I’m sorry about the lack of any blogs recently. This has been due to two things, beginning the mammoth task of scanning my old slide collection – and the virtual collapse of the anti Hs2 campaign.
I converted to digital photography in March 2004 but between then and October 1989 all my pictures were taken on a variety of slide films (remember names like Kodachrome, Velvia & Provia?). I started off using a Pentax ME Super that I bought second-hand off a friend before switching to Nikon in the early 1990s. I gradually upgraded models before finally standardising on an F5 and F90x loaded with 50 asa Fuji Velvia and a ‘fast’ 400 asa Provia.
My collection grew to something like 25,000 images which took up two long shelves in my home in North London. I’d bought a Nikon Coolscan slide scanner & I’d scan a few every now and then but my commercial work meant there was never enough time to do them all. After moving to Yorkshire they went into storage and the scanner fell into disuse as the software became outdated & incompatible with modern versions of Windows.
Now I’ve decided it’s finally time to get my arse into gear & get them scanned. I’ve bought new scanner software, dug out my lightbox, a few albums and begun the process – which is going to take me a couple of years at least! To ensure the quality of each image and that each slide is ready to scan takes time (dust was always the bane of a film photographers life). On a good day I can do around 40 – but this has to fit around my commissioned work.
The end result should be worth it as an amazing collection of rail and travel pictures will be added to my website. I spent a lot of those years travelling the world, including two long trips between 1991-92 and 1997-99*. On the railway front there’s pictures that encompass the latter days of British Rail and the early days of privatisation. I’ve started off with two albums I had handy which are pictures from Tanzania, the UK and Greece (follow the links to see the pictures).
I’ll still be blogging, but right now I’m trying to work out a new work/life balance, so please forgive me if blogs are a little sparse!
*It was after that 18 month trip that I packed up my previous career working in local government managing social housing to become a freelance professional photographer – but that’s another story…
Paul Bigland 