'Visions 1-26' review by Bas Peters

Thanks Bas! Read the review here.

Ethiopia, 2006

Going through my Ethiopian contact sheets recently I found some portraits that hadn't previously seen the light of day: the older man was a guard at a church in Lalibela and I think the boy was a monk, living on an island in the middle of Lake Tana; the third chap was a shepherd from the Oromia Region near the Kenyan border. All were taken on Kodak 200 Ultra Colour with a Nikon F100 + 85mm f1.8 that had a pretty weird bokeh when shot wide open. The last image is of the ceiling of the Debre Berhan Sellasie Church near Gondar.

'Studio' by Harry Watts

Back in October 2010 I met Harry Watts very briefly at the Brighton Photo Biennial where he gave me a copy of his book, Studio, published by Black Box Press. With an introduction by Aaron Schuman it comprises 17 colour medium format images that turn the tables on the photographers' studio by making it the subject of photographs instead of just a place where photographs are made of other things. Stark and dramatic lighting imbues the tools and detritus of the studio with qualities of the rare or unknown and illuminates them, as if for the first time, like objects found on the floor of a deep ocean. Edition of 500. 

Copies, priced £10, are available from here.

Canon G12

I recently upgraded from my G9 to a G12 and this is the first RAW image I've processed. It's a shame that the G12 still has the small 1/1.7" sensor but the new DIGIC 4 processor makes good use of it and images seem fairly clean up to around ISO 1600. This was shot at ISO 100 in the Square Mile earlier this week.

Recent landscapes

Holga tests

Two examples of multiple/compound exposures that I've been experimenting with recently. Because the Holga's shutter is fixed around 1/125 and the widest aperture available is f/8, in dull conditions exposure has to be built up. The top image also has a split focus (i.e. 5 exposures at 1m and 5 exposures at 10m).

Matt Smith, 2003

OK, last post of archive material for the moment, I promise - new work coming soon! Anyway, I shot these images of [a then unknown] Matt Smith together with another cast member when Smith was playing Thomas Becket in the NYT's production of T. S. Elliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Pretty terrible pictures, I know, but in my defence they were never meant to be 'portraits' as I was only there to interview them. Taken with a Nikon F100 and a 28mm F/2.8, I think.

"Enver Hoxha" watch

A snapshot from Berat, Albania in 2007. I had just taken this man's portrait when he showed me his watch that he wore facing inward.

Ahmed

Ahmed was my driver in October 2009 when I spent a few days near Siwa Oasis photographing the northern limits of Egypt's Great Sand Sea. Taken at dusk with a Leica M6 and 35mm f/2.

Recent finds

I found these while going through some old folders, taken in Australia and Hong Kong respectively.