FULL CIRCLE

It has been a long time coming, my return to black & white film photography. After reaching 70 I came to the realisation that the digital world, in all its guises, is an insidious two-edged sword. Care must be taken to not become overwhelmed by its seductive charms! 

  The more technology infiltrates society and my life the more it pushes me away from the creative use of it,
and hence away from my techno-surrealist computer art work of the past 20 years.

The latest fad of AI (Artificial Intelligence), not as used for medical/data analysis, but to “supplant” the human
artist is the final abomination. AI is the last step in the “dumbing down” of humanity.

For those of us fortunate enough to have had a wonderful childhood certain magical moments never
leave us. At about age seven my uncle gave me a Kodak ABC Photo Lab Outfit (Model A). No
“Paterson Super-System-Tank” to develop my Brownie Box camera negatives, just a glass rectangular
dish on the shelf in my “darkroom” – a large closet – I had to pass the film roll from left to right and back
again for the correct amount of time. Making sure the film stayed under the developer fluid in the pitch
black was no easy feat. Then, into the Stop bath and Fixer. Opening the darkroom door I stood transfixed,
my images were all there on the wet, slippery film roll. This was the first magical moment.

The second piece of pure magic was watching the image “manifest” before my eyes in the developer
tray after exposing the photographic paper in the contact printer. This “miracle” has never left me, as I
suspect is the case for most film photographers.

As technology improved I became more and more involved with computer/digital fine art, utilising
numerous computer programs. I also used both digital and scanned analog photos with these
computer applications. I reached the stage a few years back when I felt that my whole digital
artwork practice was somewhat sterile, partly because of the techno-machine-like subject matter, and
also it lacked the palpable, textured reality of life and analog photographic production. Even the
chemical fumes of the darkroom add to the holistic experience!?

Now I have come full circle, with a love of all things to do with analog photography, especially the
darkroom processes – the magic never leaves! The “grit of time” has worn down my memory and
I have to re-discover all sorts of lost vital information. How long to develop the film? What’s that stuff
in the second tray called? Vague bits of memory haunt me, I seem to remember making my own
Stop Bath and Fixer, wonder how I did that?

I guess it’s timely and inevitable that I return to film photography and processing as I think this must be
in my genes. My great-grandfather Dr Richard Leach Maddox was the inventor of the gelatino-bromide
dry plate negative, this became the basis of the modern film we now use. He also pioneered
photo-microscopy.

I believe 35mm, medium format and large format film all have their specific strong points, however
at this stage I am most interested in medium format black & white work. I am especially interested in,
as subject matter, “industrial grunge” – obsolete bits of machinery, deserted factories and the
artefacts of the last phases of the industrial revolution. My quest is to produce the “perfect” black
in analog photographic prints, and to continue my exploration and experimentation with light, I will
make a rather bold statement and suggest that, “Light is everything in photography”, understanding
the complexity of light is a life-time task.

Compur Zeiss lens Medium Format Camera

I no longer exhibit my artwork in galleries, no longer edit/produce poetry
anthologies, the recluse has surfaced again – this website is the only
place I now present my work (Feb 2025).