Is it a year?
Actually a year and month and a few days since I posted anything here. Wow... guess you missed out on some stuff. So briefly, after 247 days not doing PotD, I couldn't stand it anymore and jumped back into Mynd Dagsins. The daily photo, every day, not excuses, blah blah blah. Then there's the pinhole stuff. A home made 5x4 pinhole camera, a Pinholaroid instant pinhole camera, the PooTube, a pinhole made from a length of soil pipe, and the next project which is a 6x9 rollfilm pinhole made from a Brownie No.2. That will be made. A 99p eBay Brownie No2 is donating it's innards. Yep, I'm cutting up a classic. I'll fill in the gaps with a bit more detail later on.  ¶ 4:32 PM 0 Comments

  Full Circle My first 'serious' camera was a Chinon CS, a fully manual 35mm SLR that was in to all intents, a Pentax Spotmatic clone: M42 screw mount lens, stop down metering and not a lot more. I bought FP4 in bulk and developed it myself. As time went on I embraced the latest technology. The Chinon was replaced in the 80's by 'aperture priority' automatic Yashica, and that in the 90's by an autofocus Canon EOS. In the 00's I stayed with EOS and went digital. But now, since I stopped the madness of PotD, the digital cameras sit on the shelf, while I shoot film. My cameras of choice are a pentax MX with 50mm and 100mm lenses and my Rollei twin lens reflex. I'm buying FP4 in bulk and developing it myself. In 30 years of picture taking, I'm pretty much back where I started. I've gained full aperture metering, a bayonet mount, and with the Rollei the wonderful 6x6 negative size to work with. I've learned that more automation ultimately leads to less satisfaction. I've learned that the joy of seeing your pictures for the first time, hours, days or even weeks after you made the exposure beats the convenience of instant review every time. I've learned the value of a unique physical negative is higher than a collection of 0s and 1s on a computer disk. Yep, I'm back where I started. And I love it.
  ¶ 11:23 AM 0 Comments

  Experts? Nah! Y'know, I'm enjoying the slow lane of non PotD photography. I've got three rolls of film on the go right now. A roll of Provia (colour slide) in the Rolleicord, Fuji Acros (B&W) in one MX and some colour print in the other MX. No hurry to finish them, and I'll see the pics when I do.

I am however getting really sick of all the bullshit expert advice out there on the internet photo sites. I really should stop reading it, but I find it quite hard to resist. If it's not gear junkies obsessing the corners of their 12mpixel images when viewed at 100% on screen, or spec dorks listing the 199 reasons why the Nikon D(who cares) is better than a Canon(whetever)D, it's some goober going on and on about how brilliant their workflow technique is. This week I've read how no one in their right mind should would use the B&W modes found on Canon DSLRs as the results are totally cr@p, and another article on 'near digital quality' from scanned 35mm film. Hmm that sounds interesting, now it seems I can degrade my negs to digital quality? Cool. A must read for sure. But to save you the trouble of reading it yourself, he simply stated that you dust the neg, choose a suitable scan resolution, scan it, use NeatImage to reduce the grain, sharpen in PS then print. Wow. Mindblowing stuff. Along the way of course we're treated to a list of expensive hardware and software that the author needs you to know he owns. Conclusion? With around £2000 of gear and a good supply of some of the most expensive ink and paper ever produced, it really is nearly possible to make a print as good as if you'd sent the neg to a good lab. Well, nearly almost as good. So in the spirit of sharing, I thought I'd join in.

Here are a couple of my workflow secrets:

Making a 15”x10” print from a colour neg. Easy - just send it to a good lab and tell them how you'd like it to be printed. Job done.

B&W conversion workflow. Set camera to B&W mode. Take picture. Sorted. But hold on, isn't that guaranteed to give cr@p results? Judge for yourself left.

Lara, shot with B&W mode. Hi Lara!

