shooting Expired with the odd colour shift - but it works..... →

Ive been shooting expired film for years and I get some great results from them. In fact at one stage, I was shooting 80% of my work on expired stocks. Why you might ask? Well, I l just love too and more so with E6 stocks. Now there are a number of you out there that are nervous about shooting expired and maybe more so E6. Expired slide film is so much more stable than c41 stocks so dont be nervous on that front.
The latest slide roll Ive just shot some content on is a roll of EliteChrome 100. I did a little review on it some time back and I love it so I shot another roll. As with the first roll, I did experience some colour shifts but I reckon that was down to poor storage in its earlier life before I bought it. As I said before, E6 is so stable

So, here’s the first shot for you. Whilst it might appear that the colours look real, and they do, there Cornish, there are further elements of blues tones. Take a look at the second shot and you’ll see what I mean in more detail. The sand is now blue but the colours of the flag in the reflection remain the same.

Ive placed the next set of images in a small gallery so you can compare the tones and the shifts in colour and blue here seems to be the primary one. Now there’s this photography rule I’d really like to quash or should I say Id like EM from Emulsive to tell you more. the One stop rule! its rubbish - here a link to his article - https://emulsive.org/articles/rants/how-to-shoot-expired-film-or-no-you-do-not-need-to-add-one-stop-per-decade

Personally, I dont do it with slide, there is no need. However, with C41 I have done it a few times with rubbish results. Hence why I don’t do it now. Shoot your stocks at box and see what you get. I like the results here and that colour shift for me works. RD

Shooting the shoot

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A couple of seasons ago, I was lucky enough to get a formal invite to a local sporting shoot which I simply could not turn down. This was a shoot like no other. It was so far removed for the general publics perception of Range Rovers, Purdy’s (very expensive shotguns) and people drinking whisky out of lead crystal glasses. This shoot was far from it. Not a single Range Rover in site but plenty of harris tweeds and well dresser shooters ( the guys with the guns). This was and is a budget end local family run shoot. Open to all and invites to all, providing you have some experience of course.

The shoot was headed up by Dan (centre stage in the image below), a local farmers son which has access to woodlands, hidden valleys and acres and open farm land that is so well suited to shoots of this kind. For Dan, putting this shoot together was and is all about budget end shooting. A level where all can afford rather than the high end “Purdy” end of the market. Dan’s shoot is different, the beaters are the shooters and the shooters are the beaters. All of the members takes a turn. The high end shooters just arrive to shoot and leave the beating to others. They see themselves as being beyond that brief sadly…

An integral part of any shoot are the dogs. “Trained to the gun” as they are often referred to. Endless hours of training by their owners to get to a level where they can send them on to hunt out and retrieve the birds. Amazing to watch and their reward is nothing other than working.

The shoot as a rule takes a day and the “peg” selection comes first thing. The “peg” is a ground marker that you will stand at during the shoot. Each member has their own peg. Selection sometimes can be the luck of the draw. In some cases it appears to be pain full - see below

I follow Dan and his members throughout the shoot and captured all that I saw. This kind of “sporting” activity is closely monitored and managed and rightly so. There will always be a high element of danger when the likes of guns/firearms are being used but it was very clear to me from the off that professionalism here was key and everyone understood what was expected of them.

Its rare to be invited to these type of shoots as a photographer, but with my connections I was invited in. I was made to feel very welcome and to some degress put of the shoot myself. Lunch with the shoot was epic by the way. A farmers wife cooking is second to none. Thank you Dan and a thank you to all your members that made me feel welcome that day. RD



what 50p got me on the camera front

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Im still amazed at what turns up at car boots these days on the photographic front. From old slides to box brownies and even the occasional real find like a Leica. However, on this occasion my latest find was this cracking little Kodak Pocket Instamatic 100. In its original box plus a set of flashes at a price of 50p, yes, 50p - a steal!!

So, given the fact that the camera didn’t come with a film, I went on line to that well known auction site and purchased a 110 cartridge of Kodacolor II at a cost of £9.00. The film arrived in the most amazing condition inside and out bearing in mind it expired back in 1974. It looked as if it had just come off the shelves.

At this stage, Im now into £9.50 for the camera and film, and yes I did check before hand as regards getting a 110 film developed and here in the UK too. Give the fact that this film of C41 is nearly 50 years old, I don’t expect that the film will be stable on the colour front and I’d expect some colour shifts, but that expired film for you. i might be lucky though.

The film is 12 exposures with an ASA of 80. With that in mind I’ll be shooting in bright sunshine with a little luck. With regards to the subject matter Ive chosen for this, it will be Sicily, somewhere Ive not shot before…… I’ll keep you posted



Cornwall - This glorious land that we all call home

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With over 400 miles of Atlantic coastline, this glorious land that we all call home has it all. From picture postcard coves, to rugged granite cliffs, deep blue skies and crystal clear Atlantic waters. Our landscape is diverse and spectacular.

