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Sunny Day – Chasing The Clouds Away…
Okay. There is your earworm for the rest of the day. And you know which street you will be mentally walking down now…Hahahahaha. The first night of serious experimenting in the studio ( as opposed to the nights spent wearing a white lab coat and doing Mel Brooks impersonations…) was concentrated on how to light…
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Working Around Old Adages
Old adages are what they are because they have generally proved to be correct. The proofs are repeated time and again as the disbelieving young try things out. Sometimes the results are cheap and easy and sometimes they take skin off and leave criminal records. In the model boating and model airplane world there are the…
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Bring Me The Professional Model
I have taken many pictures over the last two decades of people dressed up in costumes – or undressed up in skin – and I have concluded that the very best of the models are either the professionals or the professional amateurs. The reason why I say this is that these two groups are performing…
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DIY Is Not A Four-Letter Word
The Frontier and Colonial has always been a pretty hands-on sort of outfit. The early days saw a home-made wooden tripod for the Nagaoka camera and any number of cobbled-up accessories for the travel kit. If it could not be purchased, it was made out of matt board and gaffer tape. Some items were crude,…
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Holdfast
I am privileged to be party to confidential commercial information – imparted to me this morning by my employers. As it was given to me in confidence I am not going to reveal it to you, but I can say that the details and import of it are heartening. In our business change is inevitable…
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The Real Fake Room
As I sat in my shed this afternoon sawing away at the 3mm MDF board it occurred to me how many famous rooms we are acquainted with that are a half a millimetre thick – roughly the thickness of the emulsion on a strip of old 35mm film. The wonderful interior of MGM’s “Grand Hotel”…
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Look Down, Look Down
In the first days of my studio I used a medium-format film camera system for everything. It was expensive, but I had plenty of money – or so I thought. Now 20 years later I don’t have plenty of money or the medium-format camera system any more but I do have a good collection of…
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The Rat Catchers
I find clothing comforting – particularly on cold mornings. That, and when strolling down Hay Street mall. Stark naked may sound romantic but it only takes one policeman or dog with a cold nose and no sense of responsibility to turn it into a nightmare. I like my uniform at work. No thinking about colour…
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Getting The Numbers Right
I hate numerologists. Not mathematicians – not geometricians – just the people who seize upon numbers to bamfoozle the public. I seem to have attracted some of them to my other blog – ” Here All Week” – but I suspect that they are just using some form of auto-bot to attach themselves to my…
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Rotate The Fuse Delay Spring and…
I fielded a phone call this morning from a photographer who wanted to buy a simple thing – a reflective umbrella – for a simple purpose – to reflect light…but who converted this entirely sensible idea into a descent into madness. He had apparently viewed a video clip on You Fool Tube and thought that…
Dr. Stein's Photographic Establishment
Photographic Life In The Little Studio
Dr. Stein's Photographic Establishment 