  ¶ 11:04 PM 1 Comments

  PotD + 5 Hey, I took a photograph! Just 4 days off and I'm back at it. But one thing struck me as I was fiddling around in photoshop... what am I going to do with it? It's a nice enough image, but what now? In reality, there's no difference between this picture and what I was doing with PotD. But it can't go in there as I'm not doing PotD any more. Which got me thinking about what it was I did with my photographs before PotD. In all honesty not alot other than putting some in frames and others in albums. The out takes remained in their little paper envelopes, or later, the digital ones sit in folders on the hard drive. So here's a photograph, all on it's own, which deserves a little more than to sit on a hard drive for eternity. Hmmm - it might look nice on the wall.  ¶ 1:59 PM 2 Comments

  Cold Turkey I can't believe the reaction to my final PotD picture! So many hits and comments! I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by, and to those who posted tribute shots. That was just so fantastic. Thanks guys!

It's a funny day today. I've decided that I wont even touch a camera today. A task made all the more difficult as I'd left the SLR on top of a nice warm fleecy top that I wanted to wear. Doh! I had to wear something else! I have a feeling that if I pick up a camera, and take just one picture, it'll start up again. I need to break the cycle. If only for one day. This will be the first day I've not taken a photograph for what, 1180 days? Or was I shooting daily before I started Photo-a-Day? I took a look back through the archives and I've got nothing between Christmas Day and New Years Eve 2002. Wow, could that be 6 days without taking a photograph? What was I doing? I have no idea at all. No record of anything that happened for 6 whole days! I have to assume that it wasn't a great 6 days as the series of pictures taken on New Years Eve, the day of my first PotD image, are all titled humbug2002_xxx.jpg.

So, I'm not touching the camera at all today. Strange then as I'm seeing potential photographs everywhere. A line of starlings on a telephone wire, my fingers on the keyboard as I type, the light across the packaged up 2x teleconverter that I must send to it's new owner today...

But I've had some creative fun anyway. Remember the black and white memory cards? Well, Ilford wouldn't put them into production, something about being not technically possible, so I've launched my own range: DM4 plus and DM5 plus black and white, iso 125 and 400. Maybe I should add a C41 process DM2 Super... available now from My shop

  ¶ 5:16 PM 1 Comments

  The End? I'm sitting here, asking myself, not for the first time, what am I going to photograph toady. For the last 1178 days, I've been working on my Photo-a-Day project, Mynd Dagsins/PotD. Every day I've taken a new photograph and posted to my gallery over at pbase.com. Every day for three years, three months and twenty two days. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes just a snap shot, but every day. Not 'when I could be bothered' or 'when I have the time' or 'every so often'. Every day. Today, 23rd March 2006, is my last day, picked at random by a roll of the dice. One last photograph and that's it. The end. No more PotD. So I'd better make it a good one.

And there's the problem. It's always the 'what' part of the question rather than the 'going to photograph' that's the hard part. Properly exposed and in focus isn't even half the battle. That's the easy bit, the bit that, in theory at least, the camera does for you. And I still have no idea what I'm going to photograph. But, by now, the last photograph has been taken and posted, and you've probably arrived here from a link in that last posting, so what next?

The big news is the Book. Yes, a book feauturing all 1179 photographs. Clearly a I can't dedicate a page for each picture, and many of them I wouldn't want to be seen full page anyway, but they'll all be in there, 50 or so printed at least 7"x5". Softbound, approx 130 pages, available to purchase soon! Email me at book-at-eastacre.com replace the '-at-' with '@' for updates on the book's progress.

In the meantime, there's the t-shirts and mugs which are the must have items for 2006! Featuring 'the Lurker' and 'Aliens drank my Beer' designs based on photographs from PotD, they're available now along with a re-issue of the classic DM Mask shirt from my online shop. No really, you can buy this stuff... please do, it'll make my day!


Then of course, thre's this blog. A place where I'll rant on in a semi coherant manner and share my views about all things photographic - technique, gear my latest projects, whatever. I'm not giving up photography. Far from it, I want to do more. This blog is my new online focus, if you'll excuse the pun. But I'll not be posting every day. Maybe just every so often, or when I have the time.  ¶ 1:02 PM 4 Comments