Happy Father's Day

I picked up and scanned an image from one of my old photo albums today, mindful of the fact that my mum's albums lie patiently below my desk awaiting I pick up the piles of images and scan them into meaningful albums. 

I wish I can find the time to do this, as these photos are obviously very important to myself, as well as my family, but at the moment I just can't find the time.

However on this bleak and quiet June's day in Great Yarmouth I picked up one of my favourite images from the period when Matt was tiny, and scanned it to reveal how age it starting to get to my old 35mm prints.  It's a portrait of Matt with my dad, an image I'm particularly fond of.

I must have used 1600 film for this as it has very strong grain, and although I didn't use to keep notes of my 35mm work I remember I went through a phase of using red filters and high ISO film.  I loved Ilford but this roll was probably FUJI neopan.  Even then I was constantly trying to break the rules and used the red filter for this portrait.  Red filters on B&W were'nt recommended for portrait use as the resultant images were very punchy and contrasty, but in this case I guess I pulled it off well.  

This reminds me I've been a Nikon user for nearly 20 years now, maybe I should publish a small collection of work across the years soon, mindful that my work has been developing over a period of time and that my initial work only had few elements of interest.  

But before any of that, I must get my act sorted and scan all my mum's old albums.  It would be so nice to give my dad an album of his old hillclimbing days, days when he was so heavily engaged in football management, and the images of us growing up... it's his 75th in a couple of months....

In the meantime, a Happy Father's day to all you great dads out dad and particularly to my own dad.  Thank you for being who you are... we learnt so much from the good and less good, and for raising us with the good values that we are now transmitting to others  :) x