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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...
Film and single use cameras
How long after exposing can I leave my film before processing?
For best results, we always advise processing soon after exposure although in practice most films can be left for several months. One exception is ILFORD PANF Plus, we would always advise processing this film as soon as possible and certainly within 3 months of the film being exposed.
How do I account for film reciprocity during long exposures?
This information can be found in the Film Reciprocity Failure Compensa...
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...
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,...
Processing your own film can speed up your workflow and give you quicker access to your negatives. It is also typically more cost effective and best of all there is nothing like the sense of satisfaction you will gain by taking control over the full end-to-end process of your photography.
While trying it for the first time might be a daunting prospect, fear not. Below is our guide on what equipment, chemistry and method would be suitable for anyone new to processing films. For more detail, you can downlo...
Why print?
When you can get excellent prints from your black & white negatives by sending them off to commercial processing laboratories, why make your own?
For many photographers, making a photographic print is as much a part of the process as shooting the image itself. For a start, it is a creative process that is both enjoyable and fulfilling and, much like the role of a post processing tools such as Photoshop or Lightroom in any digital workflow, (although much more fun) a darkroom provides film...
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...
Having shot a roll of black and white film it now needs to be processed to create the negatives. At this point your film is still light sensitive so should not be exposed to light.
Processing your own film can be highly satisfying and cost effective. It is also easy to learn. The most common method for hand processing film is undertaken by using a Daylight Processing Tank. This piece of kit needs the film to be loaded on to a ‘spiral’ or ‘reel’, in the dark, and then enclosed in a light tight co...
Contact sheets are a great way to review and record your images. They allow you to view all the negatives on a roll of film before deciding which ones you want to print and how you may want to crop them. They also provide a permanent record of those negatives for filing purposes.
How to make a contact sheet
To make a contact sheet we recommend using ILFORD MULTIGRADE RC DELUXE
Set the enlarger head to a height that gives a 40cm (16in) wide rectangle of light on the baseboard
Put a MULTIGRADE fil...