Today’s photo, freshly scanned from the archives takes me back 14 years. Learning on my first SLR camera, a Seagull DF-300 and self developing B&W film. I submitted a 4 sided board for my UE/ 7th form Photography, themed ‘Intoxication’. I was quite into experimenting with double and triple exposures, and successfully showed a self portrait journey from sober to intoxicated. Whilst I scored well in the finals, I always remember having to keep my work hidden from the Headmaster as my teacher was not sure what they would make of my topic at the time. This particular image was from about 3/4 of the way in and I had about 50 images self printed from small A6 size, up to A3.

I’ve been on a bit of a path of late getting all my film records into a digital medium. I think the ability to keep multiple backups gives a sense of security in case of the ‘what if’. As well as this, I recently won an online auction for a Seagull DF-300 SLR. A direct copy of the Minolta (made in the same factory and licensed), the nostalgic need, and regret of selling my first one…coupled with the low price meant I could not say no!

Ive also been cleaning up my very well used (by previous owners) Ricoh Singlex TLS. It has a lot of brass showing through the worn paint, but operates great still. I’m looking forward to capturing some images on both units. I still need to use my new soviet lens on the nex also – likely this weekend!