Flickr is great for experimenting with an image, and getting a working version of an image up quickly ready for discussion. Flickr meets are great to meet others, discuss photography and to try something new, either with different equipment or different subject matter. I like to use Flickr to test out new ideas, record technical details of a shot, and get comments. Please look at my pictures and say what you think - and don't be afraid to offer criticism.

The images here are mostly preliminary versions of images, either scanned negatives or 10x8 prints, and never the final thing. Some computer manipulation is necessary to display an image effectively on a screen, but normally I try to keep the manipulations to only those I could do in the darkroom. Expect my Flickr-stream to contain a wide range of different styles and techniques on my stream. I don't expect anyone to like all the images on my photostream (I don't think I do myself) but I do hope they are challenging and interesting.

I have a blog for my "finished" photographs at theparalysedcyclops.blogspot.com/ and a companion blog for some of the techniques, camera modifications and other processes I use at cameramods.blogspot.com/.

The rest of this profile blurb attempts to say in more detail what I am trying to do, and why.

Photography is not one thing but many. Photography can be used for record purposes, or advertisement or for journalism or to tell a story or convey a message. I am not interested in any of these, but in photography as a medium for art. Some techniques are common to all forms of photography, but photography as art regularly gets muddled with the other forms, to the detriment of all, especially with some individuals thinking that photography is a lesser form of art because of its prominent uses in other areas.

Good (artistic) pictures (painted or photographed or in any other medium) have many layers and depth of textures etc., including those of the support it is on. The quality of the medium (or really, qualities of the different layers) is really important (but must not get in the way of the message, if there is one). This is why artists take so long building a picture by repainting and overpainting until the paint takes on life. This is all-to-often what photographers miss, and the main reason why many artists are critical of photographers' efforts that took a millisecond when they would take several days.

There are many ways we can manipulate our images using a range of equipment (including our own hands) to add richness in a photograph, if we so choose. Projecting images onto textured surfaces, rephotographing them, using screens, or printing them on different media can do this. So can using old lenses, different film or processes, or other interesting camera equipment. Not all of this can be predicted. In fact for true artistic depth, these rich layers of depth must achieve a life of their own through not being entirely predictable. This is what the unintended quirks of a Holga or Diana are about. However, artistic control is equally important. At the minimum it means being able to reject some effect that is not welcome. More interestingly, artistic control means responding to the unexpected in ways that were not necessarily imagined when the work on the image was started.

All our equipment adds richness in some ways. This includes even the super sharp lenses that many people think are sterile. So does film itself add quality from the grain and through halation effects. Digital CCDs also add texture of their own (noise, processing artefacts). It is up to us who are making photographs as artistic images to add depth and life to the images and attend to the quality in all aspects.

On the other hand, digital camera manufacturers make cameras for all aspects of photography, especially the sort that is about record-keeping, advertisement or portraying a message in as simple a way as possible. Their job is to add sterility and remove the quirks and life that is needed. Somehow artist photographers have to find ways to put it back. Using old cameras is a possibility, but the process of making cameras ever more "perfect" has been around for a long time, so this is helpful but not the whole solution.

Post-processing (which can be digital or analogue) can introduce layers, depth, "texture". (I use the word in a more general sense than is common, but textured backgrounds do work and can be effective if tastefully done.) But whereas analogue processing can add information (the texture of the support, even specks of dust or scratches) almost all digital post-processing *removes* information and moves the picture from the rich towards the sterile. In terms of information content: a rich picture has more information at whatever level it is viewed.

Analogue processes and film photography in particular, working as much as possible "by hand", offer many more possibilities over digital, especially when one is a little more creative with chemical processes and equipment, and is sensitive to the final printed image rather than a digital image on a computer screen.

I am always experimenting with new equipment and chemicals, much of it home-made. My pride and joy is my Sinar Norma 4x5 camera with an extensive collection of inexpensive (and often experimental) lenses. For me, LF presents the right level of options for experimentation, which means camera movements, different kinds of cut film and glass plates, home-made or home-adapted lenses. It also gives the classic LF "look" with added detail, tones and shallow depth of field. I don't look to LF to get the ultimate photographic "quality", but rather to give some additional freedom and expression not available elsewhere. A close second after my Sinar is my DeVere 54 enlarger and lenses. Some of the parts (base-board, negative holders, lens mounts) are home-made but all seems to work brilliantly.

As well as making pictures I am always making new equipment or tools. Recent projects include lens adapters, and a "home-made lens kit", including as one of the more surprising items an adapter to use M42 lenses on 4x5 with full coverage. Other recent projects are developing tanks for 4x5 and a darkroom safe-light with interchangeable filters for traditional, multigrade, ortho and panchromatic materials. All of these are documented on flickr. Projects that are currently at various stages of planning or realisation include: a registration holder and contact printer for 4x5; a home-made 20x24 ULF camera; restoring and using an antique 10x8 camera for contact printing by alternative processes; and perhaps others.

I also have and use a collection of 35mm SLRs and rangefinders - including Olympus OM1 and OM2 with lenses, M42 mounts and a number of fixed lens rangefinders and 1/2 frame cameras. For something only a little bit bigger I have a Bronica ETRS kit, and when only 6x6 will do I use the excellent Yashica Mat. I also have a number of "toy cameras" for experimentation. (Yes, I have a Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim which is very nice. No, I don't have a Holga or a Diana - the old popular 1950s point-and-click 120 film cameras easily out-perform these more trendy ones and are much cheaper!) I have an Olympus DSLR that goes with me everywhere which I use all the time as a light meter, to record the date and time and prevailing light conditions, to help see and frame potential shots, to use the EXIF to record data on shots, and sometimes as a test-bed for home-made lenses. Sometimes I up-load some of these digital shots too.

I also draw and paint. My paintings are expressionistic, and my attitude to colour in photography follows this. Colours do not need to be faithful to record the important features of a scene, and in fact it is often better if they are not. For this reason I tend to find colour difficult to handle in a photograph: so many colour photographs are (to me) rather flat and disappointing. My own colour processing method develops film in my own way, and I will continue to experiment with chemicals, cross processing and colour, to get closer to the colours I "see" in my mind's eye - mostly inspired by some of the great expressionistic painters.

I am currently developing a portfolio of my best B&W work printed at a reasonable size (12x16" and 20x24" with initial proofs at 10x8"). If you are interested in this work, or are interested in buying or commissioning prints, please flickr-mail me.