Issue 28

You’ll have noticed, I’ve been absent. Not for lack of material—never that—but due to two rather different, albeit related, forces.

The first is banal but necessary: I’ve been deep in the logistical labyrinth of moving *johandupreez.com*, along with this newsletter, to a new web hosting provider. A task that ought, by all accounts, to be “seamless,” “swift,” and other such lies peddled by the tech-industrial complex. In truth, it was neither; it swallowed more time than I’d budgeted and offered very little aesthetic nourishment in return.

The second reason, however, is altogether more stimulating—and far more aligned with the stuff of Fine Art photography. I’ve spent the past couple of months quietly reengineering my film workflow: from processing to scanning, and, eventually, to printing. The unifying theme of this overhaul? Creative control.

Much of my equipment, including some cherished and now irreplaceable tools, was lost in our last transcontinental move. The studio’s music system, gone. And with it, my beloved, by-now-vintage film scanner—a beast that rendered negatives with luscious 48-bit depth and took care of dust and blemishes without fuss or ceremony. An elegant solution to a problem I hadn’t appreciated until it was gone.

Replacing it was never a real option. The market for dedicated scanners has withered to a few feeble offerings, none of which hold up under scrutiny, let alone under a loupe. And so, like a gambler with no cards left, I found myself at the mercy of local vendors. Their workflows? Unconvincing. Their grasp of colour science? Let’s call it… impressionistic.

Over a stretch of months, I trialled the services of nearly every scanning house within striking distance. I spent money. I lost negatives—some to theft, others to sheer incompetence. And what did I get in return? Inconsistent, uninspired work that sapped my enthusiasm for film as a medium altogether. The image I spotlight below illustrates the depth of this frustration (more on that in a moment).

Yet, here I am, back in the land of grain and emulsion. Why?

Because there’s something deeply compelling—spiritually so, if I may risk it—in crafting a body of black and white work that captures my evolving relationship with this adopted island of mine. A return, if you like, to the roots of my photographic impulse: to pare back, strip away, and render the world not as it looks, but as it feels.

Anyone who’s ever spent serious time in a traditional darkroom—whether sloshing prints in trays of Dektol or finessing a dodgy highlight under an enlarger—will understand both the pleasures and the limits of that analogue realm. It demands craft, discipline, and a sense of scale—but it is, for many of us, no longer fit for purpose.

Meanwhile, the digital world has caught up and, in some respects, overtaken. Today’s small-format digital cameras can match the resolution of medium-format film, but only under conditions rarely encountered outside a lab or a studio. They are too often hostage to light. And I mean good light—not merely sufficient.

So: a hybrid approach. Enter a new generation of scanning solutions—modular, open-ended, often designed by obsessives for obsessives. I’ve spent the last stretch cobbling together a digitisation system that fits *me*—a system in which I get to choose the components, calibrate the results, and own the colour science from end to end.

At present, I’m producing scans that are more than serviceable for proof prints—and, just as importantly, I’m finally able to share images that resemble what I *saw* when I pressed the shutter.

The next frontier is scaling up: larger scans, higher bit depth, bigger prints. But I’m not in a hurry. This part requires stability—consistent development, controlled lighting, and a scanner that doesn’t shift its temperament every other day. I’m still experimenting with components, and that’s part of the fun.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the quiet pleasure of walking the streets of London with a manual camera in hand. No screens, no shortcuts. Just the act of slowing down, looking closely, and making images the old-fashioned way—with intention.