Chris Gatcum – författare

52 Assignments: Experimental Photography is a mission brief, a photographic workshop, a personalised journal, and an anarchic guide to putting the creativity back into your photography. It is filled with prompts and projects, nudges and sparks, innovations and inspirations, and – most importantly – experiments in shooting, processing, and printing, to help you kick your photographic habits, step out of your comfort zone and create your own collection of experimental work.  The book features 52 colour-coded commissions and concepts with alternative ideas for composing, creating and printing photographic images. You will be briefed to tackle modern uses for traditional film (hacking vintage film cameras, making pinholes, playing with plastic, collecting the filters that inspired Instagram) and traditional uses for digital (multiple exposures, extreme speeds, timed challenges, focus tricks), as well as lo-tech and hi-tech ways to manipulate your prints (staining prints with water, digital effects, photocopy prints, burning photos, printing on flexible surfaces). The rest of the journal’s pages are styled for you to add your own thoughts, notes, lists, Top 10s, technical specifications, quotes, and even sketches and doodles, creating a record of your own 52 photographic assignments. These may be completed weekend by weekend over the course of a year, or dipped into every time you need to bring a new edge or experimental approach to your photography.

Explore your analogue world with adventures in film, photography, and motion: how to plan, set up, and direct a shoot, then develop, process, and print your work.Covers all aspects of 35mm photography from choosing and shooting your film to processing your slides and negativesPractical advice on sourcing cameras, film, lenses, and accessoriesDetailed techniques for shooting on location and how to achieve perfect resultsUnderstand how to find, restore, and re-purpose vintage equipmentAdvice on how to process and digitise your imagesWhether you’re a total beginner or an experienced digital photographer looking to go on an analogue adventure, The Film Photographer’s Handbook will provide you with the tools and techniques you need to achieve expert results.Learn new skills or explore how to mix your media: be creative, be vibrant, be original!

Whether you prefer the term retro, vintage, or “old skool,” there’s an undeniable truth to the familiar quote: “What’s old is new again.” This is increasingly obvious among next-generation photographers who are already reacting to the established digital norm and actively seeking out something more soulful and personal than the pixel-pushing, quick-fix of the digital age. And that something is film. Yet this is a generation that has never experienced film photography. They have not felt the unique combination of fear and excitement at taking a once-in-a-lifetime shot and not knowing if it’s perfect; nor have they waited with bated breath to see if their labors are good, bad, or indifferent. And they certainly won’t have experienced the “happy accidents” associated with badly loaded film, light leaks, collapsed shutters, or any of the other “defects” that can transform an average shot into a one-of-a-kind photograph. Mastering Film Photography is a fast-track guide to shooting emulsion in the digital age. After a crash course in how film works and how to choose the ideal camera to use it with, readers will learn how to overcome the challenges of getting the exposure right when there’s no instant feedback; how to use flash systems in the pre-TTL era; and the importance of filters before Instagram; as well as exploring the creative world of lensless photography. With profiles of leading film practitioners along the way, the book is rounded off with a guide to the traditional, digital, and hybrid processing options that will enable you to make the most of your negatives and slides.

How do we learn? We learn by asking questions. But what if we don't know what questions we should be asking? Thanks to the digital revolution, photography has never been so popular, and whether you shoot on a phone or a top-spec DSLR or CSC camera, the urge to improve is relentless. In this book, author Chris Gatcum asks the questions that every photographer will have in mind at some point in their image-making journey, and then answers them in a clear, concise, straightforward and inspirational manner. Laid out in intuitive sections, this book tackles the questions that are on every photographer's mind, as well as those that they haven't thought of yet. And with a clear progression through each chapter, from the simple to more complex, the book asks - and answers - questions to satisfy the complete novice as well as the advanced practitioner.