Brighton Beach in Black & White
As the weather turns colder and greyer over the winter months in the south of England it becomes far too easy to leave the cameras at home and wait for the sunshine to return in spring. This year, however, I wanted to stop myself falling into that trap and try and get out whatever the weather, so I decided to load up some rolls of 35mm Ilford HP5 I’ve had stored in my fridge for far too long and take my Canon AE-1 down to Brighton seafront.
I had plenty of occasions to do so; first, my good friend and photographer from New Zealand, Dawn Chapman, who’s currently living in London and has featured in my journal plenty of times, came down for a bike ride along the white cliffs of the Undercliff Walk to Rottingdean with fellow creative Rebecca de Havas on a sunny winter’s day, ending with a stunning starling murmuration over the West Pier at sunset.
Next was an extremely misty day on Brighton beach where I took a stroll from the Palace Pier to the West Pier and met up with Ben GC along the way; I thought the eerie atmosphere of couples walking on the along the foggy shore in front of the derelict pier and Ben’s moody portrait both worked so well on black & white film.
Ben on Brighton Beach
Finally, I went on a photowalk with a group of local Brighton film photographers on a very grey, windy weekend along the Undercliff Walk again, equipped with a variety of 35mm and medium format film cameras: Damien with a Mamiya RB67 & Polaroid SX-70, Tom with a Canon A1 & Kodak Folding Camera, and Nick with a Yashica Mat & Pentax ME Super!
Keep scrolling for some of my favourites from the day, and my verdict on shooting black & white film…
Me w/ my trusty Canon AE-1 by Damien
We ended up walking a solid 8 miles and, after a battering from the elements, were totally exhausted but it was so worth it. I’d nipped into Colourstream, my favourite film lab in Brighton, at the end of the walk to drop off these rolls for developing, and after scanning them at home on my Epson V600 I’m blown away by the results.
Having mostly shot colour film since I picked up my first analog camera, I’m used to looking at the world in a certain way, finding colours that pop or pleasing palettes that work together and have a fairly good idea how light and colours will look in an image on certain film stocks.
Self-Portrait, 2016: One of my first frames of medium format black & white / Ilford FP4, Rolleicord Va
When working with black & white, however, the way you see the world completely changes; I noticed I was looking more for lights & darks, or highlights & shadows, and because I’m not so accustomed to seeing this way I wasn’t expecting to get much back from these rolls, but I am very pleasantly surprised! I love how everything seems to have a stronger atmosphere in monochrome, and I’m looking forward to trying some 120 black & white in my Mamiya 645!
In fact, I loved the results so much that I took only Ilford HP5 with me when I revisited Portugal for Christmas - no colour! Stay tuned for my next photo journal entry from that amazing trip, but in the mean time you can see it all in colour from my week in Portugal over Easter.
