For me, the months of 1996 were marked not by the calendar, but in issues of Better Photography Magazine. I turned 28 that year and had already been a keen photographer for more than a decade, wielding my Hanimex 110 Tele with its 16mm film from about the age of 17 before graduating to a preloved Ricoh XR10 a year or two later.
I lashed out and bought a brand new Pentax MZ-5 SLR when they were released in 1996. I doubt a more beige camera has ever been produced, it was so very ordinary but it was new, it was mine and I loved it. As if to celebrate the arrival of my brand new camera the first edition of Better Photography Magazine also hit the shelves that year. Better Photography was a unique publication in its time, printed on high quality paper and featuring master classes with some of the finest living photographers, it was the top end magazine among all the others offering little more than endless model reviews and rank beginner tutorials..
.
My memories of that time are of taking my unopened new edition of Better Photography into a sunny corner of my kitchen where I would sit undisturbed and slowly read from cover to cover. I would marvel at the gorgeous black and white prints in the Darkroom feature with step by step instructions of how each print was produced including copies of test strips, straight prints and working prints, each showing the iterative process of producing the final image. .
.
The Masterpieces section would guide you through the story behind the creation of some extraordinary travel or landscape pictures, while the Legends section would feature revealing interviews with great photographers like Thurston Hopkins. The magazine's editor, Peter Eastway, was an equipment snob and still is today. He would love to write about his latest Medium Format SLR body or how dearly he loved his 400mm f2 lens worth more than the car I was driving at the time. .
.
I would sit there in my wing chair by the fire and devour every word and drool at every delicious image. For the remainder of the month my evenings would be spent rereading each article, perhaps twice, and my weekends were sacrificed to the time spent putting into practice the lessons from each edition. By the last week of the month I would begin looking out for the next edition to arrive in the mail so I could start the whole process over with fresh inspirations..
.
When I moved to a new home a couple of years ago my old collection of Better Photography and National Geographic magazines found their way into the boxes headed for the dump. I had sat on these magazines for too many years and a house move is a great time to be reminded of what a hoarder I am so they got the chop and sat in boxes on the lawn waiting to join the next carload of rubbish. .
.
My wife spotted these box loads of magazines and protested that the children might have a use for all the NatGeos for school projects and the like. "Better save the Illustrated Funk and Wagnall Encyclopaedias too then, eh?" said I, mustering all my sarcastic wit and reminding her we live in a paperless online age. Naturally, she won out and the NatGeos won their reprieve and so too did the copies of Better Photography by virtue of being in the bottom of the cardboard boxes..
.
Well, if I wasn't already sufficiently indebted to this marvellous woman for all the times she's reminded me I've forgotten to put out the bins on a Thursday night, I now owe her one enormous thank you for keeping these magazines in my life. I have begun rereading from the first edition and rediscovered the awe and excitement I felt way back then for the talented artistry of great film photographers. In an age of disposable digital images that rarely find their freedom from our screens and hard drives it's been wonderful to read again about the careful art of crafting beautiful photographic prints. From the story behind the choice of lens, selecting the film with just the right amount of grain and colour saturation, the time spent getting to a remote location and then exploring what elements of good composition were considered in making a great photo. Then to be taken through the artist's method in picking the right paper and the best printing technique before mounting and framing the final print to be hung proudly on a gallery wall has been a refreshing reminder of the time of slow photography..
.
I'm loving this process of rediscovery and am finding new inspirations to explore and imitate. It's been an unexpected surprise, and a lesson in holding on to the things that inspire me. Another wonderful sidelight has been reading about the very latest cutting edge technology emerging in the mid-nineties. Using the stories from Better Photography magazine I'm going to write a series of posts looking back on the future of photography from 15 years ago. It will revisit the latest developments in black and white film that can be developed without a darkroom, the emergence of the World Wide Web and how it could be useful for photographers, and an interesting piece for fans of Sony's new Alpha range which might just prove there is nothing new under the sun..
.
Look out for it, I hope there will be something in each edition for everyone!
I lashed out and bought a brand new Pentax MZ-5 SLR when they were released in 1996. I doubt a more beige camera has ever been produced, it was so very ordinary but it was new, it was mine and I loved it. As if to celebrate the arrival of my brand new camera the first edition of Better Photography Magazine also hit the shelves that year. Better Photography was a unique publication in its time, printed on high quality paper and featuring master classes with some of the finest living photographers, it was the top end magazine among all the others offering little more than endless model reviews and rank beginner tutorials..
.
My memories of that time are of taking my unopened new edition of Better Photography into a sunny corner of my kitchen where I would sit undisturbed and slowly read from cover to cover. I would marvel at the gorgeous black and white prints in the Darkroom feature with step by step instructions of how each print was produced including copies of test strips, straight prints and working prints, each showing the iterative process of producing the final image. .
.
The Masterpieces section would guide you through the story behind the creation of some extraordinary travel or landscape pictures, while the Legends section would feature revealing interviews with great photographers like Thurston Hopkins. The magazine's editor, Peter Eastway, was an equipment snob and still is today. He would love to write about his latest Medium Format SLR body or how dearly he loved his 400mm f2 lens worth more than the car I was driving at the time. .
.
I would sit there in my wing chair by the fire and devour every word and drool at every delicious image. For the remainder of the month my evenings would be spent rereading each article, perhaps twice, and my weekends were sacrificed to the time spent putting into practice the lessons from each edition. By the last week of the month I would begin looking out for the next edition to arrive in the mail so I could start the whole process over with fresh inspirations..
.
When I moved to a new home a couple of years ago my old collection of Better Photography and National Geographic magazines found their way into the boxes headed for the dump. I had sat on these magazines for too many years and a house move is a great time to be reminded of what a hoarder I am so they got the chop and sat in boxes on the lawn waiting to join the next carload of rubbish. .
.
My wife spotted these box loads of magazines and protested that the children might have a use for all the NatGeos for school projects and the like. "Better save the Illustrated Funk and Wagnall Encyclopaedias too then, eh?" said I, mustering all my sarcastic wit and reminding her we live in a paperless online age. Naturally, she won out and the NatGeos won their reprieve and so too did the copies of Better Photography by virtue of being in the bottom of the cardboard boxes..
.
Well, if I wasn't already sufficiently indebted to this marvellous woman for all the times she's reminded me I've forgotten to put out the bins on a Thursday night, I now owe her one enormous thank you for keeping these magazines in my life. I have begun rereading from the first edition and rediscovered the awe and excitement I felt way back then for the talented artistry of great film photographers. In an age of disposable digital images that rarely find their freedom from our screens and hard drives it's been wonderful to read again about the careful art of crafting beautiful photographic prints. From the story behind the choice of lens, selecting the film with just the right amount of grain and colour saturation, the time spent getting to a remote location and then exploring what elements of good composition were considered in making a great photo. Then to be taken through the artist's method in picking the right paper and the best printing technique before mounting and framing the final print to be hung proudly on a gallery wall has been a refreshing reminder of the time of slow photography..
.
I'm loving this process of rediscovery and am finding new inspirations to explore and imitate. It's been an unexpected surprise, and a lesson in holding on to the things that inspire me. Another wonderful sidelight has been reading about the very latest cutting edge technology emerging in the mid-nineties. Using the stories from Better Photography magazine I'm going to write a series of posts looking back on the future of photography from 15 years ago. It will revisit the latest developments in black and white film that can be developed without a darkroom, the emergence of the World Wide Web and how it could be useful for photographers, and an interesting piece for fans of Sony's new Alpha range which might just prove there is nothing new under the sun..
.
Look out for it, I hope there will be something in each edition for everyone!
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