Roger Hyam – Page 3

Emulsion #3 – Graveyard test

Roger Hyam, 2020/09/232020/09/23

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….

Photography

My first dry plate emulsion

Roger Hyam, 2020/08/252020/08/25

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!

Misc

Is analogue photography worth it?

Roger Hyam, 2020/08/062020/08/06

The combined image above shows three photographs I made over the course of an afternoon and evening. I had my wet-plate collodion set up running and wanted to refine how I made glass plate negatives specifically for scanning. Once I had what I felt was a successful wet-plate negative it…

Photography

Voigtländer Avus wet plate again

Roger Hyam, 2020/06/062024/02/12

Fun this afternoon playing with my adapted Voigtländer Avus and three month old Poe Boy collodion. I’m using quarter plate glass from some old glass plate negatives I found in a junk shop. I scrub the plates down and re-using them when the fail. I intensify successful ones for a…

Photography

BBC micro:bit Shutter Timer

Roger Hyam, 2020/06/032020/06/03

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…

Photography

Everest in the woods

Roger Hyam, 2020/05/312020/05/31

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…

Misc

Backpack Collodion: Expedition to the end of the … garden

Roger Hyam, 2020/05/302020/05/30

My three month old iodising collodion finally got to me. Today I mounted an expedition to the bottom of the garden to make some collodion negatives. I’ve often wondered whether it would be feasible to do backpack collodion – to head for the hills with all that I need to…

Photography

How big can you print?

Roger Hyam, 2020/05/252020/05/25

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…

Photography

Marchmont from 2 metres

Roger Hyam, 2020/04/262020/05/30

Are you bored during lockdown? Are you speaking to neighbours more than you did before? Would you like to be part of an art project capturing a little piece of this unique time? In January my very special 8×10 inch Intrepid view camera arrived. It is new but of a…

Misc

Argyrotype: First tests

Roger Hyam, 2020/04/112020/04/11

The Argyrotype print process is a “modern” nineteeth century way of making silver prints on paper. It was created by Mike Ware in the early 1990’s [British Journal of Photography, 139, (6824), 17-19 (13 June 1991)]. Back in 1842, right at the start of photography, Sir John Herschel created a process…

Misc

Elementary Blueprint

Roger Hyam, 2020/04/102020/04/11

Stills Gallery and photography centre in Edinburgh was planning to run a project called Elementary Blueprint where they sent out cyanotype papers for people to expose to the elements around Edinburgh and sent them back to make a single exhibit – like a blueprint of the city I guess. Then…

Misc

Negatives for alternative processes

Roger Hyam, 2020/04/092020/04/11

During the Covid-19 lock down I’m messing with cyanotypes and want to have a go at Argyrotypes. These processes use contact negatives the same size as the finished print. The negatives need to have a long tonal range – be very contrasty. Many people produce such negatives using an inkjet…

Photography

Cyanotype: A lockdown friendly print process.

Roger Hyam, 2020/04/032020/04/11

With the family at home for the Covid-19 lock down there is no space to set up the darkroom and so little hope of analogue photography beyond developing film in the bath – but fortunately we still have cyanotype printing! Coating papers can be done on the kitchen table and…

Photography

Virus Stops Play

Roger Hyam, 2020/03/292020/04/11

Working with the wet plate collodion technique is something of a “lifestyle choice” in that it isn’t an activity you can just choose to do when you fancy it. For starters acquiring the equipment and minimal skills to get the process going can take months. Once you are up and…

Misc

Wet Plate Party 2020

Roger Hyam, 2020/03/292020/03/29

I turned 55 on 28th February and we used that as an excuse to invite friends around on Sunday 1st March for an open house. This is something we only do once every five years or so. This time I set up what is basically a Victorian photo booth. I…

Mindfulness & Buddhism

Marathon Monk: To 23rd March 2020 – 441 days & 2,646 mindful miles & into Covid-19 Lockdown

Roger Hyam, 2020/03/262020/03/26

The winter months have been tough in terms of colds and flu-like illness that have kept me from walking all the days I’d wanted. Nothing particularly bad but enough that I’ve had to take care of my body and get the bus one way or the other across town. I…

Misc

Snow Stops Play

Roger Hyam, 2020/03/122020/03/12

I attempted to make it to Braemar today to photograph the pinewoods – possibly in the snow. It was forecast to rain later but the rain came sooner and as snow. After two attempts I had to turn back. Ho hum. Try again another time.

