Going Back...to Go Forward (A 10x8 Journey Begins)

Over the past few months I’ve found myself thinking more carefully about the way I photograph, and where it leads to over time. The immediate effect has been a reduction in finished images while I let things settle and become clearer. I am still exposing film and developing it but the “display” of this work has been put on hold to enable a recalibration to evolve in its own time.

It’s become clear to me that the work only really makes sense when it is done for myself, at my own pace, and in a way that allows me to stay with something long enough to understand why it matters.

What follows is part of that realisation.

Light filters through leaves on the bank of the River Teifi. A very ordinary place comes to life with light. Part of the "komorebi" series.

Click to enlarge

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The 10x8

It has long been my intention to undertake a journey into 10x8 large format photography. I have owned 5x4 cameras since around 2005, with first a horseman 45 FA, then a Technikardan 45S, (which didn’t really gel with me, or it could have been the other way around perhaps) and then quite by chance I clicked on “Field camera – other” at Ffordes photographic........to find a beautiful John Nesbitt 7x5 camera , complete with both a 7x5 back and a reducing 5x4 back, 6 7x5 film holders and a few other bits and pieces. I bought it after carefully considering it.... a few minutes later. Suffice to say...I loved it!

In 2025 I retired from work due to ongoing health issues (actually a bit of an early retirement, so pre-tired may be better). Thinking about that long term desire to move up to a 10x8 Large Format camera (as if anyone ever doubted I would) I was “inactively” looking out for one and had pretty much decided that 7x5 would be my limit...due to the logistics of development (solvable of course) and lens coverage of my existing set of lenses. I had been struggling with 7x5 developing a little and started to see occasional uneven development via the taco method, and decided the time was right to get a proper solution, that being the Stearman 8x10 developing tray -a marvellous contraption capable of developing 2 sheets of 7x5 in 4-500ml of solution, with the sheets sitting in a “darkproof” tray with a lid. The fact that it solved the 10x8 developing conundrum......was purely coincidental (honest!)

Then, an auction, a proper auction with a gavel and a chap wielding it... lot # 255.....not just a John Nesbitt 10x8 field camera...THE John Nesbitt 10x8 field camera being sold after his very sad death by his family. I bid.....I bid again....was the highest bidder....then lost my internet connection.....upon my return the auction was over and ….I had been outbid. It was, “for the best” I told myself. Stick to 7x5. Some months later the very same camera came up on a popular online auction site, asking for a reasonable (to me) price for just the camera and handmade wooden tripod believed to have been made specifically for the camera. After some negotiations where I got the price down by not a penny, I purchased it and am now the proud owner....but more importantly “user” of this fine Camera.

The John Nesbitt 10x8 (left) with the 7x5. Very similar in design and operation and takes the same lens boards.

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U-do-U

I am lucky enough to have 2 great photographer friends who I chat to almost on a daily basis. These 2 chaps, a couple of months, ago launched into a.....”rant”....of carefully constructed argument regarding the propensity of people to want to “undermine/diminish/look down the nose at” others because they do things differently to them - have a direction that is different from themselves or even that they still shoot with film! The upshot of this was “mind your own business” a viewpoint that was both interesting and aligned to my own thoughts (and indeed I had touched upon obliquely in a couple of my blog posts in the past.)

It did however, set me thinking about my own direction. “You-do-You” was the collective phrase we coined and it works rather well.

Please take the time to read both Dave's and Andy's blog posts,

here and here, respectively

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The way forward

When I first seriously considered that what I was doing could be classed as photography rather than taking snaps, I was largely, in fact almost exclusively doing it for myself. I showed my work to friends and family (not always the best place to get constructive feedback) but was happy building work that spoke for me and it was great if other people saw it and liked it but that was not the purpose of producing it. It was for me.

Using a large format view camera meant being limited to the number of sheets available to be exposed. A more measured assessment of opportunities and much more time consumed for each negative made. This suits my way of working. I would often go out with a 5x4 camera and 12 sheets of film and come back with them all still unexposed, and that's fine. I don’t need to expose them if what I see and experience doesn’t trigger the desire to record “that” on film. I can leave it until I find something that does.

