About The Site
Why it's here
The site is here because I (Sam Calder) love bulb photography and I love an open world wide web where sharing information is a major motivation for web sites.
I build and host a number of web sites for myself, friends and professional acquaintances and contacts and decided that one about a subject close to my heart was worth a shot.
Where I'd like it to go
I'd like to see this site grow in size (in terms of contributors) and popularity. I'd like to see new topics explored and described here. I'd like to see old topics re-investigated and documented.
Arthur Street, 1979
In the early days of my experimenting with bulb photography I thought that what I was doing was just an old idea rehashed. 30 years later I can now see that it was all original work. Sure, the idea of streaked car head and tail lights had been covered before; but no-one had ever done it exactly the way I did it.
To (mis-)quote Nick Drake:
"And if you see
what's meant to be
don't name the day
or try to say
it happened before."
Nick Drake [Things behind the sun]
About the images hosted here
Forestville, Feb 1976, Original print
In general, all work is "untouched", that is, there has been no unusual processing techniques, printing tricks and little or no touching up using graphics programs.
Many of the images you see are simply a scan of a print that was exposed in a standard camera and printed in most cases by the local photolab / chemist just as if it was a photo of your grandmother's birthday party.
All prints and slides (transparencies) have been scanned in order to get them onto the web and, again, in most cases they have not been altered (other than by the automatic processes applied by the programs).
Some images have been scanned directly from the negative however my experience so far (very limited) has shown that the scan of the print is often superior.
How the site came into being
Some years ago I took over hosting a friend's web pages (what is now Usuff Omar's Pendulum Photography)
In February 2006 I went on holidays and took 3 photos by the light of a near full moon.
When I saw these, and one in particular (the current home page photo) I realised how much I loved and missed taking these types of photos.
I then remembered / realised that I had a wealth of amateur snaps taken over the previous 30 years and that a website dedicated to one of my most enduring and endearing loves was worth the effort.
The site has also given me an excuse / reason to try my hand at my first real Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) website (ie. "<table>"less).
