July 2026

I’ve made some changes to a couple of photo albums on the website. southern-mountains features the same grainy black and white photographs from the South island taken in 2024, but I’ve re-edited them to add more punch.

The photographs are shot on Ilford HP5+ film, which gave me a film negative with a wide exposure range but fairly flat look. My original editing technique was to change the digital scan as little as possible. When reviewing the photos this year I liked the compositions but felt the overall edits were a bit boring. Along Hall Arm hangs on the wall in the lounge.

Maniototo is my current project and contains photographs I’ve taken on the Maniototo Plain, Strath Taieri, and surrounding ranges and valleys. The earliest photographs in the album go back to 2020, from a day cycling on the rail trail from Hyde. Most come from trips earlier this year. All going well, I’ll head to the South Island later this year and extend both albums.

A few months ago I bought an inkjet printer to print more of my photographs. Until then I was getting them printed at a local print shop which cost me an arm and a leg, and reduced my experiment/correction edit process to a very slow loop. Now I can print up to A3+ size, which I have done for my favourite prints.

Separately I’ve printed the entire Maniototo album in A4 and assembled it into a book. I wanted a book that I could add, subtract, and re-order photographs, and that would also lay flat on a table so the photographs could be enjoyed. This gave two options: ring binder, or a screw post book. The ring binder gave me flashbacks of high school, while the screw post book certainly seemed more of the vibe I was going for. I found a company in Melbourne that sells them, and set off printing my images in A4.

To get the “book look” that I was going for, I needed to print the images with an identical left, top, and right margin spacing. The prints themselves go in A4 sleeves, and it’s the left of the sleeve that has the punched holes to go on the screw post. I imported my edited digital files into Affinity and laid out the pages with margins. I printed them on Ilford Pearl paper. It’s a semi gloss paper which gives a bright finish to the photograph. I tried some on matte paper but found the result just too dull in comparison.

I’m quite happy with the result. A hardcover book that lays flat on any page. The photographs display well, and the plastic sleeves mean one doesn’t need to be too precious when turning pages.