And when you’re finished, don’t miss our guide on how to photograph the moon.

How to photograph stars: Timing

Shooting landscape photography that incorporates the Milky Way requires a fair amount of planning and research. First, although it’s visible all year, the galactic core itself, which gives such oomph to night shots, is not visible in the Northern Hemisphere during winter. April is the first month to start planning your shoot and September the last. The PhotoPills app will help you plan your shoot on or around the new moon since with moonlight, the Milky Way appears washed out. The app also gives information on when astronomical twilight is over and the stars are fully visible.

For more on the best apps for photography, see our guide. 

The PhotoPills app is great for the planning process

How to photograph stars: Location

Once you have a clear night, with little wind and no moon, choosing a location is your next priority. What the vast grandeur of the Milky Way requires is a good foreground to anchor the final picture. There are many foregrounds that suit the Milky Way, from water to rocks, old buildings, hills, mountains and silhouetted trees. The only essential requirement is for there to be as little light pollution as possible, and you can find the best places by using sites such as Dark Site Finder.

Unfortunately, the UK does not have many light-free areas, so if there is a distant glow from a town, try to make it work for you as part of the picture. Here is your chance to do something different. Several of the spots I have worked at had never been photographed at night, so it was a joy to do something fresh and different. Think out of the box – and that doesn’t mean another clichéd shot of a ‘person with headtorch’ shining up at the Milky Way!

The DarkSiteFinder light pollution map will help you find a location with the least amount of light.

How to photograph stars: Setting up

Setting up your shot when you want to photograph stars, requires thought, practice and patience. Remember, the Milky Way is not static, so you need to be on-site in plenty of time to set up. The Milky Way moves from southeast to southwest over the summer months, so you need to position your camera and tripod facing this direction. If your land feature is a rock formation, one aim is to have the diagonal of the Milky Way (rising from right to left) coming out of the rock or over the rock.

It’s important to think of the overall composition. Again, the Sky Guide app is useful, as the virtual view shows exactly where and when the Milky Way will rise, and most importantly when the galactic core is visible.

How to photograph stars: Focusing

Once you have an idea of your composition, there are various ways to focus when you want to photograph stars. I have found using live view with a torch, or having a friend aim their torch onto the foreground, both work pretty well. Some Astro shooters swear by focusing on the stars, but infinity on wide lenses such as the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 or the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 is pretty close, so anything focused over two to three metres away is sharp all the way to the stars themselves.

Check out our guide on how to focus manually.

It’s worth noting that the rising Milky Way looks pretty dull and nothing like most published astro shots. Start with a tungsten white balance, as this can be warmed up later if needed.

Milky Way over Cranberry Rock at The Striperstones, Shropshire, with the full moon lighting the valley. Canon EOS 5D mark IV, Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM I Art, 20 seconds at f/1.8, ISO 2000. Image credit: Andrew Fusek Peters

How to photograph stars: Post-processing

Our eyes are not good at night vision and the raw file is just the start of the processing journey. With a good raw image, bring up shadows and blacks (unless you want a silhouette). Use an adjustment brush on the stars to bring up exposure, clarity and contrast to taste. There is much more detail in the raw, and I like to think of a good astro photograph as showing an owl’s eye view. There is nothing wrong with adding punch to your picture but don’t overdo it. A mask sharpen filter in Photoshop can help ping out the stars, and if necessary, run Nik Define to reduce noise.

The result should show what the glory of the sky can offer. Once you have mastered the basics, then it’s time to take it up a notch. With a geared or panoramic head, try for a Milky Way panorama.

One of my best Milky Way shots was when I went out for Aurora (no-show in Shropshire!). I thought I might as well set up for astro and as I did, the full moon rose in the east. Ignoring all that I had learnt, I continued shooting and one photo came out perfectly, with foreground rocks on the Stiperstones, the full-moon light turning the valleys strange and ethereal, and the Milky Way leading up and vanishing into the high clouds. Learn the rules, then go for something new.

10 simple Steps for the Best Camera Setup for Astrophotography

1. A full-frame camera that can cope with high ISOs is recommended for this type of work. Often you are dealing with a fair amount of dynamic range.
2. Raw all the way! Shooting in raw gives you so much more control over processing your final file, to recover shadow detail and dial down bright starry highlights if needed.
3. Use the 500 rule to avoid trailing stars. This is 500 divided by the 35mm equivalent focal length. So, 500/14 for the Samyang equals 35 seconds. In practice, I try to shoot shorter – around 25 seconds.
4. Shoot in manual or bulb mode. If using a 14mm f/2.8, start with ISO 3200, 25 seconds, f/2.8 and alter ISO to suit.
5. Use live view as it causes less vibration when the shutter opens and closes.
6. Your head torch can now help you focus on the foreground you have picked. Use live view to focus, then turn off AF. The Sigma 14mm f/1.8 is sharp to infinity beyond about three metres, even wide open.
7. Because of the shape of the Milky Way, it is often better to set it up in portrait mode, with the Milky Way as a diagonal lead-in line.
8. It’s important not to touch the camera at all, so use a remote cable to get the sharpest image possible.
9. Take lots of test shots, and adjust settings and position accordingly to make sure your horizon is straight.
10. Don’t worry if the image on the back of your camera looks slightly dull. The raw file is only step one on the journey to bringing the stars to life.

Vertical panorama of Milky Way at Clee Hill radar station. Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM I Art, 20 seconds at f/1.8, ISO 3200. Image credit: Andrew Fusek Peters

Kit list for photographing stars and the Milky Way

Tripod

A strong, lightweight tripod is essential for the long exposures needed to capture stars, as well as a geared head for precise adjustments to frame both foreground and sky. I use the Manfrotto 055 Carbon Fibre with the Xpro Geared Head.

Fast wide-angle lens

The superb new Sigma 14mm f/1.8 has completely changed my shooting, enabling me to go wide open with a lower ISO. The Samyang 14mm f/2.8 is a fantastic budget lens which is surprisingly sharp.

Check out our guides to the best Canon EF lenses, best Nikon F-mount lenses, Best Sony E-mount lenses and best Micro Four Thirds lenses.

Sky Guide and any weather app

The right weather is crucial to a good night shoot. Checking weather updates right up until heading out is essential. A clear night with no moon is best for the Milky Way and stars. Sky Guide has a superb overlay to check out where the Milky Way is, in order to frame your shot.

Andrew Fusek Peters is a conservation photographer and nature writer. He is currently on commission for the National Trust and Natural England on Shropshire’s uplands. His books include Wilderland, Upland and the National Trust guidebook for the Long Mynd. www.fusekphotos.com.

Further reading

• The best cameras for astrophotography
• A guide to night landscape photography
• Get better night shot cities
• Essential guide to astrophotography
• Milky way photographer of the year

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The post The night sky: How to photograph stars and the Milky Way appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

The fi35 is described by Finite Industries as a versatile and fun camera for beginners and professionals alike. The modular design opens up a range of possibilities for experimentation, allowing you to fit two pinholes on each side of the camera to create double exposures, combine the twin pinhole and twin frame and create two images in one 6×4 photograph, shoot red-scale, or load your film to shoot sprockets.

Manufactured with sustainability in mind, the camera is 3D printed in small batches using recycled plastic. It can be fully disassembled so you can easily replace parts, furthermore, all parts can be reused. The first fi35 cameras will be launched on the Finite Industries website later this month and will be available from £125.

fi35 camera body with the standard pinhole and frame. Photo: Finite Industries

From Finite Industries:

Summary

• Scottish camera maker Finite Industries are launching their first camera this November.
• The ‘fi35’ camera is 3D printed in Scotland and designed to have a low environmental impact.
• The camera is built on a modular system so that different pinholes, film planes, frames and bodies can all be interchanged within a common system.
• Modularity means that photographers can experiment with redscale, tilt shift, double exposure and more within one camera

Photo: Finite Industries

Scottish camera maker Finite Industries are launching their first camera this November. Ahead of the launch they are sharing some details on what makes their modular camera system special.

The Finite Industries modular system allows photographers to create a variety of images with one simple and versatile camera. Standard fixings and a symmetrical design means that different pinholes, film planes, frames and bodies can all be interchanged within a common system. The current camera is compatible with 35mm photographic film. A larger version which will use 120 film is currently being prototyped.

The standard camera body equipped with a standard pinhole, in front twin pinhole and twin frame. Photo: Finite Industries

The cameras are designed to have a low environmental impact by enabling easy disassembly and replacement of all parts if necessary. This also means that all the materials used can be recovered and then reused or recycled. The camera parts are made from recycled materials where possible and no materials are permanently joined to each other. This isn’t perfect but it can prolong the life of the cameras and help keep the materials in circulation.

The bold shapes and bright colours are designed to bring a smile to the face of photographer and subject alike. The cameras are a reminder to find joy in the act of making photographs.

The cameras will be available to buy from: www.finite.industries

The camera body features a bubble level on top and a standard 1/4″ tripod mount on the bottom. Photo: Finite Industries

Nils Aksnes founder and designer at Finite Industries says:

“The versatility of our modular system means this is a camera for all: whether you are looking for your first pinhole camera or keen to experiment with new techniques in your photographic art.”

“Reducing a product’s impact is crucial as we face up to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Repair, reuse and recycling are a key part of the Finite Industries camera design. This is a benefit to both the photographer and the planet”

Photo: Finite Industries

About

Nils Aksnes is a designer and photographic artist with over a decade of experience developing products for other people. Nils now develops his own products as Finite Industries.

In 2021 Nils received support from Analogue Wonderland through their Film Photography Community Fund. This support enabled several prototype cameras to be built. Nils invited members of the film photography community to test the prototypes and provide feedback. The process of testing and feedback from artists and photographers was key to the development of the modular camera.

Finite Industries 3D print their cameras in small batches from their HQ in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland.

Related content:

• Top tips for how to get creative with analogue film photography
• Analogue Wonderland announces limited edition WonderPan 400
• How to make a pinhole camera and take photos in 10 steps
• How to develop black and white film at home

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The post New 35mm Modular pinhole camera announced appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

Knowing just how many well-respected alumni it had, not to mention the luminaries who had taught on it over the years, an anniversary piece seemed like an obvious idea. I had little clue that it would end up spanning more than 20 different interviews with a broad range of people – and I could have gone on to interview dozens, if not hundreds more.

Such is the influence of this course, that every time you speak to someone, they insist that you really ought to get in contact with this person, or that person. I’ve no doubt that an entire book could be written on the impact this school has had on British (and even global) documentary photography.

Since its inception in 1973, the list of names who taught on the course, either regularly or as guest speakers, includes (but is certainly not limited to) David Hurn, Daniel Meadows, Ken Grant, Paul Reas, Martin Parr, Josef Koudelka, Clive Landen, Ian Walker, Ron McCormack, Celia Jackson, Lisa Barnard, Sir Tom Hopkinson, Don McCullin, Keith Arnatt, John Charity, Barry Lewis, Bll Jay, Roger Hutchins, Patrick Sutherland, Paul Graham, David Barnes, Peter Fraser, Paul Seawright, Jon Benton Harris and far more besides.

Meanwhile, the alumni list is just as illustrious. It includes (but again is not limited to), Simon Norfolk, Ivor Prickett, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Paul Lowe, Sebastian Bruno, Clementine Schneidermann, Tish Murtha, Lua Ribera, Sue Packer, Jack Latham, Tom Jenkins, Linda Whittam, Guy Martin and more. Graduates from the school – which now covers BA, MA and PhD level – work across the globe for top news agencies, galleries, newspapers, magazines, and other leading institutions.

For this piece, I spoke to an extraordinary amount of different people – many of whom from the lists above. The over-reaching message seemed to be that this was, and is, a life-changing course that has altered the face of documentary photography in ways that many will have no realisation thereof. Many spoke of the lifelong friendships and support fostered by it, as well as the intensity – especially in the early years – of the work involved.

The beginnings were quite humble. David Hurn, who is Welsh but had been living in London and enjoying a very successful career as a photographer, decided to move back to his homeland in the early 1970s, looking for a more peaceful life. On arriving back, he was approached by various important figures in the Arts Council and local art college with a view to setting up a new photographic course. Remembering that this kind of education was very much in its infancy at the time, David took the view that he would be willing to do it with a few caveats – that he would have control over what was being taught, who was let onto the course and, most importantly, that the aim of the course was to get people into paid employment.

Newport, 1977. Documentary Photography students covered the Queens Jubilee. Students went all over UK and got their film back to Newport where others processed and printed them © John Charity

After discussing his ideas with his friends Sir Tom Hopkinson, once the editor of the Picture Post, and Don McCullin, of course the notorious war photographer, he was pretty much ready to go. He describes the setting up of the course in an arts college, in a blank space that was yet to be built, two enormous bits of luck. The first meaning that there was no real government supervision or insistence on what should be taught, and the second meaning that he could set up the facilities in a precise way.

Publicity

Having a huge amount of contacts in Fleet Street, David was able to generate publicity for his new course – he believes Amateur Photographer even covered it too. In the first year – 1973 – the course lasted just a year and was designated as a TOPS course (Training Opportunity), meaning that the typical students it attracted were extremely diverse – many of which had been made redundant from the local industries of steel and coal in the area. In fact, the course was overwhelmed with applications, such would prove to be the case for many years to come as its reputation grew. David didn’t choose people to join based on existing work though. He says, “I deliberately didn’t look at portfolios – I knew that steel workers and miners aren’t going to have those. They didn’t even necessarily know they wanted to be photographers. I just wanted to talk to them about ideas they had about life. It worked on the theory that teaching somebody to get pictures in focus – that’s easy. What you can’t do is persuade people to be interested in things.”

