Each month there’ll be a different subject and I hope it’ll encourage me to go through my archive and fish out some pictures that have languished for too long in the dark caverns of my studio.

If you can’t see the movie below click here to see a wmv version

The first such spectacular uses pictures from my Bous al Carrer project. I hope you enjoy it.

Bloomsbury, London. January 2012

I’m uploading the pictures using the Instagram service. If you have an iPhone you can follow my project as it develops.

Green Man

Wouldn’t really work in black and white anyway.

As you probably know, I’ve known Robin for several years and have great respect for him as a friend and as a printer.

The DVD of Richard’s film The Silver Footprint contains over 40 minutes of extras, apart from the documentary itself, with Robin demonstrating the craft of black and white printing. If you print yourself you’ve got to see this! Robin is the best in the business and he gives a masterclass.

You can order the DVD from the website and, if you’re interested in black and white photography, I suggest that you do.

Pullens Open Studios, Winter 2011

My studio is located in an old Victorian artisan’s workshop in Iliffe Yard, South London. The yard was built by a Victorian builder and developer called Pullen as a kind of live/work unit, though sadly the doorway through to the adjoining flat has long since been sealed off.

Iliffe Yard is one of three yards, the others being Peacock and Clements, collectively known as the Pullens yards.

All the yards are now occupied by artists, artisans, media professionals and architects, and twice a year we throw open the doors and encourage people to come in and have a look at what we do. Members of the public can have a chat and also buy examples of our work direct from the studio.

We’re open from 6pm to 9pm on Friday 2nd December, and 11am to 6pm on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th. I hope you’ll drop by unit 1a Iliffe Yard at some point and say hello.

As from next year digital photography will finally break free from simply mimicking film and capturing light as it falls on a single plane, and as it does so it will create a totally new art form. It took seventy years for photographers to stop imitating painting and recognise that the camera’s unique strength was it’s ability to capture a moment in time in two dimensions: next spring digital photography will make a similar leap away from photography as we know it, for as from “early 2012″ you’ll be able to buy a Lytro.

I urge you to follow the link and check out this thing for yourself, since I can’t explain what happens inside the box, but simply put – the Lytro doesn’t capture an image on just one plane, but all the light that enters the camera. This means that, for instance, you can change the focus after you have taken the picture. Take a second to think about that.

There’s a sample picture on the website and there have been some opportunities for members of the public to play with these things, so it seems this isn’t an early April fool. It’ll take a while for me to even begin to figure the possibilities of this device, but I have a feeling photography is just about to change irrevocably.

“In the time that is left to us between the crisis and the catastrophe,” Mme. Bollinger is rumored to have said, “we may as well drink a bottle of champagne.”

It’s been a while so, while Rome burns, why not come and join me in a Negroni at my studio. Bring friends.

From 6pm on Friday 2nd December at 1a Iliffe Yard, Amelia Street, London SE17 3QA. Feel free to bring a bottle of Bollinger.

Flicking through the shortlist for this year’s Taylor Wessing Prize makes my heart sink. When are we going to break away from this lazy, Düsseldorfian approach to portraiture? I’m not saying there aren’t some great portraits there, Jill Wooster’s piece is stunning for example, but the jury insist on packing the list with pictures that could have been taken by one photographer.

Have we really reduced photographic portraiture to the level of mundane formula? Where is the sensitive use of light? Why are the subjects stripped of all context? And – God forbid – movement? Why do they all make me feel just so bloody glum?

There are some photographers doing great portrait work out there. Laura Hynd, for instance, or Leonie Hampton – I’m sure many of the shortlisted photographers have work that is more interesting than what was chosen.

Sadly, though, the jury serves up the usual.

This is generally a good thing – who needs to see bad pictures? Sometimes though a diamond disappears into the depths of the low-rated only to be, with a bit of luck, rediscovered later. This is one of those:

Walworth Nude 164

It’s from a test Elle Black did with me in August. I’ve just found it by accident on a quick flick through Lightroom. I like it a lot.

I think anyone familiar with the silent period of Hollywood’s comedy output loves Harold Lloyd. If you’ve never seen him in action then I’m sure a couple of minutes on YouTube will show you what you’ve been missing.

What I didn’t know was that when he retired from the silver screen he took to photography.

Marilyn Monroe in Black Penoir 102 ©Harold Lloyd

Why do I find this surprising? I don’t know really, perhaps it’s the jump from 1920s acrobatic comedy to 1960s sex sirens.

Roni at Monument Valley ©Harold Lloyd

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