Inspiration: Nobuyuki Kobayashi – Myriads of Gods

Roger Hyam, 2020/01/312020/01/31

Very inspiring. Shintoism/animism is important to me but so lost in our Scottish culture where gods of nature seem to have been shrunk to faery folk. Somewhat disappointed by Nobuyuki’s desire for posterity. For me the power of the analogue image today is that it is potentially ephemeral. Also the…

Misc

Stearman SP-810: First Impressions

Roger Hyam, 2020/01/272020/05/05

This is a really quick post about the new Stearman SP-810 developing tank because someone asked me my opinion. I must be one of the first to own it. I’m not going to talk through the tank as you can see what it is and what it does in this…

Photography

First Salt Print

Roger Hyam, 2019/12/212019/12/21

My first Salt Print (a la Fox Talbot). As usually I took the “bull at a gate” approach to something new. Google some Watch some YouTube Book from library and only read relevant bits Substitute what comes to hand for what is required. Go for it. Because I already do…

Project Marathon Monk

Marathon Monk: September-November 2019 – 399 days & 2,394 mindful miles

Roger Hyam, 2019/12/012019/12/01

It’s been a patching three months. Been on a work trip for a week, a retreat and been ill but when I can I’ve still be doing the walk. Craving solitude just now. Not feeling like writing.

Mindfulness & Buddhism

From Zombies to Tattoos

Roger Hyam, 2019/11/232019/11/24

I went to a lecture on The Walking Dead (a TV series about zombie apocalypse living) and photography at Stills by David Grinly last week. It was heavy post modern, French philosopher type stuff but also entertaining. David expounded in a semi random fashion. When I left after two hours…

How to be more radical and effective than XR.

Roger Hyam, 2019/10/192019/10/25

Three little questions everyone can answer How many flights have you taken in the last year? How many days in the last week have you travelled by car? How many days in the last week have you eaten meat? Add the three numbers together. What was your total score? What…

Mindfulness & Buddhism

Marathon Monk: August 2019 – 358 days & 2,148 mindful miles

Roger Hyam, 2019/09/102019/09/10

Not much to say this month. Very crowded with the festival. Such a relief when the posters come down.

Photography

Accidental Collodion Negative

Roger Hyam, 2019/09/012019/09/01

I made a disappointing ambrotype by pointing my half-plate, wet-plate camera out of the window. I was just doing a test shot to see how the collodion behaved. After two exposures it was still way over exposed/developed. But then this evening I held it up to the light and realised…

Photography

Vintage Lens Coverage Graphic

Roger Hyam, 2019/08/162023/12/27

When you’re shopping for a large format lens one of the first things you want to know is what the coverage is. Will it cover the format I’m working with and by how much? Having salvaged the Schneider Kreuznach Vintage Lens Data I found myself with a piece of A4…

Photography

Schneider Kreuznach Vintage Lens Data

Roger Hyam, 2019/08/162023/12/27

If, like me, you spend too much time and money on old large format lenses you may be frustrated that the data that used to be hosted on the Schneider Optics site has disappeared. The URL now redirects to https://schneiderkreuznach.com/ I’ve looked around but can only find the data on…

Misc

Marathon Monk: July 2019 – 340 days & 2,040 mindful miles

Roger Hyam, 2019/08/072019/08/07

Breaking the 2,000 mile barrier. Lots of energy this month. First week on holiday in the Lake district.

Photography

Voigtländer Avus Upgrade

Roger Hyam, 2019/07/212019/07/21

From 1913 to 1935 the German company Voigtländer manufactured a midrange plate camera called the Avus. This was before the standardisation of sheet film holders that came after WWII (I think). These cameras took 9x12cm film which was common in Europe and used by several other manufactures. The Avus was…

Misc

Wet plate collodion: Why bother?

Roger Hyam, 2019/07/152019/07/15

There is no doubt that making wet plate collodion photographs is a faff. I can make an image with my phone in just a few seconds. Setting up the darkroom, making a wet plate photo then packing everything away again is measured in hours. When we principally consume images on…