And why documentary photography in particular – not something more general, or geared towards another subject? “We called it documentary because I felt that the sensible public have a rough idea what that means. We were not going to do anything commercial or fashion – that relies enormously on how good the models are, which I knew about having worked for Harper’s Bazaar. The idea of teaching a fashion course in Newport was to me nonsensical – you didn’t get models walking down the high street there.”

David was strict, but fair, with his students – bearing in mind at the beginning he was the only teacher. “I decided everything would be done as professional photographers do it. I locked the door at 9am, if the student wasn’t there then they just didn’t get in. The idea being that if you are even one minute late for a deadline, you don’t get published. Within a week, everybody loved it.”

The course covered the great photographers – some of whom would come and visit David, and therefore the students – as well as practical elements of being a documentary photographer. This went far beyond the basics of operating a camera. David explains, “I would go to the local mosque and I would say to the imam, will you come and talk to us about how to behave should we come into the mosque – and I’d do the same for all the local religious centres and so on. I would also bring in people from other industries – like poets and artists – and ask them how they make money.”

Tish Murtha’s acceptance letter, signed by John Charity, July 1976. © Tish Murtha / Ella Murtha

Almost straightaway, the course became incredibly successful and David was able to employ more staff. He always favoured teachers who were also out there making work themselves – like himself. Generally he found that students respected them more, and, with the advice they had being provably relevant. The course also expanded to two years, with the second year giving students the opportunity to engage with all the contacts David had built up in London on picture desks, particularly the colour supplements which were still in their golden heyday at the time.

David left the course in the late 80s, not being happy with it turning towards becoming a full undergraduate degree, and therefore losing some of the original ethos of accepting students from a wider range of life. But, the course and school today still includes David’s name as a testament to the legacy of what he created.

“The bees knees”

Daniel Meadows came to the school in 1983, having previously taught at Humberside College after making a name for himself for his Free Photographic Omnibus project in 1973. By that time, ten years into the course’s existence, its reputation was significant. “It was the bees knees as far I was concerned,” Daniel says. “It was the only course I’d really wanted to work on. I was kind of serving my apprenticeship at Hull because I’d been practicing as a photographer for a decade or more, but I had a family and suddenly the world of freelance wasn’t quite so suitable. But being able to teach, while also maintain some practice was a good option at the time.

“The course was the only one called documentary photography then, and that’s my subject. Everywhere else wanted you to be a graphic designer or an artist, but I believe that documentary has its own set of rules and way of behaving. I also respected David Hurn, as well as Ron McCormack and Clive Landen who were all teaching there when I joined. It was like landing in the place of desire.”

Firmly believing he was there during the course’s “golden years” (he left in 1994), which he attributes to its simple ethos and diverse range of applicants. “It was a magical course, I’ve never since or come anywhere near to the kind of quality teaching and learning experiences – it was very special. We had teenagers off Youth Opportunities Schemes, middle-aged men who’d been made redundant two or three times following Thatcherism, graduates from ‘posh’ universities – all mixing in the same darkroom. And the simple structure – everybody did the same briefs, “man at work,” relationship, establishing shot, portrait, three picture story, five picture story, big picture story. I never taught a course that was as well thought out and delivered in the same way that David’s did.”

Despite the fact that several “big names” in documentary photography did the course while Daniel was there, it’s not those who he holds the most fondness for. “For me the most satisfying teaching was when people had a genuine revelation about how photography was going to change the way they lived. There was a woman there who had a child with severe learning difficulties who wanted to tell the story of what respite care means to parents – she did it from the inside out. I love it when people make pictures about something they really know and in that process of teaching them how to do make better pictures, you learn a subject too.”

Daniel fought for some time to keep the course as it was, but ended up also leaving dissatisfied with the change to the course being a three-year undergraduate degree. He also believes that it moving to Cardiff has been a huge shame for the city of Newport. “If ever a town needed an art school, it’s Newport. Things like this are enriching, and we built a community around these students who got involved with things like The Newport Survey, which was published every year.” Several people have mentioned the survey to me during my research for this piece. In essence, it was put together with the help of the graphic design students, covering a different topic every year, such as religion, rivers, neighbours, family and so on. The results would not only be published in a real book that could be bought, but also exhibited at the nearby museum and art gallery.

The Newport name itself indeed became synonymous with excellence, as Daniel recalls, “David often refers to a meeting he had, I think with The Sunday Times or Magnum, and somebody said, “you’re the one that started at Newport Mafia!” – you had art directors and picture editors all talking about the Newport Mafia.”

A changing industry

Ken Grant, whose name readers might recognise for his recent AP-award winning Chris Killip show at The Photographers Gallery, which he co-curated with Tracy Marshall-Grant, taught on the course for over 15 years, having first joined in 1997. He later went on to become the course leader in 2008-9, not long after he believes the wider photographic industry had changed dramatically.

“In 2004, with the Tate doing its first big photography show, different types of things were happening. People were working with the book in a much more elaborate way, digital practices were coming in – people were starting to think we don’t just do a beginning, middle and end narrative anymore – you couldn’t get to the frontline anymore and you had to think in a much more oblique way about how you worked.”

David Hurn teaching students – the photograph is by student Tish Murtha. © Tish Murtha / Ella Murtha

Although based in South Wales, one of the best things about the Newport, and now Cardiff, course has always been how much of an international focus it has had. “You could imagine something that’s really quite local in Newport, but we’d have people coming from far and wide,” says Ken. “An upshot of that is that people wouldn’t disappear at 5pm – the course was their home in many ways, and they really wanted to be there – they’d already experienced other things in their lives, but they were hungry for it and they’d come from different places because of that.”

Paul Cabuts taught on the course having previously been a student himself of the BA as a mature student in 1993 and later spent a lot of time researching the development of the course for his PhD from the European Centre for Photographic Research. Later, he would go on to become the academic subject leader for art and photography, overseeing all of the photographic courses.

In the mid 2010s, Newport merged with the then University of Glamorgan to become the University of South Wales. Glamorgan already had a photojournalism course, so Paul says it was potentially a dangerous time for the Documentary course, being so similar. “It was quite a good course, but it was only two or three years old – I worked quite hard to make sure the Documentary course stayed, purely because of its fantastic legacy. Myself, Paul Reas and Ken Grant and others, we all made a very firm case for why documentary photography had to maintain its place as a leading course. Luckily enough, that did happen.”

“A sort of aura”

Paul is another who believes it was a shame for Newport, the city, that the course eventually moved to Cardiff. “Everybody associated Newport with documentary photography – but students do generally prefer to be in Cardiff than Newport, for obvious reasons. But, Newport did have this sort of aura around it. The people of the town had a really strong bond with the students, which was evidenced by the annual Newport Survey, which happened for about 10 years and made the relationship between the students and the town really something quite important.”

In 2015, Paul left to work at Falmouth Photography, which also has a very well-respected photography course – which he says followed the same kind of tried and tested structure that Newport had set up all those years before, again demonstrating the impact that it had had on the wider photographic and educational world.

Paul Reas is a name which I felt like I heard several hundred times across the many interviews I did for this piece, so naturally I had to meet the man himself. His time with the course spans almost its entire duration, having first been a student himself in the early 80s, then later a technician and latterly a teacher on it until he retired just a couple of years ago.

He was a mature student when he joined, having had a previous life as a bricklayer. Like many, he says the course changed his life – making him middle class. “For me, it was the first time I’d been around people with different life experiences – people who had done other things with their lives. It forced you to re-examine all your preconceived ideas about people and people’s backgrounds, such as class and identity.”

From the course he says he took away something extremely meaningful that goes beyond skills as a photographer. “It gave me a realisation of my responsibility to represent things as truly, fairly and honestly as I could. To be compassionate and give something about – it’s not all about what you take from communities, but what you can contribute too.”

Having spanned such a broad stretch of time, Paul’s been able to observe big changes. “The professional world has changed so much. When I studied, it was still possible to make a really good living from working for magazines and newspapers – now people have much more diverse careers and the course had had to change to reflect that. Now we might look at commercial opportunities, or the art world, a lot more, for example.”

Moving to the present day, I also spoke to current BA Course leader David Barnes, MA course leader Lisa Barnard, plus lecturers Karin Bareman and Professor Mark Durden.

David, as with Paul Cabuts and Paul Rees, is himself a former student – such is clearly the draw of the course. He believes that the current BA runs on the same ethos of David Hurn’s original intentions from 1973. “We’re completely open minded about who comes on the course – so we have people who have done full careers and a really broad range of ages, so we still get that melting pot of people.” The course also keeps numbers small – just like the old days too, but it has expanded with the industry too. “We’ve been able to bring in all dimensions of documentary, including critical thinking about representations and ethics. While the industry is sometimes seen by some as contracting, it’s actually the opposite – it’s expanded, just in different directions.”

Storytellers

At the university, there is also a BA Photography course, but David feels it’s important that the Documentary course continues to exist in its own right too. “Why we teach specifically documentary is because at its course, it’s an interest in storytelling. Our students all want to be storytellers. They’re all passionate about something in the world.”

Although it has moved to Cardiff, he still also believes that the location brings something special too. “South Wales is a great place to go out and shoot pictures because people are really friendly, and kind of nosey in a nice way. Of course, people are travelling and going way beyond Wales at the end of the course, but in the first instance you’ve got to learn the ropes here and I think that works really well.”

By contrast, the MA Documentary Photography is run completely online, in order to attract a more global audience who don’t have to move from wherever they currently are in order to study – it also attracts lots of mature students. “The photo scene is very specific in the UK – it’s quite traditional,” says Lisa Barnard. “Whereas in Europe, documentary is treated completely differently. By broadening this out to be global, I get students that are interested in very long term projects, and they also use other tools beyond the camera to talk about their ideas too.”

Sue Packer (then a student) taking advantage of Tom Hopkinson’s (later Sir Tom) permanent offer to help students with layout if they came to his house in Penarth. 1977. © David Hurn

Interestingly, Lisa says the opposite to David Barnes, in that the MA is not actively trying to maintain the legacy of David Hurn. “It’s not to say I don’t respect his approach, but on our MA it couldn’t be further apart. I think in a decolonialised world that we live in, there’s a responsibility as image makers. I fundamentally believe that people that are making work should be making work in the countries that they inhabit – which is why I started running the programme online. That’s completely different from the historic idea of the white man who travels the world to exploit it for images. It’s very different.”

Mark Durden has been with the school since 2007, and works across the BA, MA and also supervises PhD student – USW is rare in that it runs courses in documentary photography across these three levels. While he appreciates and recognises the schools deserved reputation, he says its important not to become fixated with that past. “Since I joined, the approach to documentary has expanded and become more encompassing – historically it tended to be a bit narrow, both aesthetically and conceptually. In the past, it was rather unthinking and anti-theory, whereas now students have a very healthy relationship to critical theory.”

One of the most recent recruits to the school is Karin Bareman, who has been teaching there for less than a year. Unlike many of her colleagues, she’s not a practicing photographer, but, she has extensive experience in curation, which helps to bring another element to the students. She came to the course after conducting some guest lectures where she found the students to be hugely engaged, something she had not necessarily found elsewhere – “they were the most enthusiastic, the most prepared, the most engaged – the students are a real pleasure to work with,” she says.

She’s also keen to point out the supportive atmosphere, which is helped by keeping course numbers low. “You actually get to know each other very quickly – and the students also learn a lot from each other and support each other very strongly.”

It’s clear that an awful lot has changed since 1973. But it’s also very clear that the legacy of David Hurn’s original course is still very much going strong, and over the last half a century has had a phenomenal impact on documentary photography. It became quite clear to me while researching this piece that I could have spoken to many hundreds of people who have some connection to Newport/Cardiff, and I was delighted to discover that there is indeed a book in the works from Paul Cabuts which will look at some of the course’s aspects and impact on the wider photographic world. For now, I leave my research here – but I can’t wait to find out more in the future.

To find out more about the current courses, visit southwales.ac.uk. Keep reading for more from Newport / USW alumni, who each tell us what it was like to study on the course.

Anastasia Taylor Lind

Anastasia completed the BA Documentary Photography in 2004 and has worked for National Geographic, TIME, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and more. She is also a 2018 Harvard Nieman Fellow and has won numerous awards for her documentary and war photography, and is currently working in Ukraine.

A man weeps beside a bloodied stretcher outside the emergency department of the Republican Medical Centre in Stepanakert, November 2020 © Anastasia Taylor-Lind

She recalls being taught by Clive Landen and Ken Grant, the latter of which she says, “never stopped being my teacher” – a testament to the kind of connections made at Newport. “I wanted to be a photojournalist and go and do it as soon as possible. I asked my A Level teacher where I could learn how to take pictures like Don McCullin and they said “At Newport”, so I applied and had the good fortune of being accepted.

“It taught me how to build a photo story using the building blocks which I believe David Hurn had coined. I got back from Ukraine recently and I’m still going out and making those kind of pictures nearly 20 years later.”

anastasiataylorlind.com

Paul Lowe

Award-winning photographer Paul Lowe is represented by the globally acclaimed agency VII Photo and has been published in various outlets including Time, Newsweek, Life, The Sunday Times, The Observer and many more. As well as being a photographer, previously he was the course leader on the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication and is now Professor of Conflict Peace and the Image at LCC. He studied at Newport from 1986 – 1988.