The step to 10x8 means I am more likely to have 4-8 sheets with me so selectivity is more relevant and I wont even mention the cost of “wasting” sheets of film in this format. I realised that my relationship to what I was doing needed to move back to that bygone age of “doing it for me”. In addition the availability for me to go out for more than an hour or 2 is still limited by ongoing health issues. I can make that work though. I can go out with all 8 sheets loaded and ready to be shot but have no minimum I want to get through. It could be none it could be all of them but it will depend on what I see and experience and the need to record it and make an image.

Path leading to the gate, St Brynach's Church, Nevern. Made with the John Nesbitt 10 x 8

To see a much larger version of this on flickr, click here (opens in new tab)

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Social Media

I have not posted to social media for the last few months. A decision that largely crept up on me until it had taken hold.

Rather than feel I have to post regularly, I want my images to come when they naturally do. Going back to a mindset where I am producing work for myself takes away any pressure or expectation and allows me to reveal images when they are ready. My next image will come when it comes. I want to post when I have something to say or something to point at.

I’ve also realised that the way I want to work doesn’t sit comfortably with the pace of social media. I tend to work slowly, often returning with very little, and it can take time before a group of images begins to feel coherent. It’s only then that I start to hear something of my own voice in the work. That may mean producing a smaller number of finished images over the course of a year, but they need to sit together and feel consistent. For now, that feels more important than trying to maintain a regular presence elsewhere.

In addition, as part of my "clear my head" process, I sold....all the cameras I am not likely to use regularly. this has been quite a cathartic process and has freed me from the need to use "this camera" or "that camera" just because I have one.

The step to 10x8 is not cheap. Luckily I had enough "stock" to sell that I have covered the cost of the 10x8, a 360mm lens (and 105mm Yellow filter (ouch!)), a new tripod head, a new ground glass on order and 100 sheets of Ilford 10x8 film. I have a bit left over from sales for more film ......or a 600mm lens...maybe.

I have retained a couple of medium format cameras as “daily carries”, with the ability to scan the negatives at high resolution, but they remain more casual—there for when I need to scratch the itch and shoot a roll or two for the enjoyment of it. The priority, when I have a couple of hours, is to work with one of my field cameras, which is where my strongest work has always been realised. (IMHO).

"Under the dark cloth reality is distilled. My chosen and re-chosen slice of it glows with an intensity I can't find anywhere else. It is abstracted and it is extracted and bent and shaped with movements and focal shifts. In the end it is not the reality of the world outside but it is my image glowing on a frosted glass screen, before it is made permanent in silver."

John Martin

Splintered form, found at the side of a path through the woods at Henllan.

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Field notes

So this is where I find myself now. A clearer direction has emerged — re-emerged might be more accurate as it's a return to where I was mentally quite a few years ago, but with more time to make it work. When I was working 5 days a week, it sometimes meant I couldn’t get out with a camera, sometimes for weeks at a time, and that frustration is no longer a factor. I can get out regularly, albeit with limitations at times alluded to above.

I intend to be working more slowly, with fewer sheets of film, and a greater willingness to leave them unexposed if nothing presents itself that feels worth pursuing. This is also a freeing and liberating way of thinking. No deadlines, pressure or likes to chase. Just photography.... slow photography.

There are a number of ideas and threads beginning to form, although not yet fully defined, and I suspect they will take shape over time rather than being forced into existence. Looking at what draws me has led to a recognition of themes that felt initially like they were separate and distinct, but more and more now feel like aspects of the same overall general concept – “Ordinary Places”.

For now, it feels enough to simply continue in this way and see where it leads.

I intend to record this journey, with "field notes" via this blog. They will be a reflection of the thinking, compromises and decisions that go into the making of an image. They will be published when an image is ready and has something I want to record that went into its making. A reflection for me to review as I go along. You are welcome to join me on the journey. I can't promise regularity, they will be published when they have something to say......but there is one coming soon.

Almost looks like the decision was already made.....

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Thanks for reading !

Have great light!

John.