Face. Off.

February 26, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“What makes a photograph of a person a portrait?” – a question I have been asked on more than three occasions… If the truth be known, I’ve never really fully understood the definition of ‘portrait photography’. Is a portrait a photograph of a person, or is it a photograph about a person? If it’s an image of a person, then is every single photograph that has a human in a portrait? I run photography workshops for beginners, one of the […]

Categories: fashion, Photography • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga, I shoot film, instant film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 645 pro tl, mamiya 7II, music, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, peel, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, VSCO, VSCO FILM, yellowknife

Please release me…

February 23, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

  One of the main reasons for shooting my Spain project on film was because I wanted honest, straightforward portraits of people, shots like these can often seem unflattering and harsh to the sitter. I didn’t want to shoot digital and have the constant distraction of people asking to see the shots as soon as I’d taken them, not liking them and asking me to take another…or not take another and leave as quickly as possible! But guess what I […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 6x7, 80mm, art, camera, canada, colour, film, film camera, film photography, fuji pro 400H, I shoot film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, yellowknife

The things I saw #3

February 13, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“If you were the last person on the planet, would you still take photographs?” – a musician turned that question on me after I’d asked the same question about her music, she said she wouldn’t, “what would be the point in playing music if there was nobody else to listen to it?” – well I had to disagree, I would continue to take photographs, because without sounding vain and conceited, I like looking at my own photographs. Yes, I love […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: art, bed, Benidorm, building, camera, cheese, colour, dog, Epson v700, feet, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji film, fuji pro 400H, hotel, I shoot film, inventive, kodak, kodak portra 400, light, negative, Olympus mju II, on the road, paint, palm tree, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, plants, portra 160, portrait, road trip, shadow, sky, spain

The things I saw #2

February 12, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

So, here’s a few more snapshots from my visual notebook, all taken in Spain during January, in no particular order. All shots were made using an Olympus MjuII 35mm compact and Agfa Vista 200 film. The only slight downside with shooting film is that there’s no metadata built-in to a negative to show where and when the image was taken or what settings were used, not that that’s important, but I’m not one for taking shot notes, so these images […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 35mm, Agfa Vista 200, art, camera, colour, dog, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji film, hotel, I shoot film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, life, minolta Hi-Matic GF, negative, nikon tw20, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, project, renaissance, road, road trip, sex, spain

The things I saw #1

February 11, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

I spent the whole of January in Spain shooting a project about British expatriates, all of which I photographed using a single Pentax 35mm film camera and standard 50mm 1.2 lens. In the almost 5 weeks that I was away I kept with me, at all times, an Olympus MjuII 35mm ‘ultra compact’ camera, I even took it into the bathroom with me and when I slept it sat only a few inches away on a bedside table. I shot […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 35mm, art, black and white, camera, colour, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji film, fuji pro 400H, I shoot film, inventive, kodak, kodak portra 400, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, roadtrip, spain

36x24mm

February 8, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

My latest return to shooting film is lasting a bit longer than expected, I normally shoot a few rolls then slip back into the sterile convenience of digital, but not this time! I always have a film compact in my camera bag, either an Olympus MjuII (which all the images here were made with) or a treasured Minolta Hi-Matic that a good friend bought for me last autumn. One unpleasant thing I have noticed is that the price of film […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 160nc, Agfa Vista, art, camera, colour, digital, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji pro 400H, I shoot film, instant film, inventive, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, naked, negative, nude, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, peel, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, tattoo

One.

January 20, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“I do have a personal discipline of only taking one picture, of one thing…not two” – William Eggleston “I’ve never been able to take a picture with a digital camera, because I look at it on the back of the screen, then I try and do a better one, then a better one…then I don’t know what I’m doing” – Richard Billingham “The photographer has been a slave to the camera for a long time. Photography is not about the […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, fuji X-pro1, holga gcfn, I shoot film, inventive, isle of man, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, portrait, spain, VSCO FILM, yellowknife

New Year Resolution.

January 1, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

I said to my friend, “If you’re ever in the pound shop and you see any rolls of 35mm film, buy a load”, well she did, about 50 rolls, she even separated the 24 exposure films and only took the 36 exposure rolls. Excellent work! So for the last few months I’ve been shooting a lot of Agfa Vista 200. A few days ago, in the pub, photographer friend of mine started telling me that it’s actually made by Fuji or someone, […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: Agfa Vista, art, camera, color 600, colour, Epson v700, film camera, film photography, fine art, I shoot film, Impossible Project, inventive, isle of man, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, peel, personal project, phil kneen, polaroid, polaroid 600, Polaroid 600AF, portrait

Instant Hit

December 27, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

I’ve no idea how they make instant film at the Impossible Project Polaroid factory over in Holland, and to be honest, I don’t think they do either. Over the last year I’ve shot maybe 30 boxes of their Color 600 instant film, I don’t think one box has given me the same results as the next, or the one before it, ever. I’m not sure if there’s any correlation between output consistency and the fact that the factory is based […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: 600af, art, black and white, camera, color 600, colour, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, I shoot film, Impossible Project, instant film, instant gratification, isle of man, personal project, phil kneen, polaroid, portrait

Cafe Plaza Nueva

December 24, 2014 by Phil Kneen Photography

The Cafeteria Restaurante Plaza Nueva, Seron, Spain – my office for most of January 2015. I’m heading down to the southern Mediterranean to shoot a project on British Expatriates who are, for one reason or another, living full-time away from their country of origin. I’m not really interested in the people who are living there for ‘one reason’, one reason being the weather. No, I want to meet the people who are possibly hiding there for ‘another’ reason. I have […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 160nc, 6x6, 6x7, 80mm, art, black and white, camera, canada, colour, digital, Epson v700, expats, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji instax 200, fuji pro 400H, hide, I shoot film, inventive, kodak, kodak portra 400, mamiya 7II, negative, nikkor 35mm 1.4, nikon D800E, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, project, seron, Simon Campbell, spain