A young girl plays with a ball in the street alongside the River Miljacka in a ceasefire during the siege on Sarajevo by Serb troops, 1994 © Paul Lowe / Panos Pictures

“It was extraordinary because it was incredibly intense. I don’t know if it’s ever been replicated really in photographic education, as far as I know.

“I think if there’s a legacy of that course, funnily enough, I try to argue that the course we run at LCC is probably the closest to the spirit of that original course.

“I started it with Patrick Sutherland, who taught me at Newport and had set up a postgraduate diploma at LCC. He invited me to turn that into an MA in 2005 – and one of the interesting things about us is that you don’t need a first degree in anything if you’ve got some professional experience. Because of that, entry requirement or lack thereof, I think we inherited that quite consciously and built on it. We get a lot of people on our MA who are like the people that went to Newport when it was a two-year course.”

panos.co.uk/photographer/paul-lowe

Sebastian Bruno

Sebastian did both the BA and MA in Documentary Photography between 2012 and 2018. He has been exhibited, awarded and published numerous times since then. Originally from Argentina, he has stayed living in Newport since finishing the course, and often returns to USW as a lecturer.

Swffryd’s Thursday Lunch club, from the book The Dynamic, published in 2023 by IC Visual Lab © Sebastian Bruno

“One of the reasons we [he lives with Clementine Schneidermann – see further down] stayed so long after we finished studying and continue to make work here is because of the support we had from the course. I do quite a bit of teaching which I really enjoy because there is that act of reciprocity.”

sebastianbruno.com

Simon Norfolk

Often described as one of the leading documentary photographers of all time, Simon Norfolk completed the HND course at Newport in 1983, after completing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Sociology at Cambridge University. His work is held in major institutions around the world, he has won or been shortlisted for numerous prestigious awards including World Press Photo, Deutsche Borse and Prix Pictet.

Former teahouse in a park next to the Afghan Exhibition of Economic and Social Achievements in the Shah Shahid district of Kabul. Balloons were illegal under the Taliban, but now the ballonn-sellers are common on the streets of Kabul providing cheap treats for children. © Simon Norfolk

“The course was superb – a baptism of fire. I think I was one of the younger ones to do it, a lot of people had actually done stuff in life. They’d been a journalist, or a coal miner, or the Royal Marines or whatever.

“From the very beginning you were sort of thrown out the door – go out, shoot pictures, come back, process them, create a contact sheet, have a critique, back out the door again. The best thing really was you had to break down that social embarrassment about walking into a place.

“You were pushed very, very hard. They told us when we got there that they’d take one person too many so they were going to theow someone out at the end of the year. That meant our focus was amazing – you don’t get anything like that nowadays.

“The thing I walked away from that course is that storytelling is what matters. Yes, it must be beautiful – but it has to have a real spine through the work. I’m a political photographer who wants to change the world and that’s what I learned to do.

“To this day, the highest qualification I’ve got in photography is an HND – the same as my plumber. These days we don’t really have vocational degrees like that any more – which is a shame as that was the genius behind David’s course.”

simonnorfolk.com

Chris Chapman

Chris Chapman was invited to join the Newport course by David Hurn, where previously he had been studying Fine Art. Since 1975 he has lived and worked in Dartmoor, documenting aspects of local life. His photographs are held in some of the world’s most respected collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the International Center of Photography in New York. He has published numerous books and has been commissioned widely.

At the Llangibby Hunt, 1975 © Chris Chapman

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He says, “I had bluffed my way into art college but couldn’t draw. When I discovered the camera, I used it as my sketchbook, working up large canvasses from my photographs. It never dawned on me I could just take photographs. David offered me a place on the course in 1974 and I never painted again!”

“It was a terrific atmosphere. David was a brilliant teacher and commanded huge respect. I remember a favourite phrase of his was ‘Go back and take it again!’ and of course we all did until the magic day arrived when he would look at your work and give praise.

“Without a doubt, the reason so many successful photographers come from that course is David’s skill both as a teacher and a mentor. I keep in touch with him still and was delighted to discover he had included one of my photographs in his first Swaps exhibition at the National Museum of Wales in 2017.”

chrischapmanphotography.co.uk

Lúa Ribeira

Magnum photographer Lúa Ribeira completed the Documentary Photography BA in 2016, attending at the same time, and sharing a house, with some of the others mentioned in this piece including Clementine Schneidermann and Sebastian Bruno.

Untitled, from the series postnaturalism, taken
while at USW
© Lua Ribeira / Magnum Photos

Lúa switched from a different photography degree to join the documentary course as she felt it was closer to her approach. Her main teachers at the time were Paul Reas and Lisa Barnard, who she appreciated for their opposing views and willingness to share them. “The teachers were tough, that was important for me. What I learned stayed with me as I’ve worked over the last few years.”

She describes how Newport fostered a familial approach, and also believes that its location was a big help. “It’s a town you might not otherwise go to,” she explains. “And I feel that isolation in e area was very healthy because it created a kind of family feeling – everybody supporting each other, but with a healthy competitiveness as well. There was something really special here.”

luaribeira.com

Tish Murtha

Tish Murtha was one of the earliest students of the course, and although she died in 2013, she has become well-known in more recent years thanks to the work of her daughter, Ella. A documentary film directed by Paul Sng about Tish was released in November 2023.

Newport Tip, 1978 by Tish Murtha © Ella Murtha

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Here, her daughter Ella describes her time in Newport.

“She started the course in September 1976 and graduated in 1978. I found the letter from John Charity welcoming her to ‘Documentary Photography’ in her stuff when she died, and it’s so lovely and informal. She was lucky enough to get an education grant from Newcastle City Council, which enabled her to go, but due to the sheer volume of film that they shot, she also worked in the evenings to afford it. She loved the place and the people and got a lot from the course. She worked incredibly hard, as she was desperate to learn the skills she needed to help make her a better photographer. I think Newport was probably very similar to  Newcastle, so she felt very at home wandering around and meeting people along the way. The famous “man at work” project found her documenting Wilf a local scrap man – her dad was a scrap man, so she was used to exploring the tip looking for treasures. I remember her being very proud that the journalist Tom Hopkinson had come in to work with them and assigned them all a story to work on. She headed off to the ‘New Found Out’ pub in Pill for hers, and I really enjoyed looking through all those contact sheets. There were some right characters!

She just photographed what she knew, and that was people. She had always been a people watcher long before she ever picked up a camera, she knew she wanted to be a social documentary photographer, but she absorbed everything that David Hurn taught her until it became second nature. He taught her how to create a picture story and once this was ingrained in her, she returned to the northeast with great purpose and fond memories of Wales.

She met her good friend Daisy Hayes there, Daisy actually photographed my birth! Other friends I remember were David Swidenbank, Kevin O’Farrell, George Wilson, Clive Landen, and Sue Packer and a Swedish lad called Ingard. He is in a couple of photos from the time, but I don’t know his surname unfortunately, which is a shame as he had a lovely twinkle in his eye and I bet has some good stories.

It has been really special to connect with people off the doc photo course and hear their memories of the time and my mam. I visited her old student house in Colne Street, which is relatively unchanged, but couldn’t get into the tip as needed to book, and the pub was long gone, but it felt quite spiritual walking in her footsteps and imagining her at work. It was really good to speak to David Hurn and hear what it was like to teach my mam and how he swapped a print of Angela and Starky with her, as he thought it was so tender. I actually found myself in the exact spot it must have been taken because of the reflection of a building I recognised. It was a real goosebumps moment. I’m a very proud daughter.”

tishmurtha.co.uk

Clementine Schneidermann

Clementine Schneidermann studied for both an MA and PhD in Documentary Photography. She has won numerous prizes, including the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award and the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. She has been published in many outlets including The Guardian, The New Yorker and Creative Review. Originally from France, she has stayed living and working in Newport.

I called her Lisa Marie © Clementine Schneidermann

“The course was amazing. It was also discovering a new country at the same time. For the first year I commuted from Bristol, but in the second year I moved to Newport with Sebastian [Bruno], Lua [Ribeira] and others – we had a big house in Newport. It sounds cheesy, but I feel like it kind of changed my life.

“Because I’m not from Wales, we [she lives with Sebastian Bruno – see above] kind of felt like we finally had a family in the university – among the students and the lecturers too.

“Since we finished, the market has changed. It’s become much harder to make a living – even when we started people were telling us it would be difficult, but now it’s really hard. Now photographers are encouraged to tell their own stories and use their own voice – they’re starting to look inwards a little bit more.

“I appreciated the toughness of the lecturers when I was there. I did a project on burlesque dancers and thought I was Susan Meiseilas. I showed it to Paul Reas, who was very tough on it – I felt like crying. But, in the end, I was so glad he did because he really pushed me to work much harder.”

clementineschneider.com

Jack Latham

Multi-award winning photographer Jack Latham has become well-known for his work surrounding conspiracy theories. He has published multiple books, been exhibited numerous times and also works as a lecturer at the University of West of England in Bristol. Originally from South Wales himself, he graduated from Newport in 2012.

Phantom Patriot was the name taken by Richard McCaslin of Carson City, Nevada, who, on January 19, 2002, attempted an attack on the Bohemian Grove after viewing Alex Jones’ documentary. He was imprisoned in California for 8 years. He now resides in Nevada and has a super hero base in his backyard which he refers to as the ‘Protectorate Outpost’ © Jack Latham

“I went to Newport because it was Newport. I didn’t have much of a portfolio, but I showed that I was incredibly passionate. I was offered a place by Clive Landen who said ‘I’m going to give you a place but if you f*** up, I’m going to kick you out personally. That has kind of followed me my entire career. I’m from Cardiff but I was never academically bright, and art wasn’t necessarily afforded to me growing up. The idea that I could even go to university was a huge thing.

“We always used to say you had support from Clive, you’d have brutality from Paul [Reas] and poetry from Ken [Grant]. But one of the best pieces of advice I received was actually from one of the technicians, who said, you shouldn’t finish university with a completed project.

“I’m proud to have gone to Newport. Coming from South Wales, the fact that it was in Newport is mind-blowing. I don’t think culturally people really gave a Newport a fair chance – it’s amazing it was documented for all those years using photography. It’s got a legacy and it will have always been an important place for British photography.”

jacklatham.com

Glenn Edwards

Photojournalist Glenn Edwards attended the course in 1983. He has worked for a wide-range of clients and is a former UK Press Photographer of the Year.

From the book and exhibition Yuckers Year. David Pearce training with his father Wally at the Waterloo Hotel in Newport before his British Heavyweight Title fight with Neville Meade in Cardiff September 1983. Not an environment you would find Fury or Anthony Joshua in the modern era. The first magazine to run a spread on this work was Amateur Photographer in 1983. © Glenn Edwards

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“Without sounding over-the-top, the course was absolutely life-changing. I was in the steel industry previously, and I was extremely lucky to get in. I think there were about 350-400 applicants and only 15 of us on the course.

“It was totally practical. It was all about going out, making mistakes, and then going out again and again until you got it right. We were all a little bit in awe of David, but he is one of the most approachable guys you could ever wish to meet.

“From the get-go, we had to go out and find people to photograph. Forget the photography aspect, the social skills were equally important. It was structured in such a way to make you a working photographer – at the end of the day, what’s the point unless you can earn a living?

“Recently I’ve had an exhibition and a book of pictures that I took at Newport. We had to find our own stories and I discovered a local boxer – David Pierce, who went on to fight for the British heavyweight title. I followed him for a year and it’s recently been the 40^th anniversary.

“It’s sort of come full circle, and that’s what Newport gave to me – knowing how important photography can be.”

glennedwardsphotojournalist.co.uk

Sian Trenberth

One of the youngest students to attend the course, Sian joined at age 18 straight from school in the early 1980s. Today she specialises in studio, portraiture and performing arts photography – but owes a lot of her craft to what she learned at Newport.

© Sian Trenberth

“I’d always loved photography, and I had a job at a theatre when I was at school as a dresser – somebody said there’s a photographer at the front of the house, you should go and speak to them. It happened to be David Hurn – I didn’t know who he was of course. I told him I was interested in the backstage stories, and he told me to join the course.

“I found it very hard, it was absolutely brilliant training and what I learned is still with me every day – it was a real hothouse environment. Standards were very, very high – David always instilled the being the best you can be type of approach. I don’t think that ever goes away. I’m a portrait and performing arts photographer now, but I adopt the “Newport approach” still.”

sian-trenberth.com

Iga Koncka

Iga is a very recent graduate from the Documentary Course at USW, where she was studied from 2018 until 2021.

© Iga Koncka

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Studying in the midst of the Covid pandemic was a challenge for Iga, who came to the UK after completing her A Levels in Poland. She says “I loved being on the course. It shaped my work ethic and I learned so much about photography and the arts in general. I was only 18 when I emigrated and the course was a great anchor to the realities of a new country.”

As is more common with newer students, Iga used other forms as part of her studies, including short films, performance and installation. She says, “The majority of my course was during Covid, so we had to be very creative with the projects we produced, as traditional human contact was not an option. This limitation allowed me to explore my Polish identity more and think outside the box when photographing close surroundings and domestic spaces.”

