About

Published December 11, 2007

This is my photoblog. I make pictures with various second-hand 35mm cameras then post them here for whoever might stumble in. I’m a fan of street and documentary photography, of things happening in the moment and of natural light.

I shoot film most of the time, scan the negatives into Photoshop and post. I’m not skilled enough at PS to alter them much. I generally tweak the levels a bit and correct the color balance if it’s way out of whack. You won’t find EXIF data here, but I intend to keep a technical record of things as best I can for my own sake, to track what combination produced which result.

Why film? Because I like grain, the softness of film and the pleasurable anticipation of not being entirely sure what you’ve got. Also, I like old cameras for their big, bright viewfinders, knobs and rings and numbers that aren’t squared off at the edges. Digital menu trees bum me out. None of my cameras have auto focus, and while I occasionally lapse into Aperture Priority, I shoot Metered Manual most of the time. I like the challenge. I also like to think that photography, like painting, is about learning to understand light and how it shapes what we see.

This is a personal site about what I’m learning.

All images are © Lewis McVey.