From a photography point of view, we have some of the best and purest light here. In the summer months, that light, our Cornish blue skies and the Atlantic colourful tones make it a dream to shoot. I might add, it doesn’t always look like this but we love it when it does. We get a lot of storms and we love them too.

Littered in and around our Cornish coastline are a collection of many picturesque coves which we like to call our own. Throughout the winter months, we love these places even more as the tourists have moved on and we get our lovely land back.

We’ve all heard the following many times before, “you’re so lucky to live here”. My response to that as always is, “it’s not about luck, it’s all about choice”. Life is all about the choices we make and our choice was to live and work in this lovely land that we call home.

Portraits - my spin on them

One of the single most interesting aspects of photography I really enjoy working on over the years is portrait work. It’s a subject Ive really got into and really enjoy that one to one engagement. Each and every time I capture a portrait, I always see elements of improvement. That stems from me never being 100% happy with what Ive shot. I look back and think, I reckon next time I can improve on that. That’s all about learning for me. Something I do every day.
My camera choice here, my Hassy 500 C/M. One of the finest cameras ever made and so good for portrait work

Just one example of my portrait work is this shot of Shelley. Now, there are loads of you out there that believe to get the best out of a portrait shot is to “dress it”. A phrase often known as putting it all together. Im not of the opinion on that front. I believe that you’ll get the best out of your subject by making them relaxed, engage in conversion then open and close your shutter. Only my view, never rock up and shoot straight away. I loved this shot for one simple reason, Shelley just said to me “shall I sit here” and the camera did the rest. Under a minute from his arse on the chair, till the shutter closed


What film stock then? Colour or black and white

Well, I’ll always be a colour man, and thats a fact but some black and white stocks certainly adds their own elements. I love the deep contrast that the likes of Kodaks Double X gives. It also has a period look to it as well as you can see in this example of local artist, Stuart. When is comes to colour, Ektar is my main choice on both 35mm and medium format but I also love Velvia and Provia. Such rich tones….


Camera choices?

My two main choice’s here on the medium format front would be my Hassy 500 c/m and my Pentax 6x7. Both deliver great clarity and both have lenses that are equally matched and super pin sharp. On 35mm, a little mixed there. First choice would be my Konica Hexar closely followed by my Nikon F2. Again, great rigs and a great lenses selection across the board but I like to run with say a 50mm 1.2 and a 105mm 2.5. For me, Nikon produced their best lenses back in the 60’s and that why I run with those now. On the Konica front, any 35mm and 50mm versions. All pin sharp and great to work with

Why film then?

Well thats simple. It offers something that digi never will. Depth, contrast and its real! Everyone has their own opinion on photography and thats the beauty of freedom of speech. Im not saying Im right, all Im saying is thats my choice and I believe I get so much more out of my subjects with a rolls of film rather than a set of pixels - Judge for yourself, RD









St Ives - through my eyes

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St Ives - One would say quintessentially Cornish, picture postcard views and one of the singular most popular seaside towns in the UK. Its colourful, great out of season and very photogenic. But as photographer like most, often see what others don’t. Tourists will continue to take those typical St ives seaside shots we all see and love, but personally, I prefer to see a different side to it whilst at the same time, seeing different views.
Enclosed are just a few of what I see……

I tend to search out colours, use different film formats and a selection of film stocks to mix it all up.

A cliff top view here overlooking Porthmeor beach before the crowds arrive and the emptiness disappears. i often find that the morning light delivers the best light, thats always providing the clouds stay away

At low tide, St Ives offers free food for all. I refer to Cornish muscles if your a seafood lover. Remember though, go safe and be careful of the rocks and watch the tides etc. Im certainly not going to tell you where I harvest mine from, but wherever it is, I get the biggest muscles time after time.
There is a saying that you should never harvest muscles in the months with an “r” in them. Ive never found that an issue

They’ll always be somewhere to point your camera in St Ives and there’s always a different view, if you look for it. Colour will always stand out here, even in the off seasons. St Ives will always remain popular with tourist and locals alike. I’ll continue to look for more ways to shoot more content here - but always at first light and when the place is empty

Camera & film stocks used :
Pentax 6x7, Hassy 500 cm & Konica Hexar. Portra 400vc expired, expired ultramax 400 & Kodak Gold 120

I came back - Automotive

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After shooting automotive content over a number of years for several automotive publications and media outlets, I gave it all up. It just became too easy and I got fed up with the mags cropping my imaging, paying me when they wanted too and some of the owners of that automotive content telling me how good their rides were.

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However, more recently Ive become re interested in that area of photography due to the premium quality and varied volume of content I now find myself shooting again. This time it’s different, no more of that digital rubbish as I now only shoot film.

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Sadly, print based media only takes digital content as they are after that pin sharp pixel crap that we as a nation have been programmed to believe it’s best. Here’s the thing though and this is directed to those blinkered magazine editors of the world, medium format film can be super sharp too and being film, it brings something that digi never will, a real texture and organic quality and lovely grain. Stick that in your digital pipe and smoke it.

