Get back

Until recently I have been really pushing the digital aspect of my work to the point where I was losing sight of why I got into photography in the first place. Then the other day I heard an interview with Brian Smith on fstoppers.com talking about getting back to basics and getting back to a way of shooting where you actually had fun!
It was getting to a point where on a shoot I would take a DSLR, two Medium Formats, Large Format a Half Frame plus studio lights and portable flash.
By the time i'd switched cameras six times i'd missed out on any spontaneous shots.

So I took my Bronica ETRS and a back up body, a reflector and my Large Format and went to the beach with my friend Justin. I asked Justin to bring his windsurfing board and we waded into the sea, I don't think either of us were prepared for how cold it was going to be.

About 100 yards out I raised the camera to my eye, focused and pressed the shutter button, the camera made a pathetic noise and the mirror stopped half way. So I waded back to shore and swapped over to my back up body and went back out.

Even after about 200 yards due to a sand bank we were still only up to just over our knees in the water and the shot I had in mind involved the water being up to chest height, so to fake it Justin sat down.

Here is a taster of one of the contact sheets, and if you would like to here and see more behind the scenes of my work leave a comment in the field below .

Thanks for reading

Rob

Megaphone

What do you do when you are lent a megaphone for a week?

I called up my friend Mark for a portrait. I wanted the megaphone to actually have a relevance in the shot rather than just being in the picture because I had it.

Mark was one of the original members and vocalist for the british hardcore band The Hurt Process.
The bands debut album Drive By Monologue received a huge amount of praise from the british music press and they quickly gained fans both in the Uk and US.

Over time band members began to leave and were replaced by american musicians, now i'm not sure if there any of the original line up in the band.

Shoot For Your Life

The great team over at shootforyourlife.com have featured my portrait of film director Mike Leigh on their site. It will be up on the front page for 24 hours and then become part of their archive, when it is replaced by another photographers work tomorrow morning.

I have spent almost entire days going through this website and looking at each photographers work, so it is a great honor to become part of their archive.

Enjoy!

The Readerswives Collective

For those of you who have perused the links at the side of this blog, you may have come across The Readerswives Collective. For those of you who haven't, here goes....

The RWC are an art collective founded in Guernsey by Andrew Smith, AKA-Rost, DJ 76 and many others. Their mission is to make art accessible to everyone and encourage new, upcoming and also established artists to network and work together.
Boasting an impressive roster of underground artists across Europe the RWC are growing in number by the day.
Check your pie before you eat it, as they've probably got their fingers in it!

I shot the above portraits of RWC founder Andrew Smith during two separate visits to Guernsey, both shot on a Mamiya C330. Top is on Ilford XP2 and bottom on Portra 160 VC.

Standing next to giants

I have just seen this post on the Betley Whitehorne blog, from an exhibition of my work in Guernsey back in 2008. It may be the closest I will ever get to having my work displayed near to Annie Leibovitz, so until my work graces the pages of Vanity Fair, I bid you good day.

Something old, something new

Time is a funny thing. It has a way of slipping away from you and catching you off guard.
Almost 6 years has passed since I took this portrait of Nikola Duper in Wiltshire and it is still one of my favourite images. The one below is of my friend Pete Thompson, which I took within the last month or so.
People come in and out of our lives at an alarming rate and I try to stay in contact with as many of them as humanly possible. I hope that in years to come when I am long gone my work serves as a record of the amazing people I have met along the way.

To friends, old and new.

Polaroid, we love you.

Many years ago friend John gave me a Polaroid Automatic 100. Resigned to the unavailability of a battery for it I placed it on my Polaroid camera shelf to collect dust and look good.
Then the other day I read on the world wide internet that you can use a bog standard 9v battery to power the shutter, so I tried it and it worked! I have since ordered a few packs of fuji pull apart polaroid and will be posting shots from it as soon as the film arrives.

I won't launch into a rant about how badly I miss polaroid and their fine products, I will however be first in line to buy a box of Type 55 if the impossible project ever manufacture it.

Also as a side note I am looking for more participants in my five by four project. If you would like me to take your portrait and I can get to you feel free to send me an email via my website.

www.welcometothedarkslide.co.uk

Wayne Hemingway

Back in June I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Red or Dead co-founder Wayne Hemingway. As usual in any situation involving a well known personality time is very limited, so it always pays to have a game plan. I walked around the building looking for a good spot and found a canteen which had floor to ceiling windows all down one side, I took my meter readings and set the camera all before hand so I was ready. I knew I wanted the background to bleed out to white behind him, so I metered accordingly. In total I shot 5 frames of which this was the best.  

All images were shot using a Bronica ETRSI with a 75mm lens.  

Readerswives Collective

The brand new Readerswives Collective website is now live. 


Readerswives Collective are a group of artists based in Guernsey who create many different forms of art. I have had the pleasure of working with them on many occasions and have now been included on their site. 


readerswivescollective.com features the art of Rost, Dred, Join In The Joy, 
Foxy Paw and many others, so go check it out.

The Shining

To promote a season of Kubrick films being shown on More 4 in 2008 Channel 4 created a promo showing a Kubrick's eye view tracking shot through the set of The Shining. 


The set was meticulously crafted, props were replicated and look-a-likes were found to play Kubrick's cast and crew. The best being Kubrick's script lady at the end of the clip. 


I am a huge fan of The Shining and this is a great homage to a classic film.
See the film here