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Darren stood under the spot, half in shadow, and responded to questions.
It turned out that Darren is of the frame-shoot-and-print school where the initial composition determines what the print will look like. This doesn't mean that he prints without modification, rather he doesn't crop and re-frame when printing. Interestingly enough, he put a photographic frame around each of his landscape shots by using a mask.
Neither does Darren bracket his shots to enhance the likelihood of a good result. Each shot is unique.
The fact that he burns and dodges was shown when Darren, with a smile, produced his general purpose burner.
He likes spending time in the field finding the optimal opportunity for a good shot. This showed up in his work with people living in rooming houses. Each of the shots in this album reflected well-considered composition using natural light. The effectiveness of this was shown when someone asked what flash he had used for one particular shot. Darren promptly disowned involvement with flash and pointed out that the effect observed was a consequence of light coming through the window.
Darren sadly admitted that he had been using digital recently but talked of getting back into film. He said that he could do much more with film and that he enjoyed film. When he was asked how he approached digital photography, he talked in terms of using a digital camera in much the same way as he used a film camera - economy of shots, well composed.
The quality of Darren's work (and the accolades he received through the club end-of-year awards last year) is quite remarkable when you understand that he did not take up photography until 8 years ago - at the age of 34. Some credit must go to the courses he has completed but Darren must have the eye of the natural photographer.
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