Photography - A Flash Of Darkness

From Wet to Dry: The Gelatin Dry Plate Era, 1870s–1900s

The gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, was a major milestone in photographic history. Unlike the wet collodion process, which required plates to be sensitized, exposed, and developed while still wet, dry plates were factory-prepared and could be stored for...

carbon print, gelatin dry plate, gum bichromate, photogravure, platinum print

Made with Collodion: The Media that Shaped An Era

The Miners' Bridge, on the Llugwy, North Wales, Roger Fenton, 1853, collodion/albumen (Source: Wikipedia Commons) The collodion process of 1851 transformed how images were made, shared, and preserved. It was also known as wet-plate photography and involves coating a piece...

albumen print, Ambrotype process, Collodian, collodion process, Ferrotype, tintype process, wet-plate

The Life and Cameras of Thomas Ottewill

For a camera maker of such influence, Thomas Ottewill is biographically elusive. We have examples of his cameras, but we know little about his business, less about his family life and nothing at all about his final years and death....

C.G.H. Kinnear, Collodian, Daguerrotype, large format

SLR vs Rangefinder Metering

I shoot with both the Leica rangefinders and the Nikon SLRs. The most frequently used are my Leica M6 TTL 0.58 and Nikon F3, which is the camera that got me back into shooting with film. They are both legendary cameras,...

Leica M6 TTL, Nikon F3

Magic without Silver – Ilford XP2 Super

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Introduction Ilford XP2 Super 400 is best known for a unique characteristic: though it is a genuine black and white film, it can be processed using standard C41 processing alongside everyday colour films on the high street. There’s much more...

film, Ilford

Early Auto Focus Cameras

Although I've shot with quite a few auto focus film cameras, I haven't any hands-on experience of the early, historically significant, models from the 70's and 80's described in this post. I only dimly recall the point and shoots I...

Auto Focus, Canon AF35M, Canon EOS, Canon T80, Contax, Contax T2, Contrast Detection, film, Honeywell Visitronic, Konica C35 AF, Minolta 7000, Nikon, Nikon F3AF, Pentax, Phase Detection, Polaroid SX-70 Sonar OneStep, TTL Auto Focus

When Photos Looked Like Paintings – Pictorialism

Waterloo Place by Leonard Misonne (1899) There is something magical to me about pictorialist photography, particularly urban pictorialism, as shown here in Leonard Misonne's accomplished example from 1899. Here, Horse-drawn carriages seem to dissolve into the luminous haze, while lamplight...

Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, film, George Eastman, gum bichromate, Hill and Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Leonard Misonne, Oscar Gustav Rejlander, Paul Strand, pictorialism, pictorialist, what is pictorialism?, Women Pictorialists

The Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie

The No. 2 Pocket Brownie on Deal Pier. Gimbal head not required! The Kodak No. 2 Folding Brownie was introduced in 1904 as part of the the Folding Brownie series. This was Kodak's least expensive folding roll film camera range...

film, Folding Cameras, Kodak, Kodak Brownie, Meniscus Lens

The First Camera Lens

The first camera lens was produced by French optician and instrument maker Charles Chevalier's optical firm. Chevalier produced lenses for photographic pioneers Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre, who both used his lenses for their ground-breaking work in photography. I researched...

Achromatic Meniscus Lens, Charles Chevalier, Daguerrotype, Kodak, Kodak Brownie, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Meniscus Lens

The Nikon FE SLR

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The Nikon FE flew under my Nikon radar for many years. I regularly shoot with the FM3a, F3 and F6, and I've had a FM2/n in my collection for some years, but somehow I remained completely unaware of the FE....

film, Nikkor, Nikon, Nikon FE2, Nikon FM, Single Lens Reflex, SLR

The Photojournalist of Apocalypse Now

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This article started as research into classic film cameras in movies, which led me to movies featuring photographers, and to my favourite movie Apocalypse Now, featuring Dennis Hopper as a manic photojournalist. The search for the origin of Dennis Hopper's...

Apocalypse Now, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Klaus Kinski, Leica M2, Movies, Nikon, Nikon F, Photojournalist, Photojournalists, Sean Flynn, Vietnam War

The Greatest Movies about Photographers: Rear Window

This article was inspired by classic film cameras in movies - specifically , Leicas and Nikons. From cameras in movies, it's a short step to movies about photographers. My favourite movie with a photographer as the lead character is Alfred...

Alfred Hitchcock, Exakta Varex VX, Josef Koudelka, Movies, Photojournalism, Photojournalists, Rear Window

Vivian Maier and The White Bear

It’s hard not be distracted from Vivian Maier’s work by her life. As told in the 2015 documentary Finding Vivian Maier, the extraordinary stories of her life and the discovery of her work have contributed substantially to her posthumous status as a...

film, Franke and Heidecke, Hasselblad 203FE, Kodak, Rolleiflex, Rolleiflex 3.5F, street photography, Twin Lens Reflex, Vivian Maier

Nikon Film Cameras in The Movies

As a Nikon user and collector, I've noticed quite a few Nikon film cameras appearances in the movies and on TV shows. This short article outlines those appearances. I've also written in more detail about the Nikon F's appearance in...

Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Movies, Nikon, Nikon F, Nikon F2, Nikon F3, Rear Window, Taxi Driver, Vietnam War

Early Cameras, a Timeline

This timeline of early cameras describes significant photographic milestones and early cameras representative of their year of introduction between the inception of photography and 1900. I've also provided an overview of the most important developments decade by decade from 1840-1900...

C.G.H. Kinnear, Captain Francis Fowke, Charles Chevalier, Daguerrotype, Dallmeyer, Dubroni No. 1, Field camera, Gandolfi, Giroux Daguerreotype, Houghton-Butcher, J.H. Dallmeyer, Kodak, Ottomar Anschütz, Sanderson, snapshot, Susse Freres, Tailboard camera, Thomas Sutton, Thornton-Pickard, View camera, Voigtlander

Camera Timeline – Year by Year

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This year by year camera timeline lists significant milestones and cameras representative of the year, as well as some curiosities and evolutionary dead-ends, from 1900. The timeline does not include developments in lenses, film processes or camera phones. These can...

Canon, Contax, Gamma Duflex, Gandolfi, Hasselblad, Kodak, Kodak VPK, Konica I, Leica III, Leica IIIf, Leica M, Leica M3, Leica M6 TTL, Leica M7, Nikon D850, Nikon F, Nikon F6, Nikon FM2, Nikon FM3a, Olympus OM-1, Rolleiflex, Speed Graphic, The Intrepid Camera Company, Thornton-Pickard, Yashica, Zeiss Ikon

The Nikon F6 – Great Film Cameras

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The Nikon F6 was the last of the line of Nikon's professional SLR film cameras, and perhaps the most technically refined and advanced 35mm film camera ever made. It is the film camera I taken most pictures with. This is...

film, Nikon, Nikon F6, SLR

The Nikon FM3A – Great Film Cameras

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The Nikon FM3A (often written as FM3a) is one of the most refined manual SLR's ever made, and as a 21st century manual focus film SLR, somewhat of a throwback. It was introduced in July 2001 when the shift to...

film, FM3A vs F3, FM3A Vs Leica M6, Nikon, Nikon F3, Nikon FM2n, Nikon FM3a, SLR

Photography Timeline – From Chemistry to Computation

My Kodak No 2 Folding Autographic Brownie There are many strands in a photography timeline - the chemistry of film and processing, the physics of optics, the mechanical engineering of shutters, the electronics of metering and digital photography, and the...

Ambrotype process, Calotype, Canon, collodion process, Cooke triplet lens, Cyanotype, Daguerrotype, George Eastman, Ilford, Kodak, Leica, Leica M3, Leica M6, LOMO, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Nikon, Nikon F, Nikon F2, Nikon F3, Nikon F6, Nikon FM3a, Olympus, Oskar Barnack, Petzval, pictorialism, Rolleiflex, Samsung, Sir John Herschel, tintype process, Voigtlander, William Henry Fox Talbot, Zeiss Planar

Around the World with a Leica Q

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Nearly three years after I first posted about my new Leica Q on this site, it was stolen from a South Kensington Pub. This was after a visit to the Natural History Museum to see the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of...

Deal, Leica, Leica Q, London

Cindy Sherman – Star of the Films That Never Were

Cindy Sherman is one of the world's leading artists – for 30 years, she has starred in all her photographs – and yet the more we see of her, the less recognisable she is. She's a Hitchcock heroine, a busty Monroe, an abuse...

Cindy Sherman, New York, self portrait

Fan Ho – Smoke, Mist, Light and Shadow

Evening in Aberdeen, 1958 I first came across Fan Ho's work in a podcast from Ted Forbes' The Art of Photography. Some photographer's work gives me an immediate jolt the first time I see it. Fan Ho's photography, like that...

Brassaï, Fan Ho, Hong Kong, Rolleiflex, street photography, William Klein

Brassaï’s Dark and Beautiful Realm

Avenue de l'Observatoire - © ESTATE BRASSAÏ-RMN Brassaï is one of those photographers whose work had an immediate and profound effect on me. His dreamlike nocturnal street photography and sharply observed portraits of life after dark provide a unique set...

Alfred Stieglitz, André Kertész, Brassaï, Fan Ho, long exposure, night, Paris, street photography, Voigtlander, Weegee

Wet Plate Photography – Alcohol, Ether and Gun Cotton

AKA Gun Cotton Photography Wet plate photography was not easy. The wet-plate collodion process used between the 1850s and 1880s uses a solution of gun-cotton in ether and alcohol and requires the entire photographic process including coating the plate, exposing...

collodion process, film, Hampton Gay, Julia Margaret Cameron, large format, long exposure, nineteenth century, Peter Henry Emerson, Roger Fenton, William Henry Fox Talbot

Fox Talbot and Early Photography

Fox Talbot at dawn The recent exhibition Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph at the Science Museum in London which ended on September 11th 2016 was described as ‘magical to behold’ by Time Out and ‘ground-breaking’ by The Times. I found it extremely...

Calotype, Camera Obscura, collodion process, Daguerrotype, film, Hippolyte Bayard, history, London, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, nineteenth century, Sir John Herschel, William Henry Fox Talbot