It has been far too long between shows and hopefully we can now get back to some kind of regular output. For this show our last guest Nick Davis (The 120ist on the YouTube) makes a visit to community darkroom / darkroom community that is “Negative Thinking” in Bristol where he gets to interview Tim Pearse about the space, the community he is helping to build, his love of the darkroom as a means of expression and creating unique works of art.   Things we chatted about on the show:   Negative...

#66 On Safari With The 120ist   In so many ways this show episode typifies what we love about making this podcast – it was just like being in a pub (or coffee shop) and having a chat with like minded folk about, mostly, large format photography.  The fact that the conversation wanders around is exactly what happens when you have enthusiastic guests and hosts getting together to ponder the thing that occupies their minds for most of the time.   Nick Davis is better known for his YouTube...

We first interviewed today’s guest over 4 years ago, in fact he was our first proper guest to help us and our listeners along the “new to LF path”.  Show 2 with Graham Vasey is worth a listen as we touch on many interesting subjects, one area Simon and I wanted to return to was Graham’s use of liquid emulsion on watercolour paper and that’s pretty much what we covered in show 65. So thank you Graham for indulging us once again and we look forward to following up another topic in 4 years...

#64 The Hell of the North   Our second catch up show of the year once again saw the return of Simon to the fold who, it turns out, has had sufficient time off to be reinvigorated and enthused for all things LFPP. What does that mean? Well, more shows we hope, at least three a year……   Things we chatted about on the show: As we didn’t have a guest on show 63 Simon kicked things off by thanking those who had so very kindly sent in Ko-Fi donations (see link to the LFPP Ko-Fi site somewhere at...

#63 Return of The Prodigal Gearhead   We have been waiting for the return of our beloved Simon to the podcast for some time now, so a threesome to kick off the new year of 2023 was a perfect opportunity for us all to have a catch-up and hopefully make Simon realise he misses this whole podcast thing and there’s more to life than the 3d printing of camera accessaries.   As things turned out we didn’t get to cover everything we had planned, even Erik only managed a couple of swear words such...

From Simon’s website -  “I specialise in analogue and alternative forms of photography, this is my passion.  Currently, I'm immersed in practicing the art of Victorian wet plate photography, invented in 1851 the process is still to be rivalled today.  There are only a small number of people worldwide practicing wet plate. ​I became an artist in 2016, travelling through various analogue and darkroom disciplines.  In 2021 I won a global wedding award for my natural portraiture.  I also worked...

#62 Sammy the Afghan Camera Lady   Erik and Andrew are joined by the force of nature known as the Afghan Camera Lady for an enjoyable natter.   Sammy has a background in commercial photography but with the help of her local analogue photography group Leicester LoFi became obsessed with the Afghan box camera.   Currently Sammy takes her huge “portable darkroom and studio” camera to festivals and weddings to make unique “instant” portraits.   Bursting with enthusiasm and ideas for how...

Alys was first on the show in 2019 following the hugely successful launch of her 5 year “Ex Voto” project researching modern day pilgrimages across Europe and photographing the relics/offerings left in the landscape (the ex votos) and the people she met along the way. Since then she has published “Lost Summer” photographing teenagers who lost their summer prom due to covid, winning first prize in the 2020 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait competition. In 2022 Alys completed her second...

Frank is an NBC producer and off air reporter who uses his access to the USA Capitol building to explore his film obsession.   Using a Speed Graphic camera and Aero Ektar lens he made a moving photo essay 100 days after the January 2020 storming of the Capitol building.   “After the Riot” is a series of portraits of 12 individuals who work in the building, made in locations that resonated with each person (from the day of the storming) and aims to bring a sense of closure to the subjects...

#59 The Nomadic Photo Ark   Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher travel the USA with their mobile darkroom, studio and office telling the stories, in recordings and 8x10 portraits of people they meet on their way.   Both were clearly fated to meet and undertake this life-changing adventure.   Living the dream?   We think so…..     Project links.   The website is the place to go to for all things Nomadic Ark. Travel blog, links to Twitter and Instagram plus ways you...

“I like to see myself as a storyteller.  Photography happens to be the way I tell stories.  I see the world in a certain way and try to create visual images to take viewers on a journey.   I gravitate towards emotional, ethereal and dream-like imagery and I use cameras like pinholes and lenses like the Aero Ektar 178mm as tools to create the look and feel I strive for”.   Gordon’s...

#57 Sandy King Louisiana born and bred, lover and teacher of Spanish literature, citizen of the world, fine art printer, abstract landscape photographer…..oh and did I mention he also loved staining developers so much that he developed his own?   I first became aware of Sandy King as, like many others, I began investigating Pyro staining developers. There is much, much more to Sandy than his work developing PyrocatHD and today we scratch away at the surface.     Sandy’s...

