Misc_001 (Boots/Tar)

Posted by Rhys (Darlington, United Kingdom) on 6 April 2008 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.

Ok, there is a theme and a story to all the shots for this week. Last Friday I came across an old CD-rom which included a file entitled ‘Misc_001’, contained in the folder were lots of old photographs that I had scanned from negatives about 4-ish years ago. I first started taking photographs with an SLR when I was about 14 or 15 (a good 20 years ago!) and I think some of the images in the Misc_001 file may even go back as far as the ‘beginning’. Anyway, I have decided to drag a few of them out of the archives, some may be 5 or 6 years old and some even older, to be honest I can’t quite remember the dates, but for most I do remember the locations and other bits of information so I will try to add what I remember as I post each shot. They were all taken on a Minlota Dynax 7000i with a Sigma 28-70mm lens and more than likely they were shot with Ilford Hp5+ film. I used to do all my own B&W developing and enjoyed breaking the rules with the processes and chemicals just as much as I do now with Photoshop. The downside to this is that the digital scanning process has highlighted several flaws and visual horrors such as excessive film grain, reticulation in the film emulsion and lots of scratches etc. However, in an industry seemingly obsessed with clarity and super mega pixel counts its kind of refreshing to remind myself of how it used to be, in fact the rough and ready feel to some of the posts this week just remind me of what really attracted me to photography in the first place.
This is the last shot in the 'Misc_001' series. At a guess this one stretches back to about 1996/97. Those are my feet wearing my 'painting boots'. This was taken on a flat roof otside of my old studio in Sheffield, the black patch is a section of tar which I assume was applied to mend some kind of leak. The 'painterly-ness' of the tar grabbed my attention, including my messy feet in the shot seemed to make a good composition.

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