Iga admits that she didn’t know of the course’s famous reputation until after she arrived, but is now proud to be part of its community. She finished the course with First Class honours and went on to study for an MA in Contemporary Photography at Central Saint Martins, where she was selected as this year’s New Contemporaries artist.

igakoncka.com

Curtis Hughes

Curtis Hughes is a very recent graduate of the USW course, having studied for the BA from 2019-2022, but he has already found a good degree of success, with some of his project ‘Modern Love’ being featured in the book ‘Love Story’ by Hoxton Mini Press.

Vero and Julius, from ‘Modern Love’ © Curtis Hughes

“My decision to pursue a photography course was prompted by a moment of epiphany while I was living in Guatemala and working on my first documentary project. I naturally gravitated toward the documentary genre, with a deep-seated fascination for people and their stories. It was my sister who recommended the course after I shared my aspirations of attending university to study photography, specifically documentary,” he explains.

After leaving school, Curtis had been working in customer focused roles, before leaving the UK in his early 20s to take in part in what had intended to be a brief gap year. Six years later he was still away, teaching English at schools in India and later Guatemala, and developing a love for photography, particularly portraiture.

On returning to the UK to study at the famous documentary course, he found it to be an “exceptional experience.” He loved the sense of community, the connections formed, both with fellow students and teaching staff – he says “they have become like family to me.”

His project, Modern Love was created during the final year of the course. “I embarked on a train journey across Europe, capturing couples in their homes who had met online. Throughout the entire process of making the work, I received unwavering support from my colleagues and lecturers, who encouraged me to question not only what I was doing and how I was doing it, but most importantly, why I was doing it. I believe that this process of feedback and collaboration played a significant role in the project’s success. To this day, I seek collaboration and feedback in my work, cherishing the lessons I learned during my time at USW.

curtishughesphoto.com

Robin Chaddah-Duke

Robin graduated from the BA course in 2023, with the first two years of the course completely disrupted by Covid. He says, “Despite this, the course stayed active and the staff worked endlessly to make sure we were getting the education we had been promised. The skills I learned in these two rocky years meant that I was still able to produce a body of work I’m proud of.

An image by Robin Chaddah Duke

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“I studied photography at my college where I was able to discover my interests more specifically which lay in documentary practice. I was recommended to the course by my tutor Tom Keating and was amazed by the opportunity to study under a course who had produced names whom I very much admired.

“I was only 18 when I joined, so I had a lot to learn about life in general and I think the course allowed me to do this in a way that is really special. What I valued most was the ability to explore my own interests completely freely. I was welcomed into various communities with open arms and introduced to so many different people from different walks of life. The mentality of using a camera to get to know people I would never meet usually is something they really push on the course.

“It feels quite surreal now that I think about it that I was on such a famous course. It has put out some of photography’s biggest names, and I guess I’m now next to them – right at the bottom of the plaque. Seriously, it feels great – I’m very grateful to all of the staff and my class for everything.”

robinchaddahduke.co.uk

Laurie Broughton

Laurie graduated from USW in 2022.

Baby on the table © Laurie Broughton

“I wanted to study documentary photography at USW because of its prestigious reputation for producing world-renowned photographers. The course’s alumni really impressed me and gave me confidence that I would learn the skills to make that step to being a freelance photographer.

“Being all consumed by photography has left a lasting impact on myself. It has given me confidence but a burning desire to constantly think about the next image that I would want to make.

“Having studied here I’ve been able to connect with other photographers that have been in my shoes. I feel very fortunate to have been part of this course as it has changed my life for the best.”

lauriebroughton.com

What is documentary photography? 

I asked several of the interviewees here to give us a definition of documentary – a genre which can be very difficult to pin down. Here’s what some of them had to say about it…

“Oh Jesus, that’s my entire PhD! I always go back to John Grierson, and he called it the creative treatment of actuality.” – Karin Bareman

 “I guess it’s something along the lines of interpreting what is out there in the real world through a process of visual investigation.” – Paul Lowe

“F*** knows? Since the inception of the term, people have rebelled against it. My colleague refers to it as ‘non-fiction photography’ – it’s not about what something is, it’s about what something isn’t. Whatever you want to make it, I suppose.” – Jack Latham

“A horrible question. It’s really about connecting to the real in some way, so some aspect is based in reality – real environments, real issues, real people.” – Lisa Barnard

 “I don’t really have a definition, all I can do is tell people what I do. I record something that reminds me of accurately of the essence of what I saw and found interesting – then I show it to other people and hope they find it interesting enough to buy it.” – David Hurn

 “It’s a way of photographing what really matters.” – Ken Grant

 “Hearing the voice of the people rather than the voice of the establishment telling us what we should be doing. In its purest form, that would be my definition – seeing the world from the bottom up.” – Daniel Meadows

Further reading

Best photography exhibitions to see in 2023

How my camera saved me from a night in the Russian gulag

Best cameras for photojournalism and documentary in 2023

The post The best documentary photography course in the world? appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

First: the easy bit. Daido Moriyama, born 1938, is an internationally famous Japanese photographer, best known for his gritty black & white street photography and contributions to various avant-garde and experimental publications in Japan’s post-war period. The Photographers’ Gallery, one of London’s most prestigious photographic centres, is hosting the first UK retrospective of Moriyama’s work, starting on 6 October.

That was easy enough, but trying to define the work of Daido Moriyama, or the essence of what makes him so special and influential, is much harder. Like the masks in Noh theatre, Moriyama has taken on various enigmatic identities over his six-decade career.

The young man from Osaka who endures living in Tokyo flop houses to learn from the experimental photographer Eikoh Hosoe, but doesn’t take a single picture of his own for three years; the cultural bomb-chucker, railing against Western-style photojournalism and bringing out a book (Farewell, Photography) that includes lots of ‘spoiled’ images and shots of analogue photography detritus; the Japanese Jack Kerouac, buggering off around the country in an old Toyota; the artist who talks about ‘desire’ and the erotic pull of photography while also comparing himself to a loner, a stray dog; the grand old man of Japanese photography, happy to share tips and advice in a banal-sounding (but wonderful) 2019 book called How I Take Photographs.

Daido Moriyama, ‘Kanagawa’, 1967. From the series A Hunter

Moriyama – A new understanding

What I find fascinating about Moriyama is that his work can influence and inspire on many different levels. Forget geisha and Mt Fuji, a lot of Western photographers now come back from Japan trips with gritty, monochrome, clearly Moriyama-esque images of dive bars and back streets; at the same time, his work is like catnip to photography academics and historians, who wear out their keyboards pondering its cultural significance.

So, not an easy photographer to pigeonhole in six pages. To get a better sense of the importance of Daido Moriyama, and why The Photographers’ Gallery has pretty much given the place over to him (bar the café and shop), we caught up with the exhibition’s chief curator, Thyago Nogueira from the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, Brazil.

‘The idea of this first UK retrospective is to offer a new understanding of Moriyama’s work and legacy,’ Nogueira explains. ‘There is something very radical, original and conceptual in his photography, and this was not clearly understood. Moriyama was working in a cultural context and framework that was totally different to the Western European and American perspectives.’

Nogueira, a self-confessed admirer as well as a rigorously professional curator, started to research Moriyama’s work three years ago. He’s very clear that Moriyama must be seen in his cultural context. ‘In Japan, there was a school of photography that was born in the medium of mass communications, not in galleries or institutions. After the war, it took a long time for Japanese academic institutions, galleries and universities and museums to recover, or develop as we understand them. There was less veneration for vintage art works and valuable photographic prints, and this, I believe, gave Moriyama an advantage. There wasn’t the devotion for artworks that we inherited from the European tradition.’

Chief curator Nogueira worked closely with the Moriyama Foundation and other Japanese experts.

Daido Moriyama – Striking to the heart of photography

Another key goal of the exhibition is to explore how Moriyama’s approach has changed. ‘He’s now in his 80s and has spent a long time thinking and writing about photography. I ended up researching the context of the amateur photography magazines that were popular in Japan in the ’50s and ’60s – this was the fertile soil where some of Moriyama’s ideas originated.

‘The exhibition shows how Moriyama has been trying to address one fundamental question: what is the essence of photography, what defines this visual language that we love? He has given different answers throughout his life. A lot of the questions we are asking now, around AI and digital photography generally, were being asked by Moriyama when he was a young man.’

All well and good, but what can modern photographers learn from Moriyama? ‘He’s tried to show that the most radical aspect of photography is its banality. He has tried to overcome his ego and his pretentions as an artist and to “undress” himself from the accumulated clichés that still burden photographers. He felt that the more he could duplicate the world through his camera, the more radical and inventive his photography would be. For Moriyama, he never felt his understanding on the world was somehow “higher” because he was an artist.’

Daido Moriyama, ‘Tokyo’, 1969. From the series Accident, Premeditated or not.

Moriyama began his street photography by recording the big social changes and dramas taking place in Japan after the war, notably the effects of the American occupation and impact of consumerism and capitalism. ‘But he soon gave up on the idea that a photographer could somehow make sense of what was happening, or even use his images to fight social injustice. He just wanted his camera to replicate the world and replicate the feelings he had in this world. As he got older, his approach become less ordered, he would just wander the streets and sometimes take exposures without even looking through the viewfinder. He was trying to work as a Xerox machine, copying reality.’

People tend to look at Moriyama just as a street photographer, but Nogueira is adamant that he is also a conceptual photographer, trying to define the ‘essence’ of the image through his photography. ‘Walking around Tokyo was a way to do this, but he was also investigating his emotions and his memories. He is not really looking at the city per se, but at his inner territory – the streets of his mind. He has the camera with him to record this, the moment when what’s in front of him somehow chimes with his emotions and memories. That for Moriyama is true street photography.

Daido Moriyama, ‘Tokyo’, 1967. Asahi Graph, Apr 1967

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‘Also, despite his travels, he tries to show that you don’t actually need to go far – he’s been exploring the same neighbourhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district over and over and over again. A deep dive into your own neighbourhood and your own feelings can generate something new.’

A recurring theme in this feature is Moriyama’s incredible work ethic, and this should also inspire other photographers. ‘He is now producing a magazine called Record, three or four times a year, with all sorts of pictures and snapshots,’ Nogueira adds. ‘Stripping away pretentions and making himself “horizontal” to reality is what makes his photography so beautiful and interesting.’

Daido Moriyama, ‘Yokosuka’, 1965. From the series Japan, a Photo Theater

Daido Moriyma – Dog days

Moriyama was born near Osaka, Japan’s second city, to parents who moved around. He cut his teeth working alongside the great experimental photographer Eikoh Hosoe and the documentary photographer Shomei Tomatsu, but soon realised he didn’t want to be a photojournalist. ‘He was sceptical that a photojournalist could just go to a place and somehow understand it, or tell the whole story, by taking a few images,’ Nogueira elaborates. ‘Moriyama started to experiment more and more and got involved with a bohemian underground theatre and started to develop his own ideas for looking at the world in a more subjective way. ‘

As a good introduction to Moriyama’s huge and complex canon, Nogueira recommends Memories of a Dog. ‘It’s a beautiful series, where Moriyama goes to different villages from his childhood, using the camera to connect images and emotions from his youth with what he was seeing in front of him. In Japanese, the name of his current magazine, Record, also plays on the word for “memory”. Is photography a document, or a projection of our own memories? This preoccupation diverges him from his contemporaries.’

As we’ll see elsewhere, other photographers have noted Moriyama’s preference for small, cheap cameras, but this is about more than staying unobtrusive on the street. ‘He doesn’t care about the camera, it’s nothing to do with technical gear or virtuosity. Moriyama started out with cameras people gave him or he borrowed, and even now just uses a small point-and-shoot digital camera. He is always running away from his ego and any idea of himself as an artist.’

Daido Moriyama, For Provoke #2, Tokyo, 1969

So why, exactly, does Moriyama continue to exert such a lasting influence on many Western photographers? ‘Because he has investigated image-making so deeply. Even when he is photographing other cities – like São Paulo, where I live – they all look like Tokyo! So yes, the way he’s created this dark, grainy, very introspective style has had a huge influence and you can instantly see other photographers trying to imitate him. Whenever you go deep into an art form you open a new form of vision, a new way of looking at the world and trying to organise it. It is only natural that people start to use the same ideas – it’s like William Eggleston’s pioneering use of colour.’

Daido Moriyama, ‘Male actor playing a woman’, Tokyo, 1966. From the series Japan, a Photo Theater

Daido Moriyma – Pictures on a page

Nogueria also wants the exhibition to remind people that Moriyama is a photographer who’s always shot with publication in mind, be it in magazines or photobooks, rather than, say, just taking images to hang on walls. ‘The printed matter is the core of the exhibition, and it’s very important to understand how Moriyama has been working with the printed medium. Even over three floors at The Photographers’ Gallery, it’s been a real challenge to convey how his work has developed over the different decades, so we present a wide variety of printed matter. He also likes the sensuality of books and magazines.’

Daido Moriyama, ‘Tokyo’, 1969. From the series Accident, Premeditated or not

So what are Nogueira’s favourites from Moriyama’s almost infinite body of work? ‘When you dive into such a rich creative output, this is very hard to answer, like saying what is your favourite note in a symphony. But I am very fond of a series called Accident from 1969. Via a magazine, Moriyama decided to investigate the nature and essence of news photography. He would choose an aspect of photojournalism and twist it completely – the death of Bobby Kennedy in 1968, say. He’d say, “I was not there, I cannot relate to this, but I’ve been influenced by images that come to me in Japan.” So he rephotographs and Xeroxes TV and newspaper images.

