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Introducing our 75th In Focus interview and our analogue community grant winner, Federico Pestilli. Pestilli was born in Rome and became interested in documentary-style of photography, focusing on irony that unites people, places and symbols with each other.
Section 1 - Background
Share your favourite image / print shot on ILFORD film and tell us what it means to you?
Heritage - Arianna - Cocullo, Italy - Pentax 67, 135mm lens - HP5+
This is an image of Arianna, a snake handler from the town of Cocul...
Environmental Portraits
I started my analogue black and white portraits of artists in spring 2021, the second year of the pandemic. I wanted to photograph actors in Berlin over a longer period of time. This was the right moment because theaters were closed and filming of movies had largely been stopped. I decided to shoot some kind of “environmental portraits” in public spaces. I wanted the location to be part of the portrait. In addition, local health restrictions back then allowed gatherings of exact...
Oh, crap! What have I done?
Let’s see. I committed to do a solo photography show, with twenty-seven images. All twenty-seven are 4x5 black and white negatives, so they need to be darkroom printed. And those will be 20x24 prints. Yeah, and I need to have them matted and framed. The icing on the cake? I have just under three months to do this.
Yep, this is going to be an interesting project. But let’s back up to the beginning.
The Event
It was April 2023, three years after the pand...
The Truth Is
It is always with regret when I say that I never had a formal arts education. The truth is, growing up, I devalued the ability of taking a ‘decent’ picture along with whether I could kick a ball with my left foot (I can) or produce a winning back hand on the tennis court (I can’t). Photography was for holidays and special occasions and not much in between. In the days before social media and personal websites, a work colleague once asked me for printed copies of my photos after a trip to...
Is a Photograph a Photograph if it Was Not Made with a Camera, Lens, or Negative?
The ethereal color palette and expressionistic qualities of the work I have been making with ILFORD's photographic paper seemingly resemble the representations of light and color as seen in many landscape paintings (think J.M.W. Turner, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole); however, the work in my on-going project, I Thought You Left / I Wish You Were Here, are lumen prints—a form of camera-less photography where objects or a neg...
The Dynamic
There is something distinctly different about photographs of cities versus rural areas. The variations of negative space, the intensity of nature versus people, and the rhythm of light that exists in these places; all contribute to the dynamic of a photograph.
Personal Goal
Last March, I made a trip to Colorado and the Grand Canyon to visit two of my best friends. I went on this trip carrying more black and white film. My favourite ILFORD film is HP5+. It’s my personal goal to photograp...
What would happen if I dedicated myself entirely to film photography?
More then a year ago I had this idea in my head. What would happen if I dedicated myself entirely to film photography? After 10 years of being a sidekick to my creative output, I felt the need to give more attention to my analogue passion and the desire to change my creative habits. To challenge myself. To no longer rely on the vague promise of the digital safety net of mass storage and a camera screen that promises instant judgement of ...
Introducing Susie Jones, our 78th In Focus interviewee. Susie is an artist, songwriter and musician based in the Northwest of England, find out why analogue photography is her latest expression.
SECTION 1 - BACKGROUND
SHARE YOUR FAVOURITE IMAGE / PRINT SHOT ON ILFORD FILM AND TELL US WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU?
Jumping straight in with the difficult questions here. I find it impossible to choose favourite images, it constantly changes. We see so much of ourselves and our current state in images and how we rela...
Winning The Competition
I was in Oracabessa, Jamaica when I won this competition. My rollerskating community back in London was spreading the word far and wide about this vote at skate rinks and events, and amongst their family members and colleagues. I virtually reached out to nearly every person I’d ever met, asking them to help me win ILFORD'S Community Grant of £500 worth of film and equipment. That experience really showed me the power of community. Ever since then, I’ve been making this project ...
I’m sure a lot of us are well aware of the amazing, historic spectacle UFC 300 turned out to be, but this road trip was much more than just that one night…
Denver, Colorado
I began the drive to Denver, CO from Austin, TX on March 20th, 2024. I had dates with 2 world-class and world-renowned MMA gyms with some of the best male and female mixed martial artists on the planet, High Altitude Martial Arts and Factory X Muay Thai. On the drive to Denver, I had the idea of doing a portrait series on film of a...