Silver Gelatine prints.

I am not used to calling photographs made on “traditional” paper from light-tight boxes “Silver Gelatine prints” – to me they are simply prints. but, as most “prints” today are made by mechanical printing machines operated by computers and from enhanced and manipulated digital recordings, the prints have to have a new name to differentiate them from computer driven technology.

I make many different types of prints, but I do not now use any computer or mechanical printing techniques. I have used most types or printers, ink jet, bubble jet, laser, etc, etc and the results have been sometimes good, but now I do not use these technology at all.

I worked with digital computers and wrote with early compiling languages in the 1960s, I worked with many of the pioneers of computers and computing technologies, I helped develop and promote the use of silicon chips, Unix, TCP/IP, Ethernet, I owned the first portable phones which triggered heart attacks from the radiation those bricks emitted if you put them in a coat pocket. I met Tim Berners Lee in 1983 and could see what would soon happen. It was then that I quit and moved to a country village in France.

I use (obviously) a computer to write this text and I use old digital cameras from flea markets (switched to manual with old Zuiko lenses) to put images on these websites (you can tell) – but I no longer own a telephone and I have quit Facebook. It really is not an affectation – I am just much happier (and poorer) doing it my way.

My preferred printing is with Agfa Brovira paper and Amidol developer, but use anything I can get. I use a metronome for timing enlargements and do not have  densitometers, exposure calculators or other equipment, only my eyes and memory. I do dodge and burn and edge burn most prints.

As the materials get scarcer, I am moving more towards calotypes made with washi papers. Wet plate collodion negatives are wonderful, and I am experimenting with dyes to expand colour sensitivity (I expect this is a vain hope). Luckily I have thousands of negatives and many more transparencies (a lot of these are my beloved Kodachrome), so I hope to have plenty of work I can now get on with for the next 50 years.

Here are a few prints I have made in the last five years, some of the negatives were made last week – some are now 50 years old.

Click on the print to enlarge – 

If there is a link under the print, click for more information