#56 Erik & The Tubers   Just over twelve months ago, Andrew and Simon were joined by the wonderful Jenny Sampson after being spotted on the front page of the relatively obscure BBC.co.uk website with a striking wet plate image. During an excellent discussion of Jenny's work, we touched upon and fell over Jenny's description of her collaboration with the Rolls & Tubes Collective; a group of photographers taking the inexplicable Covid related toilet roll shortage and recreating...

Kelly-Ann Bobb is an analogue freelance photographer based in the twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago. She has always had a natural inclination towards creativity. After completing medical school, she fell in love with the unending complexities of film photography. She utilizes photography as a tool of unmasking, telling stories that would not otherwise be told. Revealing as much of herself as the subjects she photographs.   Kelly’s...

Just the three of us this week as we recover from the trip to Dave Shrimpton’s house. This was meant to be more of an email show but there was really only one we could read out and that was just a brilliant one from Pakistan based visual artist Jahanzeb Haroon.   Things we chatted about on the show:   Andrew kicked off the discussion with “what we’ve all been up to”. Shamefully but rationally explained, no LF work from him for ages. The darkroom extension has been an all consuming...

Simon, Andrew and Yevgeni venture out on their first LFPP outside broadcast. Unfortunately Erik couldn’t get a ticket across the Atlantic so we had to use a naked female shop dummy as an able replacement.   After two previous attempts we arrive at the wonderful imaginarium where Dave eats, sleeps and breathes creative photography.   For part 2 we are mostly in the darkroom where the magic is revealed and the Tintypes of Dave come out pretty darn well. What a brilliant day we had and...

Simon, Andrew and Yevgeni venture out on their first LFPP outside broadcast. Unfortunately Erik couldn’t get a ticket across the Atlantic so we had to use a naked female shop dummy as an able replacement.   After two previous attempts we arrive at the wonderful imaginarium where Dave eats, sleeps and breathes creative photography.   For part 1 we chat to Dave over coffee and Kit Kats as he shows us his various go to 4x5 cameras. Venturing into his photographic imaginarium that is his...

Living and working in and out of Calgary Canada, Todd is all about photography, if ever someone lived and breathed their passion it’s Todd. That passion shines through in this week’s chat and we hope you all enjoy it as much as we did.    Things we chatted about on the show:   Loads of photographers came up in conversation and here are some...

#50 Deborah Parkin An introduction from Deborah’s website.   “I live with my family & animals in the beautifully wild North Pennines.   My work is rooted in family life & my environment - past & present.  I have been photographing for many years & use a variety of mediums - from large format to digital & processes such as Wet Plate Collodion, bromoil, albumen, cyantotype & silver gelatin. My work has been exhibited & published worldwide - including Japan, U.S. U.K,...

Now that we don’t have the “bar room” chatter at the beginning of each show these occasional catch up shows allow us to update each other on all that we’ve been up to large format wise, or not, as the case may be.   So no guest but, “dang” we enjoyed shooting the breeze and the welcome return of “Ask Erik”.    Things we chatted about on the show:   Andrew has been in a bit of a photo slump for a few weeks now, and that’s really odd as it’s completely out of character. Dr Erik tries to...

Although not as cool as David Burnett (according to Greg Obst), nevertheless we thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the unique (if not cool) Nico Llasera.   Nico has been bringing us the weekly film photography photo news since 2015 and alongside his spin off “Super film support” channel they are must watch You Tube shows.     Things we chatted about on the show:   How the channel came about (episode 1 from November 2015 is an interesting watch to see how the show has evolved over the...

Self-portrait artist, studio portrait photographer, pinhole enthusiast, camera builder and enthusiastically inquisitive about all things photographic sums up today’s guest.   Based in Montreal, Canada Nicole loves nothing more than to be out making (usually) large format pinhole self-portraits with cameras she builds herself, usually from foam core and tape – it’s all about the love of creating the image.   Things we chatted about on the show:   Using a pinhole camera for portraits with a...

When the USA National Park Service advertised for a large format photographer to come and work for them there were 4,500 applicants. Jarob Ortiz sent in his resume and, along with 18 others got through to interview stage and landed the dream job.   Things we chatted about on the show:   Before landing the job Jarob was already photographing historic buildings for his personal work – the town of Gary in Indiana for...

When Reveni Labs launched the Kickstarter for their innovative hot shoe mounted meter a couple of years ago it very quickly reached its funding goal. It was therefore no surprise that Matt’s latest Kickstarter was funded within 2 hours.   Things we chatted about on the show:   A fair chunk of time was spent answering some great emails from listeners and all four of us had things to say. Billy Sanford wrote to us following up our recent discussion around the need (or not) to post to social...