Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/6/26 i Amateur Photographer

Happy New Year! It isn’t often that AP gets to review a new film, but this week John Gilbey tries a new 35mm black & white emulsion from a brand more noted for its cameras. Takes me back to my early days on AP! We also look at an inspiring selection of street photography, and profile up-and-coming young photographer Amanda Akokhia, who is making waves in the competitive world of fashion. Amanda will be one of the speakers at our forthcoming Festival of Photography in Greenwich, on 31 January, along with the likes of Harry Borden, Drew Gardner and a star-studded cast of other top photographers. You can join a lighting workshop or photograph a fashion model in our photo studios, or test drive the awe-inspiring Fujifilm GFX100RF medium format…

This stunning portrait by David Thatcher, a Japanese antiques dealer, armour restorer and self-taught photographer, is inspired by ‘Hoichi the Earless’ – a creepy old tale immortalised in the 1964 movie, Kwaidan. To protect a priest who performs rituals for the ghosts of fallen samurai, monks write a sacred Buddhist text on his back, but things don’t quite go to plan... David took the portrait in his home studio, using a Hasselblad X2D II camera with the 55V lens at f/6.8 and ISO 400. ‘I used three Profoto B10 lights, with one positioned overhead as the key light and two additional lights feathered at waist height to shape the figure. In post-production, I added textures from flypaper and incorporated an image of an old Japanese screen.’ David plans to make…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Outside London I greatly enjoyed the AP Festival of Documentary Photography back in August but I can quite understand Roger Samuels’s wish that there should be such events outside London (Inbox, 9 December). It’s excellent that you are in negotiations with two venues in different regions of the UK. In the meantime it’s also encouraging that you give publicity to events for we readers outside the M25, a good example being the current exhibitions of Rodney Smith’s fascinating work in Rovigo, Italy and Mexico City. Andrew Spackman More phones please I have been an AP reader for the past 60 years or so and have been through a considerable number of cameras. I transitioned to digital with the professional Nikon D2H but eventually downsized to a…

PETER DENCH Acting Features Ed Peter shows us the superb winning images in the Pure Street Photography Awards ALIZ KOVACSZOLDI AP contributor Aliz interviews Amanda Akokhia about her determination and rapid rise JOHN GILBEY John shares his verdict on the classic Leica MP film rangefinder and Leica’s first film: Monopan 50 MICHAEL TOPHAM In Second-hand Classic AP’s former reviews editor revisits the full-frame Sony A7R IV AILSA MCWHINNIE As the final round, Open, launches, our APOY project manager shares hints on entering! JESSICA MILLER Dep Online Editor Jessica selects some more of your stunning images in It’s Good to Share…

Richard Avedon: Facing West, an exhibition of rare prints from his major series In the American West (1979-84), is taking place at the Gagosian gallery in Grosvenor Hill, London, from 15 January to 14 March. From 1979 to 1984 Avedon visited 21 states for the project, finally producing 126 editioned images, 21 of which are on view in London. He selected a wide variety of people to photograph, representing a range of professions and rural pastimes, and depicting often-overlooked subjects, from drifters to coal miners. See gagosian.com/exhibitions/…

A lot of younger photographers, myself included, really enjoy analogue photography. So, I am both blessed and cursed to own many old film SLRs – and there’s one cheap camera accessory I want to praise, as it has helped me keep them working more than anything else. I said ‘blessed and cursed’ because while I love shooting film and I love the smooth mechanical action of a proper old SLR – boy, do the things break. I mean, you can hardly blame them. My beloved Pentax ME Super would have been manufactured somewhere between 1979 and 1984. For all I know, it photographed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even so, its mechanical parts are all still in perfect working order, and it shoots and winds on as well as…

Richard Napthen If switching from a DSLR you’re probably best off sticking with the same brand if you can get a mount adapter. Especially if you have lenses that you love using. @iamburnphoto Sony – excellent images, great AF and superb third-party lenses to keep costs down. @shropshirewandering Sony, spent too much on lenses to go anywhere else. Will Rogers I picked Sony because at the time it was the only viable full-frame mirrorless system and my Canon DSLR had died. Looking at the camera systems now, I would probably go with Sony again purely because they’re not blocking third-party lenses. Allan Jamieson Just choose whichever camera feels best in your hand. In real terms there isn’t a huge difference in image quality between Canon, Nikon or Sony these days.…

