Exposures

Four decades behind the lens. Seven years of sharing the journey.

Welcome. I’m Ian — photographer, horn player, and writer living in the Vendée, near the Loire-Atlantique border. This blog has been running since 2019 and shows no sign of stopping.

You’ll find black and white film work, travel essays, orchestra photography, philosophical digressions about why any of us bother pressing the shutter, and the occasional camera review written by someone with strong opinions and a perhaps unreasonable attachment to grain, Art, and maybe a little history, or things that make you go, “hmmm….” No algorithms chose what appears here. No agency wrote it. Just forty years of looking, and seven of writing it down.

The panama hat, the walking stick, the hearing aids, the beard, have become characters in this story.

Start anywhere. Stay as long as you like.

Latest from the Field

  • Part 2: The Work — Rehearsing a Double Violin Concerto on HP5+ 1600

    Part 2: The Work — Rehearsing a Double Violin Concerto on HP5+ 1600

    After lunch, the work begins. Documenting rehearsal of a double violin concerto with two Chinese guest soloists. Shot on Canon AE-1 Program with HP5+ pushed to 1600, these grainy black and white images capture collaboration between soloists and the Symphonique des bords de Loire. Part 2 of 3. Read more

  • The Break: An Orchestra at Lunch on Fomapan 100

    The Break: An Orchestra at Lunch on Fomapan 100

    An orchestra at lunch: documenting the Symphonique des bords de Loire’s communal meal before rehearsal. Shot on Pentax ME Super with Fomapan 100, these fine-grain black and white images capture community, food, and the calm before the musical work begins. Part 1 of 3. Read more

  • Let’s Connect: Mentorship, Prints & Collaborations

    Let’s Connect: Mentorship, Prints & Collaborations

    Let’s Connect: Mentorship, Prints & Collaborations A brief and practical note. After six years of writing here, I’m formalising something that has been happening informally for a while — people getting in touch to ask about prints, about learning, about working together. Which is lovely, and I’d like to make it easier. So here’s where… Read more

  • The HP5 Plus 100 ASA Experiment: A Happy Accident?

    The HP5 Plus 100 ASA Experiment: A Happy Accident?

    “Accidentally shot HP5 Plus 400 at ISO 100? Discover how this film photography mistake became a happy accident. Learn pull processing techniques, shadow detail retention, and highlight control using Ilfosil 3. See stunning black and white results from a Nikon FE. Your guide to film latitude and overexposure experiments. Read more

  • Making the Ordinary Less Ordinary: Rollei RPX 400 at Pont Caffino

    Making the Ordinary Less Ordinary: Rollei RPX 400 at Pont Caffino

    After 40 years behind the lens, still learning. Explore Rollei RPX 400 shot handheld in flat light at Pont Caffino, France. A honest look at dodging, burning, and making ordinary prints less ordinary in Lightroom. Read more

  • February 2026 — Clisson with the Nikon FE

    February 2026 — Clisson with the Nikon FE

    Maybe I’m a little stubborn, just maybe, but I’m insisting on using my Nikon FE and for my health I have to get out. I had some Tri-X that needed using, and some HP5+ left over, so time to use it. And it does my mental health good too—getting out of the house despite the… Read more

Featured Projects

  1. The UK Chronicles
    A solo journey through Britain with the Fujifilm X100F — Northumberland in late summer, the coast at Alnmouth, light coming low off the water. Traveling light enough to actually notice things.
  2. The Film Archives
    Black and white film photographs made before this blog existed — Nantes, Clisson, and the Vendée. The negatives had been sitting in binders for years. This is where they finally got out.
  3. Photography Philosophy
    Not technique. Not gear. The question underneath all of it: why does any of this matter, and what are we actually doing when we press the shutter? A series of essays without easy answers.
  4. Inside the Orchestra
    Three years photographing the Symphonique des Bords de Loire — rehearsals, concerts, and a tour to China. The quiet moments before the music starts, and the ones after.
  5. If you’ve been reading this site for a while and there’s a frame that stuck — the street, the light, something from China, the Vendée, Nantes, wherever — I can probably make you a print of it. Just send me a message.

About the Photographer

A photographer, ever so slightly stubborn, analogue at heart and digital when needed. I’ve been developing my own film since the 1980s. I built this blog in 2019, not for followers, but for focus.

I shoot what moves me, and I hope, sometimes, it moves you too.

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