Throughout the thirty years I have been a photographer I have had a passion for black and white printmaking. A passion, bordering on obsession that at times has overridden the expressive side of my work. Constantly searching for the finest quality print I moved from 35mm to medium format to 5x4 and 10x8 until, about 3 years ago when I bought an 8x20 banquet camera on E bay. I set out to make 8x20 panoramic platinum prints, the ultimate in quality. The negatives were as near to perfect as they could possibly be. Using the zone system to its literal extent I searched for the best. The images that resulted although beautifully rendered were missing something.

 

Whilst studying for an MA in photography with Paul Hill I decided to shoot a project on 35mm. I had used 35mm a lot for my commercial work and I had always taken the smaller camera with me on leisure trips, but I hadn’t taken the resultant images very seriously. What I discovered by using 35mm again was an intuitive sense of the image that was not apparent in the prints I had produced from big negatives. The slow meditative way of working with big cameras can be cathartic, the prints are sumpteous but the intuitive way of working with a hand held small camera is liberating. I still want to make my images to a high standard so I have devised a workflow that brings the very best technical quality out of my 35mm images. 

 

My Cameras, I have two bodies, are Olympus OM4Ti’s. Exposure is determined using the inbuilt spot meter and applying a version of the zone system. I mostly use 35mm f2 and 85mm f2 lenses. I do have some others. My choice of film is Ilford HP5 or Kodak Tri X. I don’t use a tripod. I develop the films in Rodinal. I have tested for my own film speed and development times. I make contact sheets of all of my films and select from them to make work prints. I use Kentmere fineprint; finegrain papers and I develop them in Dr. Beers’s formula that I mix myself. Exposure times are determined using test prints and f-stop method. My finished prints are fixed in a double fixer bath, hypo cleared, selenium toned and washed individually for archive permanence. The air-dried prints are then hinged, using acid free tape, to a museum backboard and window mounted with museum board.