‘Or, he investigated the newly popular zoom lenses as a way of surveying people in the street, like the Hitchcock movie, Rear Window. He also looked at how publishers intrude into the lives of celebrities, or he rephotographed public safety posters about car accidents in an experimental take on photojournalism.’

Moriyama also works in colour. ‘Yokosuka’, 1970

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Despite his prodigious work ethic, even Moriyama has been forced to slow down. ‘The pandemic hit him hard, and he can’t move around so much now, but he’s very happy this exhibition is taking place,’ Nogueira concludes.

As are we. The final word should go to Moriyama himself. Trying to find a closing quote that sums up his approach is not easy, but this, from the highly recommended book, How I Take Photographs, will do for now. ‘Get outside. It’s all about walking, walking, walking. The second thing is, forget everything you’ve learned on the subject of photography for the moment, and just shoot. Take photographs – of anything and everything, whatever catches your eye. Don’t pause to think.’

Under the influence of Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama’s influence on contemporary photography, particularly street work, has been huge. We spoke to a few AP contributors to find out what he means to them.

Peter Dench

Growing up in the 1980s I was aware of Japan, but didn’t fully comprehend it. I’d moved to London after graduating in Photographic Studies and not studied a single frame of Japanese photography. Now seemed the right time and my entry point was Daido Moriyama’s work and in particular his A Hunter (Karyudo) series – it even inspired me to do my own road trip from London to Land’s End!

Moriyama’s photography challenged all the academia I’d learnt. It was rule-breaking and fast-paced, it defied photojournalistic conventions and gave you a proper smack across the senses. Some of his images in A Hunter linger in my mind, including a barefoot woman in a white dress running through debris, beach boys sunbathing side by side and his most famous picture of a bedraggled, growling stray dog turning its head towards the camera – which took on a life as a symbol for post-war Japanese culture.

As I developed my own approach and style I started to reject many of Moriyama’s techniques, preferring to look through the viewfinder to consider, compose and crop. I pulled back on over-shooting and aimed to press the shutter only when certain there was potential for a great capture that would fit the narrative. Uncertainty had become my nemesis.

Yet I still have my Moriyama moments when I remember it’s okay for a photograph to have a bit of grain, that it can be garish, blurred, out of focus with blown-out highlights, have harsh contrast, a skewed look and that there is beauty in imperfection. When I wonder what the point of photography is, I re-engage with the raging rawness of Master Moriyama.

www.peterdench.com

Brian Lloyd Duckett

I have followed Moriyama’s work for a long time. I’m very keen on black & white photography, and much of his notable work in this format. That drew me to him. Also, Moriyama is a rule-breaker, he doesn’t give a fig, and I too rail against convention. He’s not bothered about pretty composition, perfect exposure, sharpness or grain, etc. For him, photography is all about feeling and soul.

Why do any of us shoot black & white in street photography? Some do it for nostalgia, some because they like the aesthetic, but for Moriyama there is a deeper meaning – he sees it in a more abstract and symbolic way and once said it ‘takes you to another place’. He also called it ‘erotic’, which is an interesting choice of words. So Moriyama shoots black & white with a real sense of purpose – it’s not a lazy afterthought or a way to salvage a mediocre colour shot. For him it’s a creative choice.

Photo: Brian Lloyd Duckett

X-Pro2 · f/2.8 · 1/1000s · 44.1mm · ISO200

Many people don’t get Moriyama. The thing to remember is that he shoots for the publishing world, rather than the art world. To the uninitiated, his work seems like random snapshots, but he is challenging our conventional aesthetics and enjoys being provocative. He had a joint retrospective at the Tate with William Klein in 2012, which is apt, as both worked in a very raw way, rather than presenting a filtered, manicured version of life. One of his most famous images is of a stray dog, and Moriyama also wanders around like a stray, with not much thought or planning, sniffing out pictures.

He’s also got a tremendous work ethic and has published about 150 books, which is an astonishing output. Moriyama shows you can’t just walk around the streets for a couple of hours and give up. He would work day and night, just needing to know what’s around the next corner or down the alley. If you keep at it, serendipitous things will happen. Then, rather than walking around with a bag full of Leicas, he has a tiny camera, he’s no threat to anyone, people don’t turn away. You can buy an old point-and-click camera these days for a song, so be like Moriyama – that’s all you need.

brianduckett.com

Gavin Mills

Moriyama’s name is synonymous with the raw, unfiltered essence of street photography. His work not only redefined the boundaries of Japanese street photography but also left an indelible mark on the global photography landscape. My wife, Noriko, is Japanese so our trips became extended holidays, providing me with ample opportunities to explore the city’s vibrant streets through my lens. Tokyo, in particular, stands out as one of the most inspiring locations that I’ve ever encountered for street photography.

Much like Moriyama’s street photography, my work aims to capture the often-overlooked and raw aspects of urban life. I find inspiration in the city’s contrasts and contradictions – serene moments hidden amid the chaos; human connections forged in a crowd; the fleeting expressions that reveal the soul of a bustling metropolis.

Photo: Gavin Mills

One of the most compelling aspects of Moriyama’s work, which resonates deeply with my experiences, is the exploration of the human condition in an urban environment. His photographs are filled with anonymous faces, blurry figures, and fragmented scenes that evoke a sense of anonymity and isolation. This portrayal mirrors the complex tapestry of emotions I’ve witnessed among modern city dwellers, emphasising the disconnection and isolation that can exist amidst the hustle and bustle of urban life – the paradoxical blend of loneliness and togetherness that defines contemporary society. His photographs are not mere snapshots; they are windows into the human experience, an exploration of the soul of Japanese city life. His work serves as a testament to the power of photography to convey the raw, unfiltered essence of our world and the depths of humanity.

www.gavinmillsphotography.com

Mick Yates

Japanese photography has always interested me, even before I lived there. Yet it still seems under-appreciated in this part of the world. Moriyama is arguably one of the greatest living street photographers. Born in 1938, he continues to astound with his eye and his output, being one of the most prolific photo book producers, and a perpetual traveller. Whilst some single images have become ‘iconic’, I tend to see his work in a series, as storytelling. A 2017 interview with Bree Zucker in BOMB magazine, shows that for Moriyama, documentary is not just a depiction of ‘reality’, but a subjective activity: ‘For every single photo I take, some fragment of my memory has probably made its way in there. Then the viewer also projects his or her own memory onto it. Sometimes the photograph has more impact on the beholder than the taker.’

www.yatesweb.com

Mick, who is the co-founder of the Photo Frome Festival, has written very extensively on Moriyama – we can’t do justice to Mick’s erudition and insight here but yatesweb.com/daido-moriyama-record is a good place to start.

The Daido Moriyama retrospective is on until Sunday 11 February 2024 in the Photographers Gallery in London.

Best photography exhibitions to see in 2023

Related reading:

• Complete street photography guide
• Black and white street photography: Tips and techniques from the experts
• Analogue street photography tips

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Gen Z has long established itself as a nostalgic generation, one that yearns to capture moments, big and small. In a time when stills and video can be captured in near perfection, authenticity and the emotional resonance of a moment appear key and this is reflected in recent trends like the ‘video your life as a Wes Anderson film’ trend.

England and Brazil face off at Wembley Stadium as a crowd of fans watch on, photo taken on Kodak Gold film. Photo credit: Harriet Duffy.

Many young photographers have taken to using film and even vintage digital cameras to document the world around them, rather than the countless mirrorless cameras with an ever-growing number of megapixels available to them nowadays.

Another thing that has seen a surge in recent years is women’s football, particularly in the UK with the Lionesses’ victory at the 2022 Women’s UEFA European Championship and successful run at this year’s Women’s World Cup culminating in making it to the final match against Spain. Raiyan Rafiq and Harriet Duffy are two young photographers (and women’s football fans), both 25, who have been documenting this rise of the women’s game in the UK since last summer – focusing on the fan experience –  on analogue cameras.

Sports photography is probably not the first genre you’d think of for doing film today, especially as film cameras can be unreliable and film itself is increasingly pricey.

Film photography and the power of capturing moments in sports – Harriet Duffy

Harriet Duffy’s photography journey began with her fascination with capturing moments. She says, ‘I like the idea of being able to look back on a place, a relationship or a sporting event and be able to remember the feeling at the time in which an image was captured.’

In 2014 she stumbled across her parents’ old Olympus Trip 35 compact camera, which she found was a perfect introduction to film photography given that it wasn’t overwhelmingly full of functions and settings. Since then, film has been her medium of choice. Why? The lengthy development and scanning process plus limited number of shots don’t faze Duffy, who explains that it is exactly this that reiterates her love of film.

Scenes from the terrace after England opened the scoring in the UEFA Women’s Euros final against Germany at Wembley Stadium. Photo taken with an Olympus Mju and Fujifilm Superia 200 film. Photo credit: Harriet Duffy.

Following her graduation from university last summer, she was commissioned to photograph the 2022 Women’s UEFA European Championship and stood pitchside in Wembley as England’s women’s team won England its first major trophy since 1966 when the men’s team won the World Cup.

Duffy believes that incorporating film photography into women’s football ‘helps increase the creativity of the game off the pitch. The more interpretations of football the better.’

She currently works as a freelance photographer and writer specialising in women’s football, shooting film at matches for independent outlets like Copa90 and Indivisa. She has even been commissioned to document the fan experience on the grounds of the UEFA Women’s European Championship with a Fujifilm Instax Square 1 camera which she enjoyed a lot, saying, ‘Whilst yes, it’s instant, you’ve still got to wait a bit for it to develop, meaning endless conversations with the subjects about the nostalgia of the camera.’

Photo taken with Olympus Mju and Kodak Colorplus 200 film. Photo credit: Harriet Duffy.

And for Duffy, this made it the perfect camera to document women’s football fans during that Euros tournament as it ‘highlighted just how euphoric that month was’.

As to what’s usually in her kit bag, Duffy explains that she’s limited due to the ‘A4-size bag only’ rule at football games in England. ‘If I’m in the stands I tend to just take my Mju I and three rolls of film but if I’m pitchside it’ll be my Canon AL-1, Olympus Mju I and Canon EOS 300 with five rolls of film. I tend to limit my shooting to two rolls per game to keep the costs down and ensure no frame is wasted.’

If given the choice to choose one camera and one type of film for the rest of time, however, she’d go with the Olympus Mju I with Kodak Gold 400 film that have become her go-to kit to have in her bag: ‘Having something so readily available when I’m on the move, weaving in and out of fans, is invaluable to capturing the true atmosphere I encounter.’

Some of Duffy’s Euro ‘22 instant photos taken with a Fujifilm Instax Square 1 for the opening game of the UEFA Women’s Euro between host nation England and Austria taking place at Old Trafford, Manchester. Credit: Harriet Duffy.

Street photography is her favourite genre, as she likes to ‘document things naturally because authenticity in representing women’s football is so important to me due to my passion for the game’.

Football player turned sports photographer – Raiyan Rafiq

Raiyan Rafiq, like Harriet, is a freelance photographer working predominantly in women’s football, as well as an avid football fan. She will also be studying for a postgraduate degree in law soon.

She began taking photos at high school tournaments but didn’t take it too seriously at the time as she was a player herself. After she moved to London from Bangladesh, Rafiq struggled with the pressure of university and learning to live abroad alone but after her father encouraged her to combine two activities she enjoyed – photography and football – she started attending matches in person.

Photo taken during the pre match ceremony at Wembley Stadium in London. Photo credit: Raiyan Rafiq.

And this is how she got into sports photography in the UK. ‘Before the Euros, the attendances were not very high so the security was relaxed, and we could take our cameras and lenses,’ she says. Last summer she was commissioned to photograph the Women’s UEFA European Championships by Indivisa and was also there to see the Lionesses’ historic win.

She described this as a ‘dream’ and a ‘full circle moment’ especially as she enjoys ‘capturing photos that tell a story or evoke emotions in a certain moment or time’, citing photojournalism and event photography as her favourite genres.

Rafiq blends digital photography with film photography too, depending on who she’s shooting and when she’s shooting. ‘If there is an indoor event, then I will probably rely on digital as not everyone likes the flash from a film camera – they can often be quite overpowering,’ she says. It also depends on the type of shot she’s after. She says that while she might capture the match itself on digital, ‘I prefer to capture the atmosphere and fans on film.’

Photo credit: Raiyan Rafiq.

For her, the nostalgic quality of film is a given. Then there’s the film aesthetic, she says, the unique contrast, tonal range or grain a film photo has that you can’t replicate digitally. There is also the need to be patient. ‘We get everything so instantly nowadays that it takes the experience of anticipation out of it. Film is exciting because you don’t get a result immediately.’ She likens the experience to opening presents on your birthday.

For Rafiq, film cameras, much like other gadgets from the 1990s and beyond that have returned from the dead, such as vinyl, Walkman, and typewriters, present a hands-on experience that makes them more endearing. ‘You need to learn about the device before you can use it, instead of just powering it up and clicking a button,’ she says. ‘So, in a way you feel more in tune with your devices, as clichéd as that may sound.’

31st July, 2022 at Wembley Stadium, London. Photo credit: Raiyan Rafiq.

