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 #6

February 17, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

This is the last of the snapshots from my visual meanderings, 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. I hope people have enjoyed these photos as much as I enjoyed taking and sharing them. Possibly not. I need to start working on the project I was actually in Spain to shoot now, sorting out and editing portraits and contacting all the people to sign […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 35mm, 35mm film, Almeria, colour, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, I shoot film, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, seron, spain, valencia

Mañana nunca muere …

February 14, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

“We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realising it. We digitise things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artefacts that we digitised…If there are photos you really care about, print them out.” – Vint Cerf, Google I’ve been saying the same thing to […]

Categories: Music, Photography, photojournalism • Tags: Agfa Vista 200, camera, digital dark age, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fuji film, I shoot film, kodak portra 400, music, musician, negative, pentax lx, phil kneen, portrait, Simon Campbell

The things I saw #4

February 14, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

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. I used to hate walking, even a short stroll with the dog along the beach would leave me sweaty and achy, if anyone could find an excuse not to walk somewhere, it would be me. But that was a year ago, since then I’ve lost 5 […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: Agfa Vista 200, bags, camera, colour, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, france, fuji pro 400H, grass, hotel, I shoot film, inventive, kodak, kodak portra 400, motorway, music, negative, Olympus mju II, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, portra 160, portrait, road, road trip, spain, street photography, valencia, wine

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

Hasta la Vista, baby!

February 12, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

I got a pile of negatives and discs back yesterday, the fruits of my 5 week project in Spain beautifully processed and scanned at Peak Imaging. As soon as I got the scans up on my iMac screen I slipped further back in love with film and became even more disillusioned with digital photography. On each disc I had 36 completely different images, because when I’m shooting film I don’t feel the need to shoot 20 or 30 almost identical […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 50mm 1.2, a pound a roll, Agfa Vista 200, £1, beard, camera, colour, Epson v700, face beard, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, music, musician, pentax lx, phil kneen, portrait, Simon Campbell, 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

Empire of Whimsy

February 7, 2015 by Phil Kneen Photography

I photographed Georgia Zapparoli, poet, a couple of weeks before Christmas, the shoot went well, but when I got home I hated all the digital shots I’d taken and actually permanently deleted the lot, which is pretty rare for me! On that day I also shot one roll of black and white film using a 1950’s Rolleicord TLR camera (the two black and white images shown here). It’s taken me over 6 weeks to see the results on film, but […]

Categories: Photography, photojournalism • Tags: 50mm, black and white, cling film, colour, Epson v700, film, film camera, film photography, fine art, fuji film, fuji pro 400H, Georgia Zapparoli, I shoot film, isle of man, kodak, kodak portra 400, negative, olympus OM1, Peak imaging, personal project, phil kneen, poet, poetry, portra 160, portrait