The Wheelie-Bin of History

Library picture from an original transparency, posed by a model (1990s)

A recent clear-out of my office has revealed half-forgotten relics charting the history of technological change that has transformed photographic publishing in the 20 years since I first set up my current workspace. Quite a few have survived the early spring clean: the shelves stacked with boxes of black and white contact sheets (necessary for locating valued old negatives), 200 boxes of 10”x8” prints (unnecessary, but they took so much time to make!), my one-time darkroom through a door at the far end (in which an enlarger still has pride of place, but the blackout is long gone), two or three film cameras I couldn't bring myself to part with, and a large cardboard box containing thousands of slides returned from a now defunct picture library.

But much has been consigned to the recycling wheelie-bin, all redolent of a very different era: price lists from courier companies and colour processing labs, Kodak data sheets, a variety out-of-date printed directories, records of outgoing prints and original transparencies, and polite letters from picture researchers happy to pay NUJ recommended rates. A pile of CDs, used to distribute library pictures to publishers in the early years of digitisation, before photo library websites became commonplace, met a more violent and less ecological end: I smashed them with a hammer and sent them for land-fill. Regrettable but necessary.

It was the redundant digital hardware that I found most alarming.  The clear-out was prompted by the arrival of faster and more capacious storage and a new computer requiring more desk space. Three new 4TB drives have replaced a collection of 15 smaller ones - some as small as 80GB. The redundant discs have now joined the enlarger in my redundant darkroom.

Yet none of my IT equipment has worn out - almost all of it looks as good as it did when I first bought it. It's just become obsolete: too slow, too small, or no longer upgradable to the latest OS. My eight-year-old Mac Pro looks immaculate, but can't run the current version of Lightroom or Final Cut Pro, and its stylish carcase under my desk provokes some uneasy thoughts.

The care of film negatives and transparencies was always an issue for analogue photographers (the only sort there were until not very long ago). Unlike digital images, they represent the only 'original' of each picture, vulnerable to fire, flooding and various other potential disasters. Digital files, on the other hand, can be copied ad infinitum without losing quality. If you're into immortality, they seem a much better bet. But what if they too become obsolete? Negatives are very old technology, but they are still accessible. They can even be seen with the naked eye. What if the software that reads your digital files is no longer available? Or you can't afford a new computer, or your annual subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud? Or someone has hacked their servers and disabled the activation on every copy of Photoshop ever sold? Or a solar storm wipes every hard disc in the known universe? 

Now we are all vulnerable to an instant clear-out. And a wheelie-bin won't be necessary.

Not Really a Camera Review

I have returned to a project I began thirty five years ago and rediscovered the joys of working in black and white with a small camera. Only this time, instead of film and a Leica, I'm using a digital Fuji X100.

The photo above was taken with the Fuji a few weeks ago; the one below is a scan from a B&W negative shot in 1993.

I took my first pictures at Speakers' Corner in 1977, and have continued to photograph there sporadically ever since.  However, when I switched to digital in 2003 and film processing fell out of my daily workflow, the occasional visit to Hyde Park with heavy and obtrusive DSLRs produced immaculate but unappealing colour images that I filed away and forgot about.

My recent purchase of the X100 coincided with my involvement with a new Speakers' Corner oral history and archiving project, Sounds from the Park, but it wasn't until I revisited the place with it that I realised I had in my hand an almost perfect digital replacement for my old M6.

The camera was clearly designed to appeal to photographers nostalgic for the retro look of knurled dials, exposure rings and chrome finish. But it's the small size, virtually silent operation, and high quality files that make it such a pleasure to use.

For any non-photographer reading this, that's pretty much all you need to know about the camera itself. For me, its most significant feature is that it doesn't look like the weapon of a paparazzo. Like a Leica, nobody – apart from the occasional camera buff – pays it any attention.