On a regular shooting day, Rafiq carries a digital camera, the Canon EOS 600D, as well as two film cameras, a Canon 5000 and a Pentax point and shoot. These are usually joined by a 300mm telephoto zoom lens and three to four rolls of film. ‘Because the weather in this city is always so unpredictable, I have started carrying a rain cover’ she adds.

Her favourite film camera, however, is also the Olympus Mju I. She says, ‘I loved the camera so much when I picked it up a few years back and instantly fell in love with it. The size is perfect, and the quality is amazing. Thus contributing to my username on Instagram, RaWithAMju’. As for film, for her that prize goes to the Kodak Ektar 100, ‘the contrast is always so brilliant and the colours pop out so well. It’s incredibly smooth but at the same time retains the feel of a film.’

Arsenal goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo greets fans. Photo credit: Raiyan Rafiq.

Sports photography on film – how to get started

Her advice? ‘Start small and then move up.’ Rafiq recommends beginners start with a point and shoot and then switch to more analogue cameras, ‘You need to learn to fall in love with the process or else you will end up spending money on a camera you barely use’. She also points to YouTube as a great place to learn from other photographers who go through the technicalities, what cameras to buy, how to use them and more.

‘I also think you have to be open to failing a lot. Some days, I have taken only twelve good pictures out of thirty-six and while that can understandably be frustrating, it has also helped me get a grip on the dos and don’ts. Most importantly, love what you capture. Document the things you love, and the photos will speak for themselves.’

Harriet’s biggest advice would be to go out and shoot as much as possible. ‘I was lucky in that I started shooting film when Agfa Vista was available for £1 in shops meaning I could learn from experimentation and experience. With film costs being extortionate now I recognise that that’s a privilege today but it’s nice seeing new people come into the industry to try and counter the costs such as Candido.’

At the moment, Duffy is getting ready for the new European domestic football season which will be starting in October. ‘I’ll be back in the stands and the pitchside capturing what’s set to be one of the biggest years for the Women’s Super League after the tournament the Lionesses just had’.

Rafiq is heartbroken at not being able to go to Australia to watch the Women’s World Cup. She is taking a break from sports photography before the WSL season starts anew. ‘I am trying to capture more everyday living through photos. Trying to fall in love with the minute, ordinary things’.

Follow Harriet Duffy and Raiyan Rafiq on Instagram to see more of their work.

Related content:

• How to shoot action and sports photography
• How to do film photography on a budget
• Top tips for how to get creative with analogue film photography
• Complete guide to Portrait photography – How to get started

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In recent years, the continual growth in analogue photography has seen an increase in smaller companies producing bespoke products, materials and equipment. While the leading manufacturers of cameras have yet to re-enter this expectant market (although Ricoh has announced plans for a possible new Pentax 35mm camera), there are many producers worldwide making specialist film cameras and accessories. 

Elvis Halilovic, founder of Ondu cameras in his workshop in Velenje, Slovenia, amidst production of his Mk III Multiformat 6×12 cameras. www.ondupinhole.com, Instagram: @ondu_cameras

ILCE-6500 · f/1.7 · 1/80s · 30mm · ISO100

I first met and interviewed Elvis Halilović, founder of Ondu, in Slovenia ten years ago, when his first handcrafted pinhole cameras were launched through crowdfunding and social media. I remember his surprise at the success of the campaign, which he had hoped would raise $10,000 in orders, but instead provided an impressive $120,000. Recently, I had the chance to catch up with Elvis and discuss the continued interest in his range of wooden cameras, their development through different iterations, the practicalities of running his business and the upcoming launch of his new large-format camera. 

Before establishing Ondu, Elvis had experimented with pinhole cameras made from shoeboxes, tin cans and other materials while studying design in Poland. On return to his hometown of Velenje, he furthered his research into pinhole photography, building his own designs from locally sourced maple and walnut. ‘At 25, I was a product designer by profession, but hadn’t planned to go into business,’ he recalled. ‘With the first Ondu cameras I made, I simply hoped to sell 100 and then go on a biking holiday round the world!’ 

Ondu Workshop, Velenje, Slovenia. Ondu pinhole cameras are handmade using locally sourced sustainable walnut, maple and ash, finished with a coating of beeswax and natural oils for protection. Each have a tripod mount, spirit-levelling bulb, and horizontal and vertical engraved lines to aid composition. They are supplied with a wooden exposure guide, snap-on filter adapter and protective carry bag.

ILCE-6500 · f/1.6 · 1/125s · 30mm · ISO100

These initial cameras, with distinctive and elegantly curved designs, were produced in a range of five formats, with precision-cut pinholes and manufactured by hand using sunken magnets to hold the back and winding knobs in place. The funds from their success offered Elvis the opportunity to invest in a larger workshop and manufacturing equipment and to take on additional staff.

‘The Kickstarter for the Mark One snowballed, and with the results of customers’ feedback, I implemented design changes in the Mark Two cameras. During these years I invested in new machinery, such as laser cutters, which let me work with more complicated designs and streamline the whole production. I added features and details which I couldn’t fabricate before, such as hidden shutters and snap-on magnetic filters.’

The Tides By Torsten Richter Ondu MK III 6×12 Multiformat

There are now 14 Ondu pinhole cameras available in a selection of different film and camera formats, (including panoramic models) from 35mm to 8x10in. ‘The dimensions of the latest Mark Three cameras are the same, but their visual design is slightly different. I’ve added eyelets and every little detail has a tiny chamfer, but the main addition is the magnetic quick-release shutter, plus a shuttered window on the back for checking the backing paper’s frame number, plus a levelling bulb and engraved lines for aiding composition. All the components inside are painted black to prevent internal reflections.’

Since the first Ondu cameras, it has been important that the wood and materials used, where possible, are locally sourced. ‘I use European walnut and everything is manufactured in Slovenia, from the camera strap eyelets to the tripod mounts. Everything is custom-made except for the magnets, levelling block and washers.’

Colour pinhole photographs tend to render a muted, softer palette, as there is no coated lens used to increase contrast, which can be very effective for landscape work. Exposures of several seconds are usually required, given the effective aperture of f160 of the pinhole. River Una, Bosnia By Elvis Halilovic, Ondu MK III 6×12 Multiformat, Kodak Ektar 100.

Perfection V700/V750

One of his most popular cameras is the 6×12 Multiformat, which has internal dividers to allow three different formats (6×6, 6×9, 6×12), to be shot on 120. In addition, he has produced a range of five Rise Cameras which have three separate shutters. ‘They can be used to correct horizontal perspective, like the rise and fall on large-format cameras, as it prevents having to tilt the camera up or down. The camera’s spirit level is kept at zero and the top or bottom shutter is then used instead of the central one. It’s very useful for architectural work or it can be used for exaggerating perspective, such as the spire on a church, if shooting close and tilting the camera.’

The new Ondu Eikan 4×5 camera. The Eikan large-format camera, which is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, is designed to be workable and straightforward to use. Elvis listed its benefits and features. ‘It’s not a technical camera, but is tactile, sturdy and relatively lightweight. My idea was also to make it modular. The camera has the main movements; rise, fall, shift, tilt, even back tilt, useful when using wideangle lenses. It has 32cm of range between lens and film, and if more is required for longer bellows, I’ve created an extension rail. I’ve also designed extra backs so it can be used as a 10x4in panoramic camera and hopefully there will also be a 5x7in back.

ILCE-6500 · f/2 · 1/100s · 56mm · ISO160

This led to a side project during Covid where he experimented with extra dividers inside a 6×6 Rise camera. ‘Using the three shutters, you could then separately shoot three small panoramas at 6×2 format, potentially telling a story on one frame of film,’ remarked Elvis. ‘I made about 100 kits which I sent out with a roll of film labelled ‘self-isolation creative kits,’ like Red Cross packages as a bit of fun for people self-isolating and a little reminder that despite everything, we still had photography.’ 

Cramond Island by Helen Hooker Ondu MK III 6×6 Pocket, Ilford FP4+

As with many small businesses, social media is an imperative tool for publicity, marketing and communicating with the community of Ondu users. ‘A lot of people post about their cameras, making unboxing videos and taking behind-the-scenes pictures of the cameras. On World Pinhole Day, I often ask the community to share photos of their cameras in action, with one person getting a free Ondu, or sometimes there are monthly giveaways for the best Ondu pinhole photo.’

During our conversation, I was both surprised and pleased to learn that Elvis and his team are not working throughout the year on camera production, but instead, maintain a more seasonal and perhaps, healthier approach. ‘I have a team I work with over winter for four to six months producing the cameras. During the summer they are paragliding, flying tandems in the countryside. I make them in batches, so I can then close the workshop and do other things.’

Ondu Pinhole user Torsten Richter is a photographer based in Schleswig-Holstein, on the North German coast, working with analogue, digital and alternative processes. He has specialised in pinhole photography for several years, using Ondu cameras, and has recently published a zine of his work. Instagram @trchtr www.trchtr.de

While he has produced and sold thousands of Ondu cameras over the past ten years, Elvis remains a dedicated product designer, and when we spoke, was in the process of preparing the launch of his next project, the Eikan. ‘I had been tinkering with a design for a large- format camera but needed to think of something different from other cameras. Last year, while hiking, an idea came out of nowhere of how strong, lightweight, folded aluminium could be used, so quickly made a sketch on my phone. Since last June, I’ve been busy working on drawings on the computer and making prototypes.’ 

This is a departure from how his pinhole cameras have been produced, but while it would be possible to outsource much of the production to China, and indeed more economic, Elvis believes firmly it is important, and more sustainable, to keep production local. ‘I have found manufacturers 20 minutes away from here and the anodising company is ten minutes from them, who also do the sandblasting, so it’s all within a 30km radius from the workshop. I’m working with wood and aluminium, having learnt new technical skills like laser cutting steel. The pinhole cameras are fully handmade, going through my hands maybe 50 times, but manufacturing with steel banding is highly automated, using hi-tech sensing machines, requiring much less manual labour.’ 

Ondu Pinhole user Helen Hooker is a UK musician and photographer working in architecture, street and automotive photography. She discovered pinhole photography during the Covid pandemic, and has since posted a daily pinhole photograph to her Instagram account. Instagram @hhpinhole www.helenhookerphotography.co.uk

While pinhole cameras remain the mainstay of Ondu, Elvis has several other ideas to develop. ‘The new camera is just one of the products that I’m going to be making,’ he confirmed. ‘Ultimately, I would like to make lenses too in the style of Petzval and Dallmeyers, which are not complicated to make. I’m also interested in wet-plate photography, and have shot a series in the Dolomites, which felt like my calling.

I have been thinking about the whole kit required on location, the eco system needed, such as the developing box and drying rack and am in touch with another Slovenian company called Zebra, who are producing dry plates. In the 1800s, there were travel laboratories for photographers, and I dream of the day I can pack it all together and go and shoot in the mountains.’

Featured image: Ljubljana, Slovenia by Mike Crawford. Ondu MK I 6×6 Pocket, Ilford FP4+. From a series shot in the Slovenian capital in 2013 using the first 6×6 Ondu. I chose to slightly crop this image, to lessen the wide angle of the pinhole and its effects of vignetting 

Further Reading:

Guide to sprocket hole photograph

Analogue street photography tips

How to shoot film at night

Pinhole photography: Going the scenic route

Top tips for how to get creative with analogue film photography

Mike Crawford

Mike is a London-based photographer and specialist printer working in urban landscape and portraiture. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. For over 25 years he has run Lighthouse Darkroom, one of the UK’s premier photographic labs, working for many leading photographers on numerous exhibitions and publications. 

www.mike-crawford.co.uk, http://www.lighthousedarkroom.com

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Tips for street photography on film

Analogue Street portraits: Simon Murphy

Just wander

Clear your mind and simply wander. Wandering is a huge part of the process, and you must put the time in. Wander for long enough, and you will tune into the flow of the street and notice the gifts that everyday life throws your way.

Photo: Simon Murphy

Feel the fear

All the best pictures exist just beyond the boundary of fear. Recognise that the process can be nerve-wracking, and some days will feel like you are starting all over again. When you see a picture unfold, push beyond your fears and grab it. You will never forget how it felt to make that picture, and that feeling will help you push for the next one.

Photo: Simon Murphy

Be honest

If you are approaching someone intending to ask them to pose for you, also ask yourself why you want to photograph them. They might ask you this question, too, so be honest and tell them what it was that captured your attention.

Photo: Simon Murphy

Smile

Don’t take rejection personally. A ‘No’ often is just a ‘No, I’m a little busy just now’ or ‘No, I’m not feeling very photogenic’. Smile and thank them for their time; when you meet them again, they might be in a better place to be photographed. 

Set mini goals

Orson Welles said: ‘The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.’ Set yourself mini goals and see them through; this will help you focus. A goal could be anything from putting a set amount of time aside to shoot every week, a picture a day, looking for a shape or a colour, or focusing on one small area. A goal or limitation gives you purpose, but never be afraid to break your rules to pursue something better.

Photo: Simon Murphy

Simon’s kit for Analogue Street Photography

Mamiya RZ67 Pro

I use a Mamiya RZ67 Pro with a 127mm lens. I have experimented with other lenses but the camera is heavy and too many lenses weigh me down. I shoot with a carbon fibre tripod: Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 with a Manfrotto 460MG head. Sekonic Flashmate L-308 Lightmeter. Nikon FM3a with 28mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens for 35mm work.

Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy travels extensively, shooting human interest stories which see him photographing a wide range of subjects, from musicians and actors to the Dalai Lama. His project, called Govanhill, focuses on an area in Glasgow’s southside, and the images form a ‘Portrait of the Place’, aiming to give an insight into one of Scotland’s most diverse but deprived areas. The project is about community and diversity.

A major exhibition of Simon Murphy’s photographic document ‘Govanhill’ will be shown in Street Level Photoworks from 14 October to 23 December 2023. The exhibition will coincide with Simon’s first book, Govanhill, published by Gomma Books. www.gomma.store

Instagram: @smurph77

Tips for Documentary street photos: David Collyer

Know your camera intimately 

Street photography of any type requires quick reactions to get the best results. Time fumbling with controls is time wasted, and time wasted is time for your opportunity to capture ‘the decisive moment’ to elude you. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what camera you use, as long as it suits you. I prefer rangefinders because I like to look outside the frame as a scene evolves, but a small point-and-shoot can be superb too. Subtlety and being unobtrusive will pay dividends.

Photo: David Collyer

Learn how to zone focus 

If it was good enough for Henri Cartier-Bresson, it’s good enough for all of us. You won’t regret it. Assuming you use a manual focus camera, and I’m guessing most will be, zone focusing saves time. On any given focal length lens, each aperture will give a depth of field where the focus is deemed acceptably sharp. A scale on the lens barrel will show aperture numbers mirrored on either side of a central line. Marry this to the lens’s distance scale, and any distance between two identical f-stops will be in focus. 

Photo: David Collyer

Don’t listen to gatekeepers 

Many people will be keen to tell you what is and what isn’t street photography. From my perspective, if I’m shooting on the street, it falls into that category. Much of my documentary work is shot on the street and evolves from scenarios that I see into what could be termed environmental portraits. Being too prescriptive only serves to limit the genre, not enhance it.

Photo: David Collyer

Be prepared to engage

Have a disarming smile, and work on your conversational skills for when you get spotted. I’m a people person. When I was younger and less experienced, lacking in confidence, the camera was a device to hide behind. Now it’s a great device to meet people. I’ve made some very good friends through shooting on the street. I always carry cards with me. Hand them out when people want to know why you’re photographing them. It makes you seem legit, and from my experience, it helps to sell prints, and selling prints buys more film! 

Photo: David Collyer

Celebrate the subject

Shoot to celebrate the subject or subjects of your work, never to humiliate. That’s my personal code. We are a rich and diverse species to explore. I’d rather capture a quirky moment or one imbued with intense emotions than make a spectacle of someone because they are easy to poke fun at in a judgemental way. Going for the cheap shot is ultimately pretty lazy in my opinion, and it’s also likely to one day get you punched or, even worse, get your camera broken!

Photo: David Collyer

David’s Kit for Analogue Street Photography

Rangefinders

I’m a big fan of rangefinders. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of Leicas, an M3 and an M6, and my go-to lens is the Summicron 40mm F2. It’s tiny and very underpriced. 

I also occasionally use an Olympus XA3. Perfect pocket camera. I use Billingham bags and have done so for almost 30 years. They last forever and have never leaked or let me down. My film stock is almost exclusively Ilford HP5+, as it’s so versatile. I can pull it to ISO 200, or push it all the way to 3200 with no problems. The other thing I always have in my bag is a Sekonic L-308 light meter. Add a bottle of water and a Kit-Kat, and I’m set for a day on the streets.

David Collyer

David Collyer FRPS is a South Wales-based photographer and the current RPS Documentary Photographer of the Year. He shoots almost exclusively on film.
Website: www.davidcollyerphotography.com
Instagram: @david_collyer_photographer

Tips for close-up analogue street portraits by Benedict Brain

Get to know your kit

Know your equipment inside out and back to front. For this set of portraits, taken on the streets of Miami Beach, I knew that I wanted all the images to look and feel stylistically similar, so I perfected the settings, the flash power and the distance I would be from the subject and so on before I went out to make photographs. I even shot a practice roll on friends. This meant I could concentrate on connecting with the subjects and work swiftly without fiddling with settings. Treat their time as precious and your fleeting time with them as a privilege. 

Photo: Benedict Brain

Connect with your subject

A big and bulky Mamiya medium format camera, macro lens, and ring flash is quite an imposing rig to shove in someone’s face; there is nothing discreet or unobtrusive about this set-up. I do not like picking off sneaky shots from a distance with a telephoto without the subject’s knowledge, but this is the other extreme. I had to work very close to the subjects so making a connection and engaging was vital. I like the intimacy but also the tension that this intrusion can create.

Photo: Benedict Brain

Trust your intuition

Making portraits of people you don’t know in the streets can be intimidating. While you need to be acutely aware of your surroundings, trust your intuition and move on if things feel awkward, tense or threatening. Most of the time, it’s not as scary as you might think, and people are willing to have their portrait taken. If they say ‘no’, that’s fine too; it’s unlikely to be personal, just thank them and move on. I always carry business cards and offer to send them a print or digital file. I have made some great connections all over the world as a consequence. It is one of the joys of making street portraits.

Photo: Benedict Brain

Plan your process

I tend to use black & white film for my analogue street portraits, partly due to cost. I don’t have a darkroom at home, so I process film in my kitchen sink and then photograph negatives using a copy stand, light box and digital camera. This hybrid process is relatively cost-effective, although I’d love to spend a month in a darkroom with my big box of negatives. Aside from the cost, I tend to ‘see’ street portraits in black and white.

Photo: Benedict Brain

Previsualise

Think of the final print and work towards that. These street portraits were made as part of a commission looking at Miami night life and the final prints were destined for the gallery wall. I made large 20x24in prints. The portraits were bigger than life size and quite imposing once framed. This helped reinforce the engaging intimacy that my forensic, close-up approach sought to explore. Having this previsualised final vision in mind helped inform the process.  

Photo: Benedict Brain

Ben’s kit for Analogue Street Photography

Mamiya 645 Pro

I use a Mamiya 645 Pro with a couple of lenses for my analogue work and this is what I used for this work. I also use a Nikon F3 with a 50mm f/1.4. I mainly shoot Ilford FP4 and Kodak Tri-X. l’ll shoot colour negative if I can afford the processing. For this project I used a macro lens on the Mamiya and a ring flash.

Benedict Brain

Benedict Brain is a UK-based photographer, author and award-winning journalist. He balances his personal practice with writing about photography and running photography workshops. His first book was published by Ilex Press in 2023. He founded Potato Photographer of the Year in 2020 and travels internationally as a public speaker, talking about the art and craft of photography.
Website: www.benedictbrain.com
Instagram:@benedict_brain

APOY 2023 Round 7 Street Photography is now open click here to submit your images until the 21st August 2023.

Further reading on film and street photography:

Analogue:

New to film photography? Find out how to get started.

• How to get creative with analogue
• Best 35mm SLR cameras with manual focus
• Intro to medium format film photography
• How to do film photography on a budget
• Developing at home

Street Photography

• The law around street photography
• How to be street smart as a photographer

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The post Analogue street photography tips appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

Essentially, the crux is the use of a Bayer colour filter array in which each ‘red’, ‘green’ or ‘blue’ filter patch covers four pixels, rather than one. This is illustrated in the figure below, which shows a normal Bayer array compared with the quad-Bayer alternative. At this stage we need to clarify some terminology. Although many manufacturers label the pixel as a ‘photo-diode’, each of the four pixels under one colour filter is fully functional and capable of being read out independently from the others. Indeed, there would be little point in the design were this not the case. So, at first sight it appears that the only effect of the quad-Bayer arrangement is to quarter the resolution of the sensor. Thus, the 20MP sensor in the OM-1 actually has 80 million pixels. Later on, we’ll see why this is a good idea.

Figure 1: A normal Bayer sensor (top) has a separate colour filter over each pixel. In a quad-Bayer sensor (bottom), each colour filter covers four pixels

The quad-Bayer sensor arrangement is quite common in phones. You may wonder how a phone lens can ever project enough resolution to justify up to 100MP on the sensor. The answer is that it can’t, however using a small pixel aperture can increase resolution. In a phone, the quad-Bayer arrangement allows all four pixels to be combined in low light. In bright light the pixels are used individually, thus reducing the effective pixel aperture and increasing sharpness. 

The first consumer cameras to use this arrangement have been the low pixel-count, video-specialised Panasonic Lumix GH5S and Sony Alpha 7S III. These cameras do not include the function described above, so what is the advantage of the quad-Bayer arrangement? Both these cameras use the arrangement shown in figure 2, with a separate microlens over each individual pixel. This maintains the efficiency of the microlens in focusing light onto the active area of each pixel. However, this design gains nothing over using a larger native pixel, and the real reason for its use lies in production economics. The low pixel count sensor is a very specialist product, and if it is possible to make it a variant of some other product, then production costs can be reduced. Taking the Sony as an example, its 12MP sensor can be derived from a 48MP sensor, and it’s no surprise that Sony Semiconductor indeed makes full-frame sensors with around this pixel count.

Figure 2: In this arrangement, a separate microlens is used above each sub-pixel

Quad-pixel autofocus

So, now to the OM-1. This uses a different microlens arrangement, shown in figure 3. Here one microlens covers each quad-pixel colour filter. The disadvantage is reduced efficiency, since the microlens also focuses light on non-active parts of each pixel. However, the advantage is that the sensor now provides a phase-difference focus detection mechanism, similar to Canon’s dual-pixel arrangement, but working both horizontally and vertically. 

Figure 3: The OM-1 uses a single microlens over each quad-pixel

In this sensor design, every pixel in the frame can be used as a focus pixel, allowing ‘cross-type’ detection, and when the frame is captured, no focusing pixels need to be interpolated over. Canon provides a ‘dual pixel raw’ function, which allows depth information to be extracted from the picture. A quad-pixel raw option would be very interesting indeed, but so far OM System doesn’t offer it.

Bob Newman is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Wolverhampton. He has been working with the design and development of high-technology equipment for 35 years and two of his products have won innovation awards. Bob is also a camera nut and a keen amateur photographer

Further Reading:

OM System OM-1 review

APS-C vs full-frame – which sensor size is best?

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Why high-speed film is essential for night film photography

Aside from the night photography, there are other instances when a higher film speed may be essential. Concerts and stage performances in particular benefit from faster shutter speeds to freeze the action while interior shots lit by available room lighting may require a higher-speed film to capture detail. Traditionally this is achieved by uprating films such as Ilford HP5 Plus or Kodak Tri-X from ISO 400 to 1600 or more, by underexposing and increasing development times to compensate. This is otherwise known as ‘push’ processing.

least a stop, but printed with extra contrast. Ilford HP5 Plus (rated at ISO 1600), developed in Ilford Microphen, 15min. Mamiya 6, 75mm, 1sec at f/3.5. Photo: Mike Crawford

With thoughts about future projects, it was a good time to make some tests to explore and compare the differences between these two methods of working, whether to uprate or use a high-speed film. I set out for a night walk on the South Bank in London with two types of film (HP5 Plus and Delta 3200); two formats (35mm and 120); and for some of the tests, a tripod.

What ISO do I need for night film photography?

There is always going to be a compromise when film is uprated. With digital, the sensitivity of the camera sensor increases accordingly as the ISO is raised. But for film, there is no possibility to change its sensitivity – the only option is to lengthen development of the latent image, which provides more density and contrast as well as increasing grain.

Changing the ISO from 400 to 1600 or beyond does not make the emulsion more receptive to light; on the contrary, we underexpose the film on purpose, which can reduce shadow detail. This sounds like an anomaly, but it is done to give a stop or more exposure to enable a smaller aperture and more depth of field or a faster shutter speed so the camera can be used handheld.

When handholding a 120 camera at night, the negative proved to be detailed, but more in the highlights. Ilford HP5 Plus (rated at ISO 3200), developed in Ilford Microphen, 19min. Mamiya 6, 75mm, 1/15sec at f/3.5. Photo: Mike Crawford

Processing film

It is important to process correctly when uprating film. General-purpose developers such as Ilford ID-11 and Kodak D-76 can give good results, certainly up to two stops, but I decided on Ilford Microphen for the majority of my tests. Other suitable developers include Kodak T-Max, Rollei High Speed and Acufine, which was a particular favourite with theatre photographers for decades, though is not currently available in the UK.

Microphen is formulated to raise film speed while effectively minimising the increase in grain, at least in theory; however, in practice as I would be pushing HP5 Plus three or four stops, increased grain was certainly likely. An ideal subject for push processing would be a scene with relatively low contrast and a limited tonal range. Extended development will increase the negatives’ highlights at a far greater rate than the midtones and shadows so the nearer these tones are to each other, the smoother the tonal range will be when uprated.

However, the situations when we tend to need a higher speed are often the opposite: night scenes with bright highlights and deep shadows or concerts with spotlit performers on a black stage. This can be an advantage of using a film such as Delta 3200 or Kodak T-Max P3200 (which is back in production), because the negatives usually have a softer contrast than a pushed film, making them easier to print or scan. Indeed the true speed of Delta 3200 is closer to 1600, meaning it can be advantageous to process accordingly, giving a smoother tonality.

