Gallery 1
Some examples of themes and techniques - more in Gallery 2
Cyanotype |
Botanical samples work very well with cyanotype. The very first printed book illustrated with photographs was by Anna Atkins, who made cyanotypes of seaweed samples to paste into the text. The blue prints are formed by a very simple and safe chemical process, which uses no silver and is therefore inexpensive. It is also stable, even in the light, so good for display.
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Fisheye |
Two made with a home-made 5x4" camera using a fisheye lens intended for a 35mm camera - but the larger format captures the whole image circle. The wrecked helicopter with the 8mm Fisheye Nikkor on a Nikon D700 digital SLR.
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Infra-Red |
A digital SLR with a modified sensor allows false-colour IR pictures to be taken at a sensitivity much the same as a normal camera.
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Pinholes |
A cardboard box, a small hole, and some enlarging paper - all you need to make surprisingly good pictures. The lack of a lens means long exposures - the pinhole lets in little light - but infinite depth of field.
All of these were taken with a home-made pinhole camera using 5x4" sheet film. They are part of a short photo-essay at the Norman Lockyer Observatory, Sidmouth. This splendid site contains several domes with historic astronomical telescopes. Notice how sharp and clear the images are, even with no lens in the camera |
Smoke |
Capturing the visual properties of smoke turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I used a joss-stick as a source of smoke, and eventually had it set up in a dark studio with very bright studio flash each side. To get 16 pictures for an exhibition I took over 2500 shots - everything moves much faster than you think, and to capture just the right curls and shapes takes persistence. Some of these images are made symmetrical by being reflected and duplicated afterwards.
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Light |
Moving lights, camera falling through the air, dry ice on a pool of water ...
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Copyright © 2023 by John Marriage