Photography

Working at the Botanics in Edinburgh means I can get access to the currently closed Palm Houses. They are about to undergo a major restoration. It is an amazing space to be in so I’ve visited twice, once with my whole plate camera and once with the 10x12inch Vageeswari. Argyrotype prints from whole plate glass…

I finally got to make what I’m calling a triptych panorama. I’ve been thinking about doing these since I first started printing the entire plate with a black border. The print consist of three 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch plates laid next to each other to make an Argyrotype contact print. The plates can’t…

🇺🇦 In February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. Playing with old Russian military inspired tech isn’t fun any more. My FT2 will rest in the cupboard till better times. Thoughts and good wishes are with the people of Ukraine and those in Russia who have been dragged into this madness. I have spent some time 3D…

It started with a me buying a 1950’s Mamiya-16 just because I thought it looked like such a cool camera. The trouble is the film cassettes are like hen’s teeth so I thought I’d get Barney down the road at OpenFactory to 3D print me some. That didn’t work out because the models on Thingiverse…

We have a “stay at home” order in place in Scotland right now which means we can only go outside for essential reasons such as work (that can’t be done from home), caring responsibilities or exercise. I’ve decided not to count using my full size pack, containing a large carbon fibre tripod and Wista 45…

For my birthday the family humoured me by playing at making portraits in the garden. I broke out the Intrepid 8×10 – a special occasions camera – and we shot some very old Ilford Multigrade paper as negatives. My daughter, Faith, is getting pretty good at doing the large format dance and did the whole…

There is an old wind blasted oak tree close to the North Esk River that I like to visit. It is just within the area we are allowed to visit under the current Covid restrictions. Doing the tree justice in a photograph is really hard. The best composition is from due South and the early…

I’ve been putting things on Instagram without blogging them – this is against my new social media policy. How sad I have one! As we are still in lockdown with a “stay at home” order in effect I’ve been playing with my Sinar P studio camera. There is precious little room in the flat so…

Work makes it hard to get outside while it is still light but I’ve been itching to test out using Ilford PQ Universal developer on my dry plates. Last night I set up a simple still life. I didn’t really have the energy to do more than pick an object. I’m please with the image…

Using dry plate technology from the 1880s I feel drawn to anything from the Victorian era. Living in Edinburgh we are blessed with such subjects which is good because the current Covid-19 restrictions mean I can’t leave the city. Today I photographed the Forth Rail Bridge (opened 1890) and the result is convincingly late 19th…

I wrote an article for Emulsive magazine website back in August and it has just been published. You can see it here:

I was back in Grange Cemetery in my lunch break this time with my 8×10 to see if I can do 8×10 dry plates or not. The first attempt was a disaster because I didn’t push my DIY plate holder all the way home and there was a light leak. My second and third were…

We learn by making mistakes. The third photographic emulsion I made was great. It was clean and contrasty and just worked. So I thought I’d jazz it up a bit for the fourth emulsion by adding ten drops of 1% Erythrosine (that’s pink food colouring E127) to increase the green response. It didn’t work. Right…

Last week I headed off to explore Deeside some more and photograph with my freshly made glass plates. I got about ten miles before the brakes on the van started playing up and I had to abandon the trip. This week I tried again and made it all the way to Marr Lodge and Glen…

A week off the day job has given me time to work on my silver gelatine glass plate negatives. I’ve learnt a big lesson and results are much improved. For emulsions #1 & #2 I had downsized a larger recipe and got to a Potassium Iodide content of about 0.2g. My scales really don’t go…

I realised I had all the chemistry, apart from gelatin, to make dry plates. So I bought some cooks gelatin from Waitrose and gave it a go. This is the first attempt. I think I am hooked!

The mechanical shutters found in many analogue cameras, especially those before the 1980s, are amazing pieces of engineering. Many still work accurately but alas many others do not. One solution is to pay to have them professionally serviced but often the camera simply isn’t worth the expense. Also a shutter will sometimes be inaccurate but…

Twenty minutes walk from home the Hermitage of Braid is a wooded valley beside the volcanic plug that is Blackford Hill. Scattered across the whole area are these lumps of igneous rock that withstood the retreat of the glacier fifteen thousand years ago. This is one of my favourites. I’m enjoying photographing digitally for the…

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln (attributed to at least) Even if being in lockdown doesn’t enable too much creative photography it allows for some axe sharpening ready for when we are free again. Today I took a picture of…