what's new for 2025 then

With the induction of a new year, Im sure I will continue to add more “lives” content to the “a day in the life of a” project as I’m not finished on that front. This is become one of those projects that never really has an end date in mind when I first conceived it.
As long as I keep finding lives to document, I’ll keep working on it.

Writing
Ive a few articles to write for those on line photographic platforms that I submitted content for and Im glad they’ve come back to me for more documentative related copy and imaging. Ive also a first for me on a podcast front. Neale James of Photowalk got in touch and asked If he could interview me regarding the “a day in the life” project. Im not sure how this will go but I thought why not give it a go. Ive never been a lover of hearing my own voice so Im not sure If I will play it back at all. Ive never listened to a podcast before, maybe this is the time to do so - im old school me…..

Travel
With 28% of the planet already covered, I certainly will be travelling more and combining that with work assignments too. Im current in Finland, then in a few weeks later I’ll be in India on a jolly but capturing content for an article for hugo at Grain. See my previous article here if your interested. Its a great on line publication as well as a hard copy read

Commissions
These days I only take on work that Im interested in and thats a great place to be. Im only interested in work that challenges me rather than the easier work routes that some other photographers prefer. Im lucky I guess to be in a position that I only need to can pick and choose what floats my boat. Once again on the commissions front, no pixels here, I only shoot film and I certainly won’t compromise on that front.

Any new kit/purchases?
Nope, Ive got my killer rigs and a fridge fully of stock and expired stocks too. I love shooting expired E6 stocks the most. There is that phrase through isn’t there, “never say never” but I’ve spent too many years buying and selling kit to find the right set up for me. Now I have that perfect camera/s set up that covers all film formats. RD

Kodak Professional Portra 160NC review

Here’s a Kodak film stock that I only came across recently and being a lover of Portra in general, I simply had to try it.
I shoot a lot of Portra both on 35mm and medium format but I wanted to try NC on my 6x7 first, just to gauge it on a large negative fit. By the way, this roll of NC expired back in 1998.
I first picked a solid colour subject matter to see how it stood up. You’ll notice here that there is four blues, the double doors, the side shutter, the sea and the sky. All different shades of blue. To my eyes, there’s not colour separation at all and NC has performed really well given the fact that its over 20 years old

The next image was shot early doors just as the sun was coming up positioned slightly behind me. I picked this frame as I thought it would best represent a series of colours for a decent Portra test. Again, I think the film stood up really well the colours to me are classic Portra, perhaps more 160 than 400

I think it’s important to note here that I don’t use Photoshop, Lightroom or filters. I still struggle to understand that if you’re shooting film, you take all that time to compose the shot, get your light levels, shutter speed etc, you then take that image and change it, add and manipulate the hell out of it. If you shot it wrong in the first place, go back and do it again or learn from your mistakes.

Again, the colours here for a well expired film look really good and they are as I saw them. Clearly previous storage on his roll has been good or at least been kept away from heat etc.
On balance then, If i can get hold of some more of this stock, I certainly would. Its clearly Portra both on the quality and the colour front.

Please note: Other views and opinions are available but these are mine. Cheers….