Introduction

I am a film photographer and traditional darkroom printer. I do not hold to a particular genre or system or style, preferring to work across a broader canvass. My influences are many but I particularly like the work of the “Two Rays” – Tony Ray-Jones and Ray Moore. This reflects my interest in both landscape and street photography (both terms which I dislike).

For me much of the creative input into a picture happens in a traditional darkroom. I do not find it easy to pre-visualise a picture. The visualisation happens in the darkroom as I play with the light and silver. There is something quite magical about producing a fine print which mirrors what I imagine in my mind’s eye.

So welcome to this site. I consider myself to be a beginner/intermediate in the darkroom but my aim is to learn as much as I can. Here I share my darkroom moments, mistakes and some successes. Please contribute with advice if you can see better ways of doing things.

I also write about photography and philosophy. I contend that seeing and language are inextricably linked, that what we experience when we see is a ‘precipitate of language’ ¹. But I won’t expand on this here.

For the ultimate business of (photography) is not to pretend things are whole when they are not, but to create a sense of wholeness which can be seen in opposition to the world’s chaos; only by setting this dialectic in full view can (photography) rise above the compliancy of ‘ordered’ stereotypes and the meaningless bulk of the recognizable.

Adapted from Robert Hughes, the shock of the new