Stenoflex

This is a great little animated video. How to make a pinhole camera, expose and develop. See more here

Bob Carlos Clark

On 25 March 2006, the photographer Bob Carlos Clarke checked himself out of the Priory Hospital in Barnes, southwest London, walked a short distance to a railway track, and jumped in front of a train. He was 55, and it was a terrible end to a complex life. But, as endings go, it was not an entirely surprising one. Carlos Clarke was best known as a photographer of women in a state of undress, a subject that obsessed him long before he took up a camera. But his reputation – as “Britain’s answer to Helmut Newton” – hints at only a fraction of his talent (or his potential talent), and suggests none of the turmoil that governed his career. How else to describe him? He was fastidious about control in his professional life but reckless in his private one. He wrestled continuously in the gulf between commerce and art. He was terrifically explosive company. He was his own worst enemy. Why did he kill himself? There are several answers. He was depressed to be growing old while all his models always seemed to stay 21, not least because he felt he no longer had a chance with them. He detested the emergence of digital photography, which gave everyone the impression they were the next Cartier-Bresson. And he doubted the power of his own talents: the National Portrait Gallery failed to recognise him, but would hang a portrait by his 14-year-old daughter Scarlett as soon as he was dead.

Read on here

Only one film camera left …

Michael Johnson at the Online Photographer has been publishing a list of his top 10 cameras for the past few years. Mike these days is a digital photographer, but he writes about all things photography related – art, history, journalism, cameras – anything that touches the subject. His writing is very subjective and personal, and all the more enjoyable to read for it. Of course it means when he does review cameras, he gets a lot of stick from the techy nerdy wing of photographers who will berate him for preferring one camera over another, despite the ‘nother camera being more technically advanced, or having better IQ (know what that is??) or whatever. Mike takes it in his stride and makes no apologies, so I come back to read him almost daily.

Anyway, the one and only film camera on this years top 10 list is the new Zeiss Ikon (pictured above). It’s a thing of beauty and desirability, and probably produces great photographs in the right hands. But if I was spending that kind of money I would be thinking of a second hand Hasselblad, a couple of lenses, and change left over for film. Looks like a camera for wealthy collectors – recession or no recession.

– Rory

Moved!

Hmm, been a bit quiet around here lately. What’s going on? Actually, we have been very busy preparing for the upcoming exhibitions. It really is crunch time now as the eight of us are trying to print somewhere between 50 and 60 photos for our upcoming exhibitions in gallery Nautique in Cork and the Lismore Studio and Gallery in Waterford. Believe me this has taken more organisation, meetings, finance and stress than we ever expected. But that’s why we’re here and it’s a learning process. It will all come together on the day!

In the meantime we have also moved the site from google blogger to wordpress. The reason for moving to wordpress is the greater flexibility it allows – ie we can add pages, such as the current “About” and “Liked Links” pages, and we will also be adding gallery pages in the future. Soon enough. Sometime.

– Rory

Seamus Heaney at 70

Follower

My father worked with a horse plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

Seamus Heaney