However, while the contrast is lower, the grain is often more apparent than pushed film, so ultimately the choice will depend on the photographer’s preference. For myself, it was good to test the different possibilities and to have so many options for future work.

Comparing negatives

When examining and comparing negatives of Delta 3200 and HP5 Plus (both rated at 1600), it is easy to see the differences between the two films. With the Delta 3200, the range of tones between the strongest highlight and deepest shadow is far more gradual than in the HP5 Plus where the jump is quite apparent. In most instances, this difference in contrast can be compensated for when printing the negative by choice of paper grade or adjusting Levels or Curves in Photoshop. Delta 3200 will definitely give more grain, but that is part of its character.

Ilford Delta 3200 rated at ISO 1600. Photo: Mike Crawford

Ilford HP5 Plus rated at ISO 1600. Photo: Mike Crawford

Having printed both, I prefer the Delta 3200, though the HP5 Plus negatives produced an excellent print on a higher grade with selective burning and a post flash adding a slight bit of tone into the highlights.

Mike’s top tips for night film photography

Photo: Mike Crawford

Meter carefully

Make sure your meter readings are balanced between the highlights and the shadows. In low light there will often be a lack of midtones to meter, so it’s best to try to find a midpoint between the two. Avoid metering only the highlights unless what is required is a low-key image.

Photo: Mike Crawford

Print flashing

In extreme instances, when the negative highlights are blown out and difficult to burn in, print flashing may help to bring in detail. Just a fractional exposure to light before or after printing can help to control the print’s highlights. Digitally, this technique is replicated by tweaking the highlights in Curves.

Photo: Mike Crawford

For more extreme pushing

Print developer is useful if coarser grain and high contrast is required or if a film has been so underexposed that conventional developers will not produce usable negatives. Clip testing is advised. As a starting point for HP5 Plus at ISO 1600, 10 minutes in PQ Universal 1+9 works well.

Photo: Mike Crawford

When less grain is needed

For smoother results, pushing T-Grain films such as Kodak T-Max 400 should produce less grain than traditional emulsions. T-Max developer is recommended for this film (or Ilford DD-X for less contrast), combined with a gentle agitation pattern. Experiment with agitation to control film granularity.

Photo: Mike Crawford

Development times

If there are development times published by the film’s manufacturer for the developer used, it is always best to start with these. It may then be necessary to adjust times to the photographer’s preferences. If no times are available, try adding 30% per stop to standard development times.

Photo: Mike Crawford

Stage photography

I used to photograph a lot of bands and nearly always shot on HP5 Plus (and its predecessor HP5) or Tri-X, processing in either Ilford Microphen or Acufine. However, this shot of Ted Milton of Blurt was on Delta 3200, cropping slightly to make him more central. I had previously been out photographing in the evening so had some Delta left in my camera, and while I don’t mind the grain, given the choice I would probably have shot the concert on HP5 Plus at 1600. I think the extra contrast would have helped, and for once I would have preferred a bit less grain.

Mike Crawford

Mike is a London-based photographer and specialist printer working primarily in urban landscape and portraiture. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. For over 20 years he has run Lighthouse Darkroom, one of the UK’s premier photographic labs. See www.mike-crawford.co.uk.

Featured image: Ilford Delta 3200 can capture an excellent tonal range at night; it has a naturally grainy emulsion. With it, highlights don’t usually overdevelop compared to push processing a slower film. I also like how the highlights glow, similar to older emulsions without an anti-halation backing. Ilford Delta 3200 (rated at ISO 1600), developed in Ilford Microphen, 9.30min. Mamiya 6, 75mm, 1 sec at f/8. Mike Crawford

Further reading

• The night sky: How to photograph stars and the Milky Way
• How to photograph the moon
• How to photograph fireworks
• Best 35mm film cameras
• Best cameras for low-light photography and video

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What do you think of when you think of film photographs, or photos from your past? In one word: Nostalgia. Why? Most likely they were photos of people, but beyond that they were most likely taken with a 35mm film camera, and with that came several factors that made film photography look completely different to digital photography. 

We’ve included guides on how to use Photoshop, Lightroom, DxO FilmPack 6 or a smartphone to create film-style photos. 

What makes a film photograph so unique?

Film colour is often muted in comparison to today’s cameras, with yellow tones if you use certain brands, or types of film, with the added grain from the film, as well as often lower dynamic range.

As film cameras use a 35mm film, this means they generally have natural background blur, and depending on your current camera, you may need to add additional background blur to your image.

Unless you had an SLR, with expensive lenses, and perfected your focus technique, most photos were slightly softer than we’re used to seeing today, and even with perfect technique, photos were rarely as sharp as they are now, owing to the way that film records photos. 

Before editing. Image credit: Joshua Waller

OM-1 · f/2.8 · 1/80s · 35mm · ISO500

Why are we so obsessed with sharpness?

In comparison modern cameras, smartphones, and lenses, seem obsessed with sharpness, and perhaps we are too if we’ve used cheap film cameras, and early digital cameras. These days photographers using modern digital cameras seem to focus on several factors. Firstly, sharpness – how sharp is your lens? Have you spent hours studying MTF charts? And if not, why not? Second, maximum colour and high colour saturation (especially on smartphones). Third, minimum noise or no noise at all – thanks to camera reviewers, myself included, for obsessing over this for the past 20+ years. Finally, there’s maximum dynamic range, to the point where photographs don’t even look realistic
any more, thanks to automatic dynamic range optimisation.

So how do we make our digital photos look like film photographs of yesterday? Well, we undo all these things (and more), and then there’s one final step, which we’ll reveal at the end of the article. Maybe
some of you will be able to guess what that final step is… 

How to get the film look with digital cameras

For the best results, take your photo in a similar style to how you would have taken your film photographs. Shoot raw, because this gives you an image file that has not yet been processed, which means we’re more able to tailor the look of the image to what we want. We’re looking to remove some of the sharpness (if your camera generally produces very sharp images), reduce or adjust the colour saturation, leave some noise in there (and add some more), adjust the background (if needed), and reduce the dynamic range captured – sacrilege, I know! 

There are a number of different ways we can do this, using Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and for those who want the quickest and easiest route, there’s also DxO FilmPack 6, designed specifically to recreate the film look. If you’re using a smartphone, we’ll go over an app designed specially to give you the film style of photo.

This guide is about recreating the film look with colour photographs, but see this guide to recreate the black and white film look.

How to get the film look using Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop

1. Reduce sharpening 

Reduce sharpening

Open the raw file into ACR and click on the Detail tab. Leave the Manual Noise Reduction settings at default and reduce Sharpening. Reduce Texture, Clarity, Dehaze to taste and turn up the warmth/temperature if needed or select a warmer white balance such as cloudy or shade.

2. Add more blur

Add more blur

For more control over reducing sharpness, duplicate the layer and go to Surface Blur (Filters > Blur > Surface Blur). To give a subtle blur, we went with 2 pixels, threshold 20. To add a little bit of sharpness back into the image you can adjust the opacity (we went with 75pc). 

3. Adjust colour saturation 

Adjust colour saturation

Click on the Adjustments Presets and if you’ve got a portrait image, as we have, then you might want to go for the Portrait – Sunshine preset. This will add more warmth to the image. With our example we reduced the opacity of the Adjustment Preset layer to tone down the effect. 

4. Reduce dynamic range

Reduce dynamic range

Increase the black levels, as well as the white levels, to compress the dynamic range. If you’re working on a portrait you may want to adjust the mid-level to keep the image brighter. Don’t worry if it looks too bright, as adding a vignette will help with increasing the film look. You can also adjust the curves to add a little bit more contrast.

5. Add vignette

Add vignette

Simply go to Filter > Lens Correction and then on the custom tab, adjust the vignette to -50 or higher (or to your own preferences) and then your image will have a vignette. If you want to adjust this further, you can apply this to a duplicated layer. 

6. Blur the background

Blur the background

Use the subject selection tool to select your subject and then invert it (Select > Inverse), and now you should have the background highlighted. Then go to Blur > Lens Blur. You can adjust the level of blur as needed, but on the default settings you should get a good level of blur. 

7. Add noise

Add noise

Create a new fill layer at 50% grey and set to Overlay. Go to Filters > Noise > Add Noise, select Gaussian, and Monochromatic, adjust amount settings till you get the effect you want; about 5% is a good amount. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian to make the grain rougher; we set ours to 0.5-1 pixels.

8. More grain

Film grain effect

The higher the resolution of your image, the larger you’ll need to make the noise. Therefore, it’s best to add the noise at the final step. If you’re trying to show the image online, then resizing the image to a smaller size, and then adding noise will give your image a more noticeable grain.

After editing in Adobe Photoshop and Camera Raw. Image credit: Joshua Waller

How to get the film look using Adobe Lightroom (Classic)

Before editing with Adobe Lightroom Classic. Image credit: Joshua Waller

X-T30 II · f/2.2 · 1/1800s · 33mm · ISO640

1. Adjust white balance

Adjust white balance

Once you’ve imported your image and made some adjustments to the exposure and dynamic range as needed, you can add a little warmth to the image by adjusting the white balance. 

2. Adjustments

Reduced the contrast, texture, clarity and dehaze

We’ve also reduced the contrast, texture, clarity and dehaze, and made sure to turn the sharpening off. Check to make sure luminance noise reduction remains off. You can add a vignette here.

3. Pick a preset

Pick a preset

Scroll through the presets on the left, and you’ll find a range of Retro / Vintage and Creative effects available. We went with Creative Turquoise and Red as this gave us a pleasing, but vintage-looking image. 

4. Add some grain

Add some grain

Scroll down further and you’ll find grain options. We went for heavy, but medium might be good, depending on how strong you want the grain to appear. 

5. Add a vignette

Add a vignette

Heavy vignette was added to increase the film look further, and this can be increased if needed. For this image we didn’t need to adjust the background blur, because it was already blurred.

6. Reduce the overall contrast

Reduce the overall contrast

We used the masking tool to select the subject/background, to tone down the brightness, saturation, and detail in the background, by adjusting the sharpness and texture sliders, and this has resulted in an image with lower contrast. 

After being processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic. Image credit: Joshua Waller

X-T30 II · f/2.2 · 1/1800s · 33mm · ISO640

Get the film look using DxO FilmPack 6

After Kodak Kodachrome 64.  Image credit: Joshua Waller

If you’ve got access to DxO FilmPack 6 (a trial is available for download), you can try different film styles and looks.

We’ve taken the image that we edited in Adobe Photoshop and loaded it into DxO FilmPack 6. Selecting Kodak Kodachrome 200 gives us an image with a toned-down colour palette, and DxO FilmPack does an excellent job of adding larger film grain to the image.

There are options to add split toning, adjust the vignette, and add light leak effects (unfortunately the orange light leak typically found on the first photo in the film is missing, but similar effects are available), as well as add the film roll effect, or other borders to the image. 

You can easily try a variety of different film styles with just one click of a button

This makes it quick and easy to get the film look without having to go through the steps in Photoshop, and DxO FilmPack 6 is also able to make film noise appear at the right size for your images, whatever resolution those images may be. 

Selecting Kodak Kodachrome 200 gives us an image with a toned-down colour palette

You can add light leaks and borders to your image

There are options to add split toning effects

After:

Kodak Portra 160 NC. Image credit: Joshua Waller

How to get the film look with a smartphone

With smartphone camera apps, you’ll normally be able to find a portrait mode that will automatically blur the background of any portraits you take. This is a great start to getting a more film-like look from your photographs. 

Before. You can shoot with the app or open and edit existing photos

SM-N975F · f/2.2 · 1/1724s · 3.25mm · ISO50

You’ll also find different filters and effects in most social media platforms, such as Instagram. However, if you want to go straight to playing with different film looks, then the app 1998 Cam is designed specifically for you. Like DxO FilmPack 6, it’s got a whole range of film simulations, and these give an immediate look of film. 

There are lots of film looks to choose from in the app

You can shoot with the app or edit existing photos. Once you’ve selected your preferred film, you can then edit additional settings, such as vignette and grain. You can even imprint the date much like you would have found on some film cameras with date stamps.

There’s even an option to imprint the date

You can also add a vignette and adjust grain

The app is free but does contain adverts. For some of the additional film simulations you’ll need to purchase the full version, which is priced at just 89p. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices.

The finished look after editing in the 1998 Cam app

SM-N975F - 1998 Cam · f/2.2 · 1/2000s · 3.25mm · ISO50

Print your pictures

The final step to make your digitally edited photo feel like a film photo… is to print it out on 6x4in or 7x5in photo paper!

If you have your own photo printer, then there should be nothing stopping you, but if you don’t, then you get to experience the joy of having to go somewhere to get your prints. Just like you were shooting film. Luckily these days photo printing services are available at most supermarkets, Boots chemists, and similar stores.

There’s nothing like holding your own print

Cheat sheet: Buy a filter

Don’t want to spend ages editing photos? Want to get a more film-like look with your digital camera? Simply buy a Black Diffusion ¼, or Black Myst filter for your lens, and this will take off some of the sharpness, as well as add some extra glow to bright objects in your image. Although be warned, any effects added to your image using a filter are difficult, or impossible, to fix later.

Read more about lens filters and how to use them properly.

Black Myst filters are essentially diffusion filters and are available in different strengths

Read more about editing 

• Editing photos in Adobe Photoshop
• Best Adobe Lightroom presets
• The best photo editing software in 2023
• Best vintage digital cameras to buy

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