I walked passed The Park Tunnel in Nottingham many times before I realised it was there. Once I saw it, I knew I had to do a dance shoot there. Soon after, I was working with Karla Jones, a freelance dance artist, who said she’d love to do a dance shoot. So we had a fun afternoon in the cool stonework of The Park Tunnel.
Pappelwick Pumping Station has a wonderful and massive old Victorian underground reservoir. It would still be in use if it did not have a few small cracks in the walls. But it’s safe to visit, which is what Ellie Gorski and I did for an absolutely fantastic dance photoshoot. It’s eery, and damp, but wonderful.
As well as photographing dance, and performance art, I also help run a community darkroom: Leicester Lo-Fi. Every season, we do some new workshops, and like to put in some less known alternative processes, so I thought I’d do one on Luminograms. First, I had to learn how to do them. Luminograms are photographs taken without a camera, just manipulating light, in the darkroom. The absolute master of the process is Michael Jackson, and I still can’t figure out how he does some of his techniques.
I started fairly simply, using a pack of old resin coated gloss photo paper and a darkroom enlarger. This gave me control of how long my light source was on for, and with this I experimented with glass and objects, finding the exposure times that gave me black, various shades of grey, and also white.
Continue reading “Luminograms”After enjoying Lud’s Church so much for the photoshoot with Harriet Curtis-Hampson & Hettie Holman, here, I thought I’d take a rare trip out, between lockdowns, this time with my conspirator, IsoElegant. We wanted some nice contrasting clothes, so she chose a flapper dress, which I think works well.
So, Isoelegant said to me, “Let’s do a shoot with water”. Maybe she was thinking of next to a river or lake. I thought, let’s throw buckets of water over each other. We set up in the studio, with a complicated mechanism involving squirrels & rope to release the water. After a bit, we decided to simplified things by getting Adrian involved.
It was only after a few goes that Adrian had the idea to warm up the water…
Isoelegant & I decided to have a day in a Leicester photography studio, playing with lights. We took it in turns to be the photographer & model. Isoelegant bought a load of props and did 95 costume changes. I brought a cup & some cheese.
As with the previous ‘When The Serious Work Is Done‘, we are both doing our own photo edits & blog.
Isoelegant’s blog is here, where she explains the fun we had way better than I do.
When The Serious Work Is Done is a series of blogs triggered by those discussions in the pub, of what would be a fun shoot. It’s by two photographers let off the leash, to go and play, then edit the photos, in their own style.
In this one, talented wedding photographer and bundle of energy Isoelegant used the opportunity to wear her geisha dress that she’d picked up in Japan. We then trekked a few miles up Dovedale hunting for locations. Isoelegant forged rivers, in full costume, got cold and wet. I just pressed the shutter. Then we had an ice cream. It was great.
Here’s Isoelegant’s blog.
