About CamerAsian
About the photographer: I was born in London but have lived, worked and travelled in Asia since 1987. I’m currently based in Tokyo.
About the blog: This is a collection of photos that I have taken in Asia. There is no chronological order. Photos are posted in sets of three on an irregular basis. You can subscribe to this blog by filling in the simple form found in the side bar. Comments on individual photos are encouraged and appreciated. This blog was launched in December 2007 but was revamped in November 2008.
About the photographs: I shoot exclusively with film, either 35mm, 120 or peel-apart instant film. Imag
es here are scanned from negatives on an Epson flatbed scanner. I only add PS toning or colouring to black & white pictures that I can replicate on prints using traditional toning and hand-colouring methods. I develop and print black & white using traditional darkroom methods.
About the cameras and film: Although I’m not a gear junkie, I have picked up a number of cameras over the years. My current collection comprises Kristall, a number of Polaroids, Vivitar PN2011, Zeiss Ikonta Ikon A520, Rollei XF35, Rolleiflex SL66, two Holga 120GNs, three box cameras, Lubitel 166b, Olympus OM-1 and Contax T2. I have also shot extensively with Leica M6, Fujifilm GA645i Pro and Zenit. My only digicam is attached to my mobile phone. B&w films I tend to use a lot of are Fujifim Acros (100) and Kodak Tri-X (400). Film and developer combinations I like are Fujifilm Acros with D:76 1:1 @ 10.5 mins, Tri-X with D-76 1:1 @ 10 mins and Tri-X pushed to 1600 with XTOL 1:1 @ 11 mins (all at 20 C). Tri-X shot at 800 and developed as 400 plus 25% more time is worth experimenting with. For Holga shooters, I highly recommend Acros for sunny days and indoor flash, and TMAX 400 or Tri-X for overcast/low light. I don’t shoot enough colour to recommend one film over another. However, Ektachrome E200 slide film pushed to 800 and cross-processed gives interesting results. Expensive stuff though!
I’m terrible at remembering names, so I have decided to include here a list of photographers whose work I particularly like.
Adolfo Farsari
James Whitlow Delano
Keith Carter
Raghubir Singh
Raghu Rai
Susan Burnstine
Teru Kuwayama
Jacob Holdt
Trent Parke
Hiroshi Watanabe
Victoria Ryan
Denis Dailleux
Tim Shepard
Mark Cohen
Rocky Schenck
Igor Posner
Joseph Mills
Jerry Spagnoli
David Michael Kennedy
Chris Jordan
I liked your site– your photos have great perspective, they bring out the foreign in the quotidien. I checked out a few of your links too, also nice.
I absolutely love your photography! Your pictures are full of joie de vivre. It’s refreshing to see a photo blog that isn’t strictly digital and highly edited in Photoshop.
bravo!keep up the good work sir.