People
People
The People of People, Places and Things

The muddle of an inflexible hierarchy, or at least my unwillingness to have more than three top levels.

So, under People we have also got Pets and Events. Pets and events are not people. However, events are nothing without people.

Pets and other animals? Obviously not people, but beings that I do have a close relationship to. And I can't fit them in anywhere else.

Portraits and more are just that. Pictures of people I know, or with whom I at least have a connection with.

There are people in lots of photos in the gallery under the Places category too but they tend to be people I have no relationship with. They are just there, in the photograph. Particularly on the street.
34 photos in 8 sub-albums
Places
Places
Peripatetic. Flâneur. With camera

I spent a lot of time just wandering around my neighbourhood with whatever camera I'd just got second-hand. There were many good reactions when people saw a Rolleiflex or a 1930's folding camera, or anything that wasn't the usual big fuck-off DSLRs that tourists and photographers usually pointed at things. I'd shoot the film and go home to develop it there and then in my makeshift bathroom darkroom. Or try a new development technique. I couldn't wait to see the results.

If nothing else, it taught me a lot about composition and valuing the shot. A roll of film is finite, especially 6x9.

The early 2000s and onwards was memorably the beginning of the denormalisation of street photography. If you were pointing a camera at something you were at best a terrorist, worst a peadophile. I was stopped and searched several times under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). I had a collection of Section 44 notices pinned to my noticeboard. Just for photographing in public places. It is public space after all.

We are photographers not terrorists.

It only seemed to apply if you had a camera. I (or anybody else) could scope out anywhere with a mobile phone camera and Google Maps/Street View. Using a mobile is the new normal, pointing a camera is somehow aberrant. How did that happen?

I have nothing but contempt for this.
381 photos in 55 sub-albums
Things
Things
What doesn't fit anywhere else

Or is a one-off shot that doesn't belong in a narrative.
29 photos in 2 sub-albums
Welcome to my photo gallery/dump...

This gallery is a collection of photos from 1981 onwards taken with vintage cameras dating from the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s and 1980s as well as several more modern digital cameras. I am (slowly) reviewing my archive and uploading them. The gallery is growing incrementally as I get the time.

From 2008 I used film cameras (medium format mainly plus 35mm) almost exclusively (almost but not quite) for three years for personal photography and learned to develop my own films. Much of that journey is on this site. With mixed success. Luckily the criteria for inclusion is all mine so sometimes the bar is low. Lo-fi photography alert

Photos taken post 2016 are digital. I'm waiting for my film mojo to return.

I've tried to use tags/keywords to overcome the 'broad hierarchy of albums' imposed by the site structure so photos from the same camera can be seen together (e.g. Leica IIf). Likewise type of film (e.g. B+W) and format (e.g. 6x6). Sadly, I don't have access to the make of film or the dev process I used - although I sort of standardised on FP4, HP5 stand developed in Rodinal (or modern substitute).

The tagging/keywords methodology is a bit crude and I have possibly missed tags but you get the idea I hope. They can be found in the menus above.

Most of the photos I have left with their original post-processing since that is how I felt at the time. With some, the current me shudders at the gauche or enthusiastic over-use of effects and filters and I simply had to post post-process... The majority are as they were when originally posted though, for better or for worse. I live and learn and as I grow older one thing I've learned is that less is often more.

For raw and post processing the original me mainly used Bibble or Lightzone and GIMP on Linux, and when I had to use Windows, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. I use Linux exclusively now so Darktable is my main squeeze with some work done in GIMP.

Darktable and GIMP are incredible Free and Open Source Software projects. Compare to the extortion currently practised by Adobe which holds your process hostage (really not unlike ransomware, but corporate) if you fail to pay the subscription to Lightroom & Photoshop. But that is a discussion for another place

It is a <cough>work in progress</cough> (lulz from a web dev).

All the work here is personal. I've not included commissioned/paid work

These photos also feed my blog with images. But I neglect it.

Cameras used:
  • Film:
    • Rangefinders: Fuji GW690III, Leica IIF, Leica M6, Voigtlander Bessa R, Voigtlander Bessa T, Kievs
    • TLRs: Rolleiflex 2.8F Type 2, Rolleiflex 3.5F, Rolleiflex Automat Type 4, Yashica-Mat
    • SLRs: Nikon FM2, Nikon F4S, Nikon 5, Pentax MX
    • Folders: Voigtlander Bessa 6x9, Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta IV
    • Miscellaneous: pinholes, Holgas
  • Films (mainly):
    • Ilford FP4+
    • Ilford HP5+
    • Fomapan
    • Fuji Neopan
    • Ilford Delta
    • Ilford Pan F+
    • Kodak T-Max P3200
    • Kodak Tri-X
  • Developers: Often stand developed
    • Adox APH 09 (Rodinal)
    • Ilford DD-X
    • Ilford Ilfosol 3
    • Kodak HC-110
    • Kodak T-Max dev
    • PMK Pyro
    • Rodinal
  • Digital:
    • DSLRs: Nikons - D70, D200, D300, D800e
    • Compacts: Ricohs - various GR's
For more information my old site deptfordvisions.com can be found on The Wayback Machine and with some diligence and some digging (2009-2013) you can match the images with the development and film used. Personally I find it overwhelmingly difficult and I have a vested interest. Oh for atoms over bits. How I wished I'd kept a notebook not a blog (very sad face). Do not mix my old site up with the Deptford, New Jersey, home improvement site which inherited the url and the name later on.


Contact me at snapsthoughts
Powered by Piwigo