With the full gang back together it was a pleasure to get to talk to Nick Carver about his love for 6x17 large format photography, his recent commissioned trip to Spain, other formats to boost the creative juices, his You Tube Channel and much more.
If you’re not familiar with Nick and his work then here is a part of his bio from his website.
“Nick Carver is a working photographer and photography instructor based in Orange County, CA. His professional work centres primarily on architectural photography for commercial properties (office buildings, industrial buildings, retail centres, hospitality), and through his online photography courses Nick delivers instruction to hundreds of students in over 30 countries.
Nick’s career reflects a deep-seated dedication to the craft of photography with an enthusiasm for traditional analogue film. You may recognize him from his YouTube channel wherein he takes viewers into the classroom and out in the field to share the process behind his work”
Things we chatted about on the show:
We were talking about modern lights on buildings and how LEDs were ruining the character and atmosphere for us film photographers. Nick mentioned Technology Connections, an interesting You Tube Channel that picks apart and explains all sorts of modern and older tech ideas and explains them simply, they have some film photography videos there amongst a whole bunch of interesting topics.
Although Nick started with a 6x17 back he explains how he found it ultimately limiting so now has a dedicated Shen Hao 617 camera, if you want one too like Andrew does then head over to their website. If you’re in the USA then Badger Graphic are the importers of these and many other format iterations of these Chinese built large format cameras.
Simon mentioned the upcoming “Mersey Meetup” on 25th May, this one focuses on the back alleyways and unexplored side streets of Liverpool. These events are organised by Steve Starr and if you want to attend then turn up outside Lime Street Station in Liverpool at 10.30.
Steve is on social media platforms usually as @stigofthedump.
You can sign up via the excellent Photowalk.me website here:
If you want to get started with 6x17 photography using your large format camera then probably the best option is to head over to Steve Lloyd’s site at Chroma Camera. As well as hand held 617 options he offers a dedicated roll film back for your camera.
It has been far too long between shows and hopefully we can now get back to some kind of regular output.
For this show our last guest Nick Davis (The 120ist on the YouTube) makes a visit to community darkroom / darkroom community that is “Negative Thinking” in Bristol where he gets to interview Tim Pearse about the space, the community he is helping to build, his love of the darkroom as a means of expression and creating unique works of art.
Steve (@stigofthedump) Starr has made a wonderful book of his lovely coastal images and thoughts and now an exhibition in North Wales where his prints are being sold for a good cause.
#59 The Nomadic Photo Ark
Episode 59
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 • Duration 01:38:55
#59 The Nomadic Photo Ark
Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher travel the USA with their mobile darkroom, studio and office telling the stories, in recordings and 8x10 portraits of people they meet on their way.
Both were clearly fated to meet and undertake this life-changing adventure.
Living the dream?
We think so…..
Project links.
The website is the place to go to for all things Nomadic Ark.
Travel blog, links to Twitter and Instagram plus ways you can support them financially through Patreon or print sales,
“I like to see myself as a storyteller. Photography happens to be the way I tell stories. I see the world in a certain way and try to create visual images to take viewers on a journey.
I gravitate towards emotional, ethereal and dream-like imagery and I use cameras like pinholes and lenses like the Aero Ektar 178mm as tools to create the look and feel I strive for”.
Louisiana born and bred, lover and teacher of Spanish literature, citizen of the world, fine art printer, abstract landscape photographer…..oh and did I mention he also loved staining developers so much that he developed his own?
I first became aware of Sandy King as, like many others, I began investigating Pyro staining developers. There is much, much more to Sandy than his work developing PyrocatHD and today we scratch away at the surface.
As we are chatting I can see Erik Mathy moving his fingers over his keyboard as he sends links to us all via our messenger chat . He seems to be able to pick up on things the guest is saying, do the Google research and send the links over and still keep track of the conversation....clearly he isn’t a proper male!
Just over twelve months ago, Andrew and Simon were joined by the wonderful Jenny Sampson after being spotted on the front page of the relatively obscure BBC.co.uk website with a striking wet plate image. During an excellent discussion of Jenny's work, we touched upon and fell over Jenny's description of her collaboration with the Rolls & Tubes Collective; a group of photographers taking the inexplicable Covid related toilet roll shortage and recreating some of photography's greatest moments with bog roll.
An excellent body of work was created and now Jenny along with Colleen Mullins, Christy McDonald and Nicole White have a sold out publication and success beyond their wildest dreams.
To catch up the story, we've sent Erik all the way to California to delve deeper into the project and relive the journey.
Kelly-Ann Bobb is an analogue freelance photographer based in the twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago.
She has always had a natural inclination towards creativity. After completing medical school, she fell in love with the unending complexities of film photography.
She utilizes photography as a tool of unmasking, telling stories that would not otherwise be told. Revealing as much of herself as the subjects she photographs.
We spent a fair part of the time talking about two of Kelly’s projects that have received widespread acclaim.“Home Alone” and “Sacred Bodies and the Divine” – go to Kelly’s IG page to see examples.
The “Home Alone” project was born out of lockdown and explores how we handle solitude – its more than that so listen to the show as Kelly explains it better.
#54 Catch Up
Episode 54
Monday, July 26, 2021 • Duration 01:42:14
Just the three of us this week as we recover from the trip to Dave Shrimpton’s house.
This was meant to be more of an email show but there was really only one we could read out and that was just a brilliant one from Pakistan based visual artist Jahanzeb Haroon.
