My history with black and white prints of London.
I first stated photographing and making prints in the late 1980’s. I had just purchased a second hand Bronica Etrs 80 and I was having fun and learning all about the medium format shape. As I made all of my own prints I didn’t have to rely on others to make the prints I wanted. I could take advantage of the saturated colours Fuji Velvia was producing or the grain I was able to get with the fast black and white films. I was starting to experiment with very large prints, particularly the panoramics I was seeing in the sets of prints I was making.
I was also experimenting a lot with slow shutter speeds with the camera on a tripod. The print above was the result of many sessions in London waiting for the ideal light. I wanted enough ambient light in the sky before everything went dark with a combination of the right light from a bus or a taxi. The great thing about a taxi wizzing by is the ‘For hire’ light is more orange and it’s not all white light in the image. The light in the middle of the image is a London Routemaster bus. Because the bus is so close the is no risk of the bus obliterating the view of The Houses Of Parliament. You can see the print above here.
The Albert Bridge print above is another light streak example. Here I was looking for another way to capture a static London landmark as all of the prints that I had made so far were taken for the north Embankment. This streak is made by a London taxi and as you can see there is quite a lot of orange in the light streak. I was also experimenting with firing a flash mid exposure, see the print below. I wanted to freeze the action at one point as the taxi travelled by. If you look carefully I’ve also managed to freeze the action of the double decker bus about 50 metres behind the taxi. Again I found that by practicing these techniques it meant that I was able to offer my growing list of clients a portfolio of interesting prints many hadn’t seen before. So many London prints at the time were just very large postcards and there was very little ‘fine art’ city photography to choose from. I decided that this would be my USP and that I would try and set myself apart from the mass of photographers producing very similar work. You can see this London cab print here.