For those after a bit more detail, I can add that even its limitations are a plus. It has a fixed lens (equivalent to a 35mm on a full frame camera), so no time is wasted selecting a focal length: the only option is to find a 35mm shot that works. And because it's not the fastest camera to focus or write to card, it encourages care in choosing the decisive moment.

For most of the work I do, the specifications of the equipment I use are irrelevant – I just need to make sure the particular bits and pieces I bring along are capable of producing the required image quality. What is different about fly-on-the-wall documentary projects like Speakers' Corner is that the intrusiveness, or otherwise, of the camera is also a factor, and can make a big difference to the process of making pictures. The DSLRs I have been using for the last ten years are great machines, and produce fantastic pictures, but they are big, heavy and noisy. It's hard to pass unnoticed with one hanging from your neck. Not so the X100. Its innovative design has enabled me to continue my old project in the same spirit in which it was originally conceived, without having to take the radical step of re-activating my long-neglected darkroom.

Speakers' Corner has changed over the years. It has got smaller; there is a narrower range of speakers. The demographics have shifted: there is still a predominance of preachers, although now at least as many are Muslim as Christian. But it still has the buzz generated by the energy and eccentricity of face-to-face argument. There is nowhere else you can get that with such intensity. I love it.

And in case you're wondering, the Fuji is great in low light, has a brilliant hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder, and produces very nice colour too.

Cryptic Lighting

Even when not shooting for editorial, I regard myself as a photojournalist, reporting the world as I find it and, unless it's unavoidable, I prefer not to use artificial lighting. But there are times when the available light just isn't of the right quality, quantity or direction to make a picture that will tell the story.

The crypt of St.Mary Magdalene Church in North Paddington, which I was asked to photograph recently, is a dank, dark place with a trickle of daylight filtering through narrow windows high up one of its dripping walls – and a surprising secret. To one side of the roughly rendered brick arches that support the nave and aisles above is an extraordinarily ornate chapel. Its crumbling plasterwork is painted sky blue; the intricate altarpiece is covered in gold (paint, not the real thing, I assume). It has been disused for years, but the contrast with the gloom that surrounds it is still startling. All this can only be seen with the help of three plug-in builders' lamps, the crypt's only regular light source.

The photos above and below were taken using two off-camera flashguns and one of the builders' lamps. The lighting has undoubtedly changed the look and feel of the crypt and its decaying chapel, but it has brought out striking architectural features that would otherwise have been lost in the murk. Did I go too far in letting my lights colour the arches blue (above)? I don't think so. In my book, it's an acceptable manipulation of reality, given the purpose at hand - the pictures will accompany an application by the Paddington Development Trust to the Heritage Lottery Fund, for money to renovate the building and create a community arts centre.

Smart Phone

Passing through the new extension of Kings Cross station for the first time yesterday, I was struck by the roof and the light, but the only lens I had on me was the one peeking out of the back of my Android smartphone. Although I've had it for almost a year, I've hardly used the inbuilt camera, unwilling to waste time making images with its tiny sensor. Seen in full magnification, the 14.5MB files reveal sharpening artefacts, highlight clipping and a fair bit of noise - but the Kings Cross ceiling looks surprisingly good on a screen at normal viewing size. I can see the attraction of the Instagram, Lightbox, and Urbian's Retro Camera apps – all ways of acknowledging the limitations of the form, whilst at the same time making the most of them. It's pretty obvious why sales of compact cameras are plummeting, but I won't be getting rid of my Nikons any time soon.

The Wonders of New Technology

One of the great things about the latest generation of high end digital cameras, like the Nikon D700 with which the above shot was taken, is their ability to make high quality images in really poor available light. Thus I was able to photograph freely during Professor Dylan Wiliam's talk at the Institute of Education in London, without the need for flashes or other intrusive lighting equipment.

The new technology means that a whole range of events – including many conferences, seminars and board meetings – can now be photographed without disturbing the participants. Shame about the price though (the camera's, not mine).