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Please note: All of the images contained within this post and other posts, and on my site are free from Photoshop, Lightroom and presets. All my imaging is real

Im not just a colour man. I do shoot b&w too

Whilst I have an overwhelming love of shooting colour content, I still have a love for black and white imaging. I think its that deep contrast of black and white film that works for me plus the grain of course. Shooting this way can often give an image a timeless feel to it if you have the right content.

In the early days, I use to shoot HP5 and FP4 but a couple of years ago I discovered Kodak double X. Such an ace stock. It has the subtleties in tone scale that you’ve come to expect from Kodak. This is a general purpose black & white negative film original used by the motion picture industry and has an excellent latitude and low grain, ideal for documentary work. Try it!

I document it all - evens bee's

As a documentary film photographer, Im constantly on the look out for content to shoot that interests me in anyway shape and form, and on this occasion it was bee’s! Now, I had no idea that this opportunity would face me until I open my back door and saw the post box opposite swarming with bee’s. Clearly they too had something to post, I guess it was something along the lines of wax and honey…..

Now for those of us who felt the need to post something that morning it proved rather difficult. However, I knew a man who dresses in a white suit from time to time, has a selection of bee hives and it well versed on the bee front. A phone call later and Tris appeared to cast his eyes across what was going on and then re appeared with a blue box

I wont go into the fundamentals of how one removes a large number of bee’s from a post box, but it was all very interesting what Tris shared with me, thanks Tris. My small but creative brain couldn’t quite absorb the vast amount of knowledge he shared with me. Visually, it was great to watch and document an expert at work. The bee’s did get a little angry with Tris though, see image below, afterall they didn’t get to post what they wanted.

Please note: No bee’s was hurt in shooting of these frames nor did Tris harm them in any way. To conclude then, they are all now safe alongside the Queen of course in one of Tris’s lovely Cornish hives. Cheers Tris, Queenie, all the workers and or course Royal Mail for opening up the box - no one got stung either. RD

How very British of us....

Crown green bowling. Without doubt, quintessentially British and a familiar sight during our summer months. What I like about this shot is that it tells its own story. A game in play, the hands on the hips and the looking down motion studying the outcome. It also give the impression by the players themselves that its an older boys game. That might be the case here but the I can assure you all that the female element of this world love it too - generally speaking in the same age bracket that is.

There’s another element here that makes this shot what it is, and thats the fact its shot on film, like all of my work. The depth, grain and contrast of a roll of Agfa Vista in this case works really well. The camera on this occasion was the epic little Olympus 35mm trip. One of the best point and shoots ever made, Ask David Bailey - remember the ad’s? the greatest camera ad’s ever made.RD

Norway or bust - 5000 kms of bliss (Part 3)

Throughout the whole of this trip, Norway and its landscape continued to amaze us. Ever tunnel and bridge we crossed and every mile we drove, there was more and more to see. We still experienced that feeling of isolation due to the lack of people, cars and the empty roads. In our view, we couldn’t of picked a better time to see this lovely land.

The further we drove north, the better our trip became. The whole trip felt like we had Norway to ourselves. We covered over 5000km but none of those kilometres felt tiring at all. We fished, camped, got up when we wanted and never really planned the next day. The only element of the trip that restricted us was our return date.

We made a list of the following as we’d never experienced a country quite like Norway in terms of its infrastructure and how one navigates it. Reflective views everywhere

number of tunnels we drove through: 143
number of bridges we crossed: 57
number of fjords we saw, drove over or drove under: 47
number of rolls of film shot: lost count

For those of you considering visiting Norway do it! Our advice would be, put a road trip together. This was not a trip for us, more so an adventure as nothing as such was really planned

Norway or bust - 5000 kms of bliss (Part 2)

And so we drove on for hours with no real idea as to where we were heading. We’d never been to Bergen before so this was are first port of call. Not that we enjoy visiting major cities, I think it was just the fact that we’d thought we’d have a nosey around to see what was what. We were met with some classic colourful scandinavian housing, street art and waterfront scene’s. There was some sort of National day on at the time, the place was crowded so we left pretty quickly and moved on heading north into some lovely Norwegian country side.

With no real route planned as such other than heading north, we never really knew where we were going so we just continuing driving to see where we might end up. We had a map with us and as we looked further, a set of little islands caught our eye so we headed there. One of the islands we thought we’d try was called “Fedje”. Why, we had no idea but that’s where we were heading and I have to say, it was one of the best decisions of our journey. We had no idea what to expect and arriving at the ferry stop, we thought we were the only people heading there. Another car or two rocked up but that was about it. 30 minutes later and we were there. What a find! I can only best describe the place as , you now when you get up super early on a Sunday morning and no one else is around, it felt just like that. To top it all off, the island was empty apart form a few locals. One tiny shop, a brewery which seemed a little odd and that was about it, apart from some lovely colourful homes, second ones I might add.

What an incredible place Fedje is, known locally as “the village in the ocean”. All we did for the week we were there was walk, fish, drink coffee and relax. The sun never stopped shining and we hardly ever spoke to anyone. its seemed like the place was closed

to be continued…….