I’ve been watching the BBC’s Kingdom recently. While it’s on we are taken from sofas and firesides all around the country and transported to the South Luangwa National Park. Having never been to this part of Zambia, my wife and I didn’t realise we’d be in for more death, terror and trauma than had we selected The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The photography is amazing of course, and through close-ups, tracking cameras and clever angles we are made to feel as though we are there to such an extent we were checking our slippers for termites. One of the purposes of photography is to show someone who wasn’t there what it was like to be there, so other people can share in our own experiences. The camera, and the person…

The ever-industrious Chinese lens maker, Viltrox, managed to squeeze in some competitively priced lens converters at the end of last year. First up is the Viltrox TC-2.0X, a 2x teleconverter for Sony FE mount that is compatible with full-frame Sony telephoto zooms as well as the Viltrox 135mm F1.8 lens. Aimed at wildlife, travel and sports photographers, the TC-2.0X doubles the effective focal length of supported lenses, while supporting autofocus and EXIF data transmission. It uses high-quality glass and multicoating to preserve sharpness, suppress ghosting, and maintain consistent colour reproduction across the frame, the company claims. The Viltrox TC-2.0X is out now, competitively priced at £255. For Fujifilm X100 users, too In addition, Viltrox has announced wideangle and telephoto converters for Fujifilm X100 cameras. The Viltrox WCL-X100VI gives a wider…

Fujifilm has teamed up with top US advertising agency McCann New York on a major global campaign to promote its popular range of Instax cameras. A new movie, ‘For when it clicks’, has been released to mark the launch of the eponymous campaign, directed by award-winning filmmaker Jaron Albertin. By the end of last year, more than 100 million Instax units had been sold globally, with the brand dominating the instant camera market across Japan, the U.S., Europe, China, and more. See the YouTube movie at bit.ly/fujimovie…

£35, RRB Photobooks, Softcover, ISBN: 9781068386732 Over a century ago, Henry John Elwes and Dr Augustine Henry set out to catalogue every notable tree across Britain and Ireland. A very Victorian endeavour, this new publication breathes fresh air into their monumental undertaking. Trees of Britain & Ireland revisits the seven-volume epic of 1906-1913. This time the focus shifts from the science to the photography. You can confidently describe Elwes and Henry’s original work as ambitious: 2,022 pages, 412 primary photographs and over 500 species documented. Yes it was visually rich but the photographers themselves remained largely anonymous – their contributions buried beneath the project’s taxonomic fervour. This new edition, produced with the familiar care and scholarship of RRB Photobooks, faithfully reproduces 64 photographs using litho printing to preserve the tonal…

£38, RAFT, Softcover, 64 Pages, ISBN: 9781068386749 Throughout his career, Jem Southam has photographed the slow shifts of the British landscape from rising rivers, collapsing cliffs and winters unspooling across seasons. In this first book for his new imprint Raft, Starlings is a surprising and beautiful departure. Instead of returning to a site over months or years, Southam planted himself on one patch of Somerset wetland for one December afternoon in 2023. From there he watched the sky as hundreds of thousands of starlings came home to roost. Ham Wall, on the Avalon Marshes, is one of the great starling stages of Europe. Up to a million birds settle here in winter, some resident all year, others flown in from colder corners of the continent. The starlings spend their days…

Round ten Open A new category in last year’s competition, it was so successful, we decided to bring it back this year. This is where anything goes. You might have an image that doesn’t quite fit into one of our other categories, or you might simply want to save your absolute best shots for this one. Whether you make still lifes or salt prints, create abstracts or fine art, shoot cars, cats, landscapes, people or architecture, there are no restrictions on subject matter here. Perhaps you even had an image you wanted to enter into one of our previous rounds, but had already uploaded the limit of four? Whatever the content of your composition and whatever your reason for shooting it, all styles and subjects are welcome. Enjoy! Your guest…

WIN! The AP Pic of the Week winner will receive a beautifully framed print of their winning image worth up to £100. If you Love it, Frame it! ThisPicture.com is an experienced, high-quality framing company with a unique, easy-to-use website. Build single or multi-image frames with a few clicks of your mouse and select from a wide range of frames, window mounts and glazing options. Each frame comes with a three-year guarantee and FREE P&P within the UK. Visit thispicture.co.uk Commencing The Commute Home by Giles Thurston Sony A7 IV, Sony FE 85mm F1.8, 1/1250sec at f/14, ISO 200 ‘The light, shapes and textures you find in our urban environments are a photographer’s dream, especially when the evening light casts deep shadows and highlights. This shot of the London skyline…