In August 1955, on my 10th birthday, my father gave me a Kodak Brownie Holiday camera. It took 127 roll film. The local pharmacist made up brown paper packets with the ingredients for D76 developer, and hypo for fixer. He found the formulae in the book, 'Developing - the negative technique', by C I Jacobson, which my father had given me together with a Paterson Major developing tank with sticky spirals. I mixed the chemicals at home & loaded the tank in a dark sweaty cupboard. And made small contact prints in the dining room at night, exposing the prints with a table lamp. Photography has been my hobby since then. I still have the book; it has formulae for practically all important photography chemicals, including my favourite: Rodinal.

Though I also have a digital camera now, I spend more time doing film. I love photographing people in context, whether in the street or at work or leisure. Also my friends and family. I have an abiding interest in human rights and social justice, born out of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, and the fact that my life coincides with the nuclear age: I was born 6 days after the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.

My darkroom has 2 Leitz Focomat enlargers, a V35 and a 1C. Both came at bargain prices -- I guess from people who had 'upgraded' to digital. I use the much older Focomat 1c the most -- I can't see any difference in the quality of the prints from either. I print mostly on Ilford paper [there are practically no other alternatives in South Africa now], using the Heiland split grade system.