As many of you who have attended my workshops know, especially those who have asked me which raw converter I use, I use a variety. I suppose it is a hangover from my darkroom days, when I used to use a range of different film developers. Each one had its own strengths (and weaknesses) and the ability to impart a different ‘look’ to the finished negative. I just had to know the look I wanted before I developed the film. So, depending on the film stock, the scene contrast and the printing paper I would be using, I might select Rodinal or D-76 or Tetenal Ultrafin or even HC-110. By experimenting and exploring, I came to be able to predict the finished result and hence give myself choices.

I suppose I stood at one end of a spectrum. From time to time I would meet photographers from the other end, people who would tell me that they only used Ilford film, processed in Ilford chemistry and printed on Ilford paper, dev’d in Ilford developers. Why use anything else? they would say, and accuse me of wasting unnecessary time, of ‘playing around’. It always seemed to me that this approach was akin to supporting only one TV channel, of saying’ I only watch Channel X news. Being an inveterate channel surfer (you know, one of those irritating people who sit there, remote in hand, watching four channels at the same time) I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know what I could expect when I combined film A with developer B. I remain unapologetic. It meant I became multilingual in the darkroom and my armoury held a variety of weapons.

Enter digital photography. (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

Shahidul Alam argues in this essay that may challenge your preconceptions, that the aid agencies do at least as much harm as good, and that photographers sent in to document it are falling prey to prejudices. He argues:

Invariably films about the plight of people in developing countries show how desperate and helpless the people are, the people who realize their plight and come forward to their support are usually white foreigners. In some cases even local people are seen to be helping, but invariably it is a foreigner who has enlightened them about the way out, and it is always a foreign presenter who speaks out for them. The foreigner is so strong and forthright and so caring. She could almost hand over the microphone to them, if only they could speak for themselves, if only they understood. (more…)

I love books.

I especially love photography books. From time to time I have wondered whether or not the photography books we buy/have bought define us as photographers, the path we have travelled and our place on the photographic helix.

Over the years I have bought many of them. Some of them have become true friends that continue to encourage and inspire me, others have been fair-weather friends, who came into my life for a time, promising much, and delivering little. Still others have arrived, stayed for a short while and left. But they have all offered something at a time when I needed it. (more…)

I am not sure when I really decided I liked Christchurch.

It was probably around 1999. We had been treating each other with disdain since 1963, when my family moved into town from the Ashley Downs. My father had won a promotion so our carefree country days as forestry brats came an end.

My mother was a city girl from Invercargill (could anyone from Invercargill ever call themselves that), who had made the adjustment to country life in the Maniototo. She now had to convert back to life in the suburbs. She didn’t go easily. And her distress (and therefore mine) wasn’t helped by our first winter in Christchurch, one of those dour soggy winters where everything is cold, grey, dreary and interminable. A certain bleakness seemed to settle over our family for the next few years. (more…)