Search results for: 'ic make better'

People often ask me why I love street photography so much, my answer is always “you never know what you are going to come across, depending on where you are and sometimes that can be from minute to minute”  let me explain… Photography is my passion I am very lucky that after a career spanning 28 years as a professional advertising photographer I now feed my soul teaching my passion which is street photography in some of Europe’s most exciting cities, often in areas people wouldn’t norma...

Hand colouring The idea of adding colour to a monochrome image by hand dates back to the beginning of photography. At this time it was the only way to get a colour photograph. Although colour photography using the three colour process was put forward just short of thirty years after the first photograph by Nicephore Niepce,  it was, in its early years, expensive and difficult to produce a colour image. Hand colouring became a practical way to give the impression of colour and everything from Daguerroty...

30th January 2015 The results are in from the ILFORD PHOTO film survey and they are positive. At the end of 2014 we conducted a comprehensive international survey to help us better understand film users. Thousands of users from over 70 countries completed the survey for us and the results were inspiring. Our belief that support for traditional film is growing was confirmed by the 30% of respondents who were aged under 35, with 60% of them using film for less than 5 years. For many of those the...

Photographic Paper FAQ's Which paper product is best/suitable for photograms.  All of our ILFORD photographic papers will easily produce photograms, so the choice will depend on which surface finish you prefer and whether or not you want fibre or resin coated. Resin coated paper is lower cost, easy to process and dry flat and would be a good choice for starting out. Does reciprocity affect paper? Paper products are designed for much longer exposure times than film and are less sensitive to reciprocity...

This guide focuses on the photo chemicals you can use for processing film. We also have a guide to processing film as well as some handy tips on loading a developing spiral. Choosing photo chemicals We have a range of photo chemicals designed to give different results with our films and papers. The choice of stop bath and fixer is limited but we have several film developers you can use. Film developers come in either liquid and powder concentrate form and have a range of attributes. Some developers giv...

ILFORD PHOTO offer the biggest range of black & white films on the market today. While this is perfect for experienced film photographers who love having a choice, we appreciate that it can be a bit confusing for people new to film photography. If you are looking to try film photography for the first time and are wondering where to start, then you have come to the right place. We should start by pointing out that there is no ‘wrong’ choice when it comes to ILFORD films. They are all fantastic,...

The first stage of making a darkroom print is to determine the exposure time. If you have already created a contact sheet of your negatives, and they appear correctly exposed, then you should have a rough idea of the necessary exposure (provided you haven’t moved the enlarger head or aperture setting after exposing the contact sheet). Note: If you change the degree of enlargement you will also need to adjust the exposure. Some enlargers have scales printed on their columns to make this easier. Another...

Silver halide has been used in photographic film and paper for over 150 years and remains a vital ingredient found in all high-quality products. Silver halide crystals in gelatin form part of an emulsion which is used to coat the paper or film. On exposure to light (i.e. in a camera or darkroom), the crystals react turning into silver and forming the image. Silver halide prints There are many ways to produce black & white prints with options varying in quality. Traditional black & white silver ha...

Mounting your Prints Even the most stunning print can look better when it has been properly mounted. Mounted prints are also better protected as they are kept flat with the image separated from the immediate surroundings by unobtrusive margins. There are no hard and fast rules about mounting prints; the most suitable results will depend on individual preference, the nature of the image, the intended use and other circumstances. It is recommended that only boards and other materials intended for the p...

I’m a passionate film photographer. There are plenty of us about and indeed plenty of reasons for choosing film as a medium. Many of these reasons are quoted ad nauseam by any and every film photographer. One of the biggest problems I have with digital photography is that it's given film photographers a soap box to waffle on about how much better film is… Yawn… I’m going to make some assumptions about the audience of this blog, and as such I’m not going to repeat all of the justifications usually ...