I don't think there is a veteran reader left to read this and understand or care about my absence but I think I owe an explanation to the blog I created in my early university years.
This blog dates back to 2009 starting with my experiments and classes in LCF. Looking back at my early posts I can see that I was terrible and knew nothing, to now that I can see that I have come long way but still there is much to learn.
In 2018, my colleague and friend Carolina told me that there are some potential big name projects that we can shoulder together and turn them in to a continues client over time. Undertaking 3 to 6 shoots every month once we settle in and establish ourself. The task was simple enough that two people can undertake it without additional need of a team and if the environment was under control, only one Photographer could get the job done. Initially we didn't charge them too high since we were also starting this type of photography relatively new and we weren't thought this at school either, but we quickly learned adapted and developed a workflow and raised our price to what was agreeable to us and the clients. Over the years we did commercial shoots in Harrods, Selfridges, Heathrow Airpot Terminal 5, Manchester Exchange Square, The Trafford Center, Sloan Street, Regents Street and the Old Bond Street. During these years we had pandemic and even somehow managed to work during the pandemic, though the payments were so slow that we didn't get paid until the pandemic was over and the world was coming to normalisation period after Covid-19. We thought that our hard work, dedication, professionalism and adaptability would be rewarded. How wrong were we! After 4 years we learn that was not the case.
In May 2021 while cycling I got hit by a pickup truck. Which put me out of commission for about 12 weeks. You can see my journey after the crash in these Instagram posts: Post 1 & Post 2. I can't thank my best friends Jing and Linda enough for their help. Surviving bike crash involving a Ford pickup truck is one thing but that happening in Covid pandemic times in a Bank-holiday Sunday is next level inconvenience.
Later in 2021 I was introduced to Andy, he needed someone to handle 4x5 large format negatives in the darkroom, more precisely process them in Deep Tanks via dip and dunk method, on occasion I'd do 35mm and medium formats but that was rare. Thanks to this connection I'd also get to play in C41 chemistry again and learn bit more about Black and White developers like their unique characteristics and even home brewing them, although my understanding of home brewing B&W developers started this year in 2024.
In 2021-2022, due to COVID restrictions, factory shutdowns, workforce reductions, and the Evergreen Suez Canal incident, fresh photographic chemistry and professional Kodak colour film became scarce and expensive. Shooting unpaid work in colour negative film and processing it became a significantly larger expense than in 2017. Consequently, after 2021, I shifted my focus to post-production, processing, and digital shoots. I couldn't post about the processing work due to NDAs, and I didn't enjoy digital work, which diminished my interest in blogging.
In late March 2023, Andy disappeared, and by the end of 2023, I learned why. I will not reveal his personal information here, but his disappearance affected the one enjoyable work environment I had: processing negatives. This also halted my access to free processing, adding more costs to an already expensive analog shooting process.
The post-COVID years have been challenging for my family and me. Since mid-2023, life has been particularly difficult. Despite my efforts to mask my sadness and turmoil, my girlfriend Samantha noticed and, being a great communicator, helped me by listening and encouraging me to help myself.
Moving forward, I will dedicate more time and resources to analog photography. I have already recovered a backlog of negatives and photos that I have yet to publish on my blog and portfolio. Some photoshoots are moving into the pre-production phase. I hope these efforts will rebalance my work-life in a direction I enjoy. Fingers crossed, by 2026, I aim to pursue a master's degree in photography, thirteen years after graduating from UAL-LCF in Fashion Photography. I want to delve deeper into darkroom techniques and work in ways digital photographers cannot. Learning digital photography gets easier every day, while mastering analog and darkroom techniques is becoming increasingly challenging.
