Author: David

Portsmouth is five minutes from Gosport by ferry. I’ve made that crossing more times than I can count – on the way to school, to meet friends, or just to clear my head. I used to pass Warrior every morning. A mate even had his wedding reception on board. And yet, I hadn’t properly set foot in the dockyard since I was eight. So I went back – with the OM-2n, two Zuikos, and no particular plan. Just film, the heat, and a handful of hours to see what the city would give me. Warrior: iron lines, memory, and a…

In photography, time does the heavy lifting. A quiet shot of a street corner or a café queue might feel forgettable the moment it’s taken. But fast forward ten, twenty, fifty years, and suddenly that same image becomes a document — not of the extraordinary, but of the way things were. That’s the idea photographer David Hurn has long championed: the best photos often aren’t the ones shouting for attention, but the ones that quietly outlast everything around them. Photograph What’s Now — For Who’s Next We’re told photography is about freezing a moment before it slips away. But the…

There’s something beautifully unassuming about the Olympus XA3 – like a paperback in a room full of tablets, or that mate who never brags but always delivers. It doesn’t try to impress. It just is. And on a boiling-hot London afternoon, this £18 charity shop find turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in a long time. Yes, £18. Pulled from a forgotten shelf in Barnstaple like a relic with potential. It looked more like an old Dictaphone than a camera, but there was something about it – that chunky sliding cover, that square flash port, the word…

It’s difficult to overstate how much Kodak once meant to the world. For much of the 20th century, if you were photographing anything – from a moon landing to your Aunt Sheila’s third wedding – it was probably on Kodak film. Weddings, holidays, riots, revolutions, Elvis, the moon, and your mum’s bad 1980s perm – all caught on those familiar yellow boxes. Kodak was photography. And then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t. This is a tale of golden empires, spectacular blunders, chemical magic, digital denial, and a phoenix-like resurrection no one quite expected. It’s also a love letter to grain, to…

Jane Bown didn’t need a studio. She didn’t need assistants. And she never needed a second shot. Armed with a compact Olympus OM body, two Zuiko primes, and a few rolls of Kodak Tri-X, she quietly produced some of the most enduring portraits in British photographic history. Her approach was minimalist in gear, maximalist in intent – letting light, presence, and timing do the work. Over more than sixty years with The Observer, she photographed everyone from royalty to revolutionaries: Samuel Beckett, Queen Elizabeth II, John Lennon, Orson Welles, Cartier-Bresson. No entourage. No artifice. Just presence – and an unshakeable…

The FA Cup starts early. Not with pyrotechnics or glitzy coverage, but on quiet pitches tucked behind working men’s clubs and chain-link fences. It’s the oldest competition in football, a sacred institution of English sport. And for a while, I thought I’d capture every round of it – on black and white film. It wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about honesty. A desire to slow things down. To shoot football in a way that isn’t done anymore: unpolished, imperfect, and maybe a bit braver for it. A Different Kind of Project I’ve always been drawn to timeless photographs. The kind…

If you’re shooting black and white film in 2026, you’re doing it for the right reasons. You’re not after perfection. You’re not trying to impress anyone on Instagram. You’re in it for the weight, the grit, and the moments digital can’t fake. But picking your first (or fifth) black and white film can feel like guessing what’s behind a locked pub door. Some will open to poetry. Some will open to a punch in the face. Here’s what’s still worth loading — and how to get the most out of it without making it more complicated than it needs to…

Sir Don McCullin doesn’t flinch. He never did. From the rice fields of Vietnam to the rubble of Belfast, his camera has witnessed the worst of human conflict — not to sensationalise, but to understand. For over sixty years, McCullin has shown the world what others choose not to see, creating one of the most honest and unrelenting bodies of work in modern photography. But behind the drama of his images is a man of precision — methodical, quiet, and deeply committed to the tools that helped him disappear into the moment. Among them: the Olympus OM system. From Finsbury Park…

Newquay in September occupies a rare and civilised middle ground. Not quite summer, not yet storm season. The light softens, the days slow down, and the town relaxes just enough to feel human again. You can still surf, still walk for miles, and still sit quietly watching things unfold without someone brushing past you carrying an inflatable shark. I spent five days there. Surfed when the sea allowed it, walked when it didn’t, and took five rolls of film along for the ride. The Olympus OM-1 came with me, partly out of habit, partly because it’s small enough to be…

You don’t need three cameras, eight lenses, and a suitcase of gear to start shooting film properly. You need one camera. One lens. Maybe one good habit. Here’s the no-nonsense way to build your first Olympus OM kit — without wasting your money or your time. 1. Start with the Right Camera: OM-1, OM-2 or OM-10 OM-1: Pure mechanical muscle. Needs no battery to fire (only for the meter). Rugged, reliable, beautiful. If you like fully controlling shutter speed, aperture, and focus — this is your machine. OM-2: Adds aperture-priority auto exposure — still gives you full manual control when…