Fake French

Last night Tom and I went to the opening of Steve Gullick’s new exhibition at Rough Trade East. At the time I was falling in love with photography I had a poster of one his shots of At the Drive In on my bedroom wall.

His pictures made me realise that you could take exciting photos of live bands. The style is of the grunge era, contrasty, grainy, stark and real. Its not about perfect compositions and super sharp images, that’s not what most music is about. I guess that’s why I get frustrated with a lot of modern digital live photography, its all so clean and tidy. When I see a clean and tidy image, I think of a sound that’s clean and tight, a live performance is rarely like that and is why live music is exciting because of its changeable nature. Gullick can also take a damn fine portrait too.

While I was drinking the free beer I met up with Matt Williams, a great photographer and all round great guy. He used to assist Steve Gullick a few years back.

Matt is a dedicated to the art of film photography, he has dabbled in digital but has gone back to what he knows and loves. Recently he has noticed a niche gap in the market has reopened, black and white film processing. Whilst is has become uneconomical for large film labs, Matt is doing it on a small DIY scale by processing the film carefully by hand. He is probably better than most machines, he has been doing it for fifteen years.

Here is the plug - Hampshire Darkroom
He also does hand printing and cross processed colour film by hand. All at very reasonable prices.