Captured Shadows (17 page)

Much love and many thanks go to Alex Cambusmore, Lucy
Miriam
and John T. "just arrange her hair nicely" Fuller
for the
cheerleading, questions, suggestions, and
unwavering
support. I'm sure I
could
have done it without them :P b
ut it's a much better story for their input
. Wassail, my friends.

My thanks also to Josephine Myles for her 'Vintage Smut Sunday' blog series of old photographic erotica. I was writing this anyway, but to call her picture collections inspirational would be the understatement of the century.

It's probably obvious that Jim's passion for the magic of
traditional
photography is my own. We've lost it somewhere in pixels and apps and the way we only ever seem to share pictures through social media these days,
rarely
as real tangible things you can hold in your hand or put in a frame or kiss and send with a love letter. If you've read this far (who reads acknowledgments?!) I'm begging you to humour me for a few minutes more and browse some of the tutoria
ls at the links below
–
you can make anthotypes, like the Wilkes children did at the seaside, with equipment no more specialist than the stuff you've already got in your kitchen and garden, or a functioning pinhole camera out of a matchbox and a beer can.
You can pick up a beautiful vintage camera in perfect working condition from a charity shop or boot sale for pennies, and the pictures you take with it
will
become
e
ntwined with everything that lens has seen before: soldiers home on leave, flapper weddings, holiday snaps when bikinis were brand new.
Photographs last longer than we do
–
at least they do when
we
take them properly.
Take photos,
play with chemicals, hold hands with
history. You can even keep your clothes on.

alternativephotography.com

matchboxpinhole.com

lomography.com