Things we chatted about on the show:
Andrew kicked off the discussion with “what we’ve all been up to”. Shamefully but rationally explained, no LF work from him for ages. The darkroom extension has been an all consuming project and with the first paying workshop customer coming in August the pressure has been on to at least get it functional, and it is now.
Returning from a holiday in Northumberland Andrew has a number of rolls of fil m to develop including 4 or 5 127 films, some HP5 and a roll of expired Astia that he exposed in his Toyo 45a with the 6x17 back. The question goes begging “do we or should we take large format gear on a family holiday”?
Another reason for not exposing too much LF film recently is the need to nail down rotary processing in his Jobo CPE2 or the new variable speed rotating base recently received from Student Photo Store on ebay. Settling down to PyrocatHD and ID111+1 will reduce the creative choices, and darkroom is needed to play around.
Earlier in the year Mat Marrash posted a video all about determining your own personal film speed and “normal” developing time using a Stouffer TP45 step wedge, after years of doing this by trial and error Andrew has taken the plunge and ordered a step wedge.
Mat’s video and a link to the Stouffer site below.
Simon, Andrew and Yevgeni venture out on their first LFPP outside broadcast. Unfortunately Erik couldn’t get a ticket across the Atlantic so we had to use a naked female shop dummy as an able replacement.
After two previous attempts we arrive at the wonderful imaginarium where Dave eats, sleeps and breathes creative photography.
For part 2 we are mostly in the darkroom where the magic is revealed and the Tintypes of Dave come out pretty darn well.
What a brilliant day we had and both of us are hooked.
Things we chatted about on the show:
Dave works closely with Jeff Perry who has helped him bring his photographic equipment vision to reality and Andrew will be using his 4x5 back and wetplate insert in pt 2
Kevin Lunham operates Wet Plate Supplies from Ramsey (down the road from Andrew) and is a brilliant place for all you may need for wet plate and your alternative photographic process.
#52 LFPP On Tour With Dave Shrimpton
Episode 52
Monday, June 28, 2021 • Duration 02:12:11
Simon, Andrew and Yevgeni venture out on their first LFPP outside broadcast. Unfortunately Erik couldn’t get a ticket across the Atlantic so we had to use a naked female shop dummy as an able replacement.
After two previous attempts we arrive at the wonderful imaginarium where Dave eats, sleeps and breathes creative photography.
For part 1 we chat to Dave over coffee and Kit Kats as he shows us his various go to 4x5 cameras. Venturing into his photographic imaginarium that is his studio and we are like kiddies in a sweetshop…..oh and Simon exposes some LF film in his Chroma Carbon Adventurer camera.
Things we chatted about on the show:
Dave works closely with Jeff Perry who has helped him bring his photographic equipment vision to reality and Andrew will be using his 4x5 back and wet plate insert in pt 2
Kevin Lunham operates Wet Plate Supplies from Ramsey (down the road from Andrew) and is a brilliant place for all you may need for wet plate and your alternative photographic process.
Shortly before Covid 19 turned the world upside down Monica and Adam met and a synergistic relationship (always the best) began to bloom.
Adam’s strength lay in sound recording and is this, combined with Monica’s passion for traditional large format photography that has led to the (working title) Portraits of US project.
Adam has cycled, well, miles across the USA and Europe and we speak about it in the show.
Adam completed a leadership course with the Adventure Cycling Association,
Phil Davis, author of Beyond The Zone System is a book that I have but despite several attempts remains impenetrable to me. I was, therefore pleased that even Sandy struggled with it…..at least on the first read.
Both Erik and Simon have been up to way more exciting things, actually exposing and playing around with LF film and paper.
Erik has been deep diving into lens building with Bronica ETRS lenses and more (see Erik’s IG site below).
Erik posted into the LFPP Facebook group ongoing work with Faux Orotones with some lovely results.
The Orotone process was made famous by Edward Curtis and more info can be found on line (OK Wikipedia to the rescue) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orotone
Erik is looking for a similar effect using gold spray paint and it works really well.
Simon has been busy using his Chroma camera both in and out of the studio with some expired velvia and, in the 6 towns studio, some Harman Direct Positive paper. We have a chat about the challenges of using HDP and its limited tonal range (high contrast). The Ilford PDF data sheet and a recent Ilford video presented by Rachel Brewster-Wright are very helpful if you are thinking of using this great paper for the first time.
On the subject of film speed testing friend of the show Billy Sanford recently appeared on the Sunny 16 presents show and talked about his experience with a Richard Pickup approach to film speed testing – he actually cited our LFPP interview with Richard as inspiration.
LFPP listener and FB member Jahenzeb Haroon sent in a lovely email talking all about analogue photography in Pakistan, it’s a great email and do check out Jahenzeb’s work which he produces very much against the odds. We take off our collective hats and not in his direction.
Process Supplies in London – Founded in 1928 PS are one of the oldest photographic supply companies in Great Britain and still run by the Willes family in the same Clerkenwell premises.
Dave Burnett – the guy that shot the 2012 Olympic Games on a Speed Graphic with an Aero Ektar lens and took the photographs that led Dave into LF photography.
Process Supplies in London – Founded in 1928 PS are one of the oldest photographic supply companies in Great Britain and still run by the Willes family in the same Clerkenwell premises.
Dave Burnett – the guy that shot the 2012 Olympic Games on a Speed Graphic with an Aero Ektar lens and took the photographs that led Dave into LF photography.
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