is that a similie?

Neg scans

2011-02-01T14:53:00.001-08:00

I wouldn't usually bother scanning my negs at home, I only have access to a pretty old Canoscan that won't do 120 and it's hooked upto a pc which I find incredibly frustrating!

But I needed some negs I developed tonight scanned for college tomorrow so thought I'd take the opportunity to scan the rest of the film.

The darkroom is shut all this week anyway so no chance to do real prints for a wee while.

The first two pictures were taken in Edinburgh a week or so ago.

I find it's always easy to find things to shoot when your in a new place.

The last image was taken today in George Square, photo cliche or what? There's something I love about photographing birds though. I need to do more images like this with movement in them.

Look out for more images from this roll soon.

Prints prints prints

2011-01-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

So a bit later then I said I'd post them but that's because the evening I said I'd post them I was shooting the Monte Carlo Rally start in Blythswood Square then out for a few pints with fellow photographer Dave Fallon, girlfriend Roz Dallas who is also a photographer and a couple other mates.

That "few pints" quickly turned into a few too many pints and posting prints got forgotten about.

Also, last night I discovered that I might have - while in a drunken state - dented the focus ring on my 24-70mm lens. It still autofocuses but manual focus feels horrid.

Going to see about getting it fixed tomorrow but the phrase, "they don't make em like they used to" certainly comes to mind.

Fog

2011-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

It's been everywhere this week.

And it was all over Loch Linhe in Fort William when I was there just before christmas.

It was my first day using the darkroom at Streetlevel Photoworks today and this is the only decent print that was dry by the time I was leaving.

I'm booked in to use the darkroom on Thursday so I'll pick up the other prints I did when I'm there and post them that night.

Waiting on the postman...

2011-01-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

...to bring me these.

The first camera is the Konica I thought I was buying last week but finally got hold of this week.

It's been dispatched from Connecticut today and when it arrives, will bring my Konica collection to 3 cameras, who would ever have thought I would stray from Nikon like this?!

The other camera is one I bought for my girlfriend.

2011 is definitely shaping up to be the year for shooting film.

Omnino

2011-01-24T15:04:00.000-08:00

Omnino is a new platform to promote contemporary photography from Scotland.

It is the brainchild of Victoria Cheape and the first photographer featured is none other than my girlfriend, Rosalind Dallas.

Check out the Omnino blog here and Roz's blog here.

Konicas

2011-01-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog much you'll know I already have a Konica FS-1 which I love other than the rate at which it goes through batteries. I knew there was a version of the FS-1 with a manual wind on lever so when I saw an FP-1 on ebay the other day I put an offer in then realised after it was accepted that what I wanted was an FC-1.

Oh well, the offer I put in was for £10 so no great loss. Just means I still need to find a good FC-1 and since that'd mean I had 3 out of the 4 Konica F model slrs I will have to get an FT-1 now too!

Moon

2011-01-22T13:59:00.001-08:00

This might be the first digital photograph I have taken for myself this year!

As the metering mode selector switch on my D3 is taped up at "3D colour matrix ii" I had to use my 1980s (?) spotmeter to meter for this shot though.

Too many people portraits

2011-01-21T16:43:00.001-08:00

It seems like everyone's posting people portraits of late.

So here's a pigeon portrait for a change.

That's all.

New toy

2011-01-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

My guess would be that not many modern photographers will know what this is.

I don't think I did until maybe a year or two ago.

Bonus prize if you can tell what the book it's sitting on is.*

*Bonus prize may not actually exist.

Prolly is not Probably

2011-01-16T12:41:00.000-08:00

You might have guessed from my last post that I like bikes almost as much as I like cameras.

Now, this doesn't seem to be an unusual pairing of interests and another example of someone who is really into both cycling and photography is John who runs the Prolly is not Probably blog.

John regularly posts a feature called "A Day in 10 Photos" and one called "Recent Roll" both of which showcase his very nice photography. I love that there's a good mix of digital and analogue in John's work.

The blog also features many contributions from, and articles about, other photographers.

The specifically photographic posts aside, the blog is chock full of gorgeous imagery, photography and graphic art.

It probably helps to have at least a passing interest in cycling but to be fair, anyone that appreciates a good photo needs to take a look at the blog.

Courier Life

2011-01-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

Someone reminded me about this project that I shot last year and I thought I'd go for a bit of shameless self promotion and post here about it.

This project was really the first time that I had worked with people and I found it really good and a lot easier than I had imagined it would be.

Think I will be looking at this work a lot as I prepare for my next semester at uni.

If you like what you see above you can see more of the book and buy it here.

Instax-tastic

2011-01-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

Took my Fujifilm Instax 200 out last night. Way more fun that having a digital camera on a night out, just a pity it's so expensive to run. See the rest of the images on my Flickr.

Prints

2011-01-07T12:27:00.001-08:00

Got into the darkroom in college today and did some prints from the Tri-X I've been shooting through my Mamiya recently.

Did about 20 prints and these were the best of what was dry when I was leaving.

Both of these come from negs that were stand developed in Rodinal but with quite different techniques.

The first neg was devved in a 1+100 dilution of Rodinal for one hour. It was agitated every 5 minutes for the first 20 then every minute for the last 5.

The second was done in 1+50 for 20 minutes, swirling the tank for about 10 seconds every 2 minutes.

Both techniques have given nice smooth grained images, more so that some longer, less agitated techniques which I had expected to yield better grain results.

Ikea

2011-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

They don't have a darkroom section but this handy combination thermometer and timer could go in it if they started one.

Vivian Maier

2011-01-04T05:31:00.001-08:00

Well, I haven't taken a digital photograph in a few weeks now so don't have anything new of my own to post so here is an image by Vivian Maier.

There's an amazing youtube video here about her work and the guy that discovered her. It's really worth watching.

Maybe 2011 can be the year for trawling carboot sales and the like.

Eggleston's Guide

2011-01-02T16:38:00.001-08:00

I wish I afford the £1181 for this signed copy of the 1st Edition of William Eggleston's Guide, but I cannot.

So I bought myself a much cheaper recent edition.

Perhaps I will be lucky enough to be able to get it signed some day.

Analogue Japan

2011-01-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

This photo is from the Tokyo Camera Style blog which has been keeping me entertained while at work today.

The pictures of Japanese camera shops with their supermarket style fridges full of film and cases of old Leicas bigger than my garage are amazing.

Really makes me want to never take a digital photo again but also is a nice example of analogue and digital technology working together. This is definitely a direction I want to take with my involvement with photography.

Oh, Happy New Year everyone.

Negatives

2010-12-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight I have been mostly developing test cuttings of film to try and get a good stand develping technique down.

Anyone with experience of developing in Rodinal hit me up.

New domain

2010-12-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

My website is dead and www.andephotographic.co.uk will now bring you here.

Flickr

2010-12-19T10:30:00.001-08:00

I can never decide whether Flickr is good or bad.

I currently have nothing in my photostream and can't decide what - if anything - I should put in it.