collaboration... • pen • tone • taking pictures • links • guests •

This photo blog is a collaboration between Penny Vincent and Tony Jones.
We are partners who encourage one-another's imaging.

We take differing but complementary roles in developing this site.

We both regularly contribute images - many of Pen's are remarkable macro images of plants in the garden she cherishes. Tone is into landscape, informal portraits and has a special interest in low-light photography.

Tone

I've been taking photographs on and off since the age of twelve, owning a variety of cameras, simple and complex, over the years (Agfa bakelite 127 thing, Ilford Sportsman, Halina 35x, Olympus Trip 35, Zenith E, Praktika, Canon AE1, Olympus XA2, Ricoh XD7 amongst others) - I also had a darkroom in the '70s.

I came to digital photography in early 2000 and felt an instant sense of freedom when loosed from the bonds of film -

no more waiting too see if the shot turned out
no more waiting for processing (sometimes forever if I lost the film)
no more feeling reluctant to experiment

Film has many good points (especially its latitude), but digital has definitely given me the space to grow as a photographer. I am now working again with film.

I have recently retired because of health problems and now work regularly as a photographer, especially on community and participatory arts projects. I also work as a digital photography trainer.

Pen

I cannot remember not having a camera. My Dad, John, is a very keen amateur who taught me the basics pretty well when I was young. He bought me a Kodak Retinette IIB when I was about 13. I then had a truly awful Kodak disc camera at 15 - such poor quality - but I was at the age when snapping friends was all I wanted a camera for. For a long time that's all I did. I dug out my Retinette when Tone and I toured Europe a few years ago, for black and white photos - some of which are beautiful and I may scan them in to put on this blog sometime.

Like Tone, when we got our first digital camera I found the immediacy very satisfying. It took me longer to get really into it - the macro facility on the Nikon Coolpix 4500 is brilliant - and I decided to record every opening flower in our small garden - hence the gallery of our garden. I am now slowly getting used to the Nikon D70.

Thanks to -

Janey - for all unwittingly getting us into this blogging thing in the first place, and who is the warmest of friends
James & Mandy McAteer - great friends & fine photographers
Lynn Gomm - for proving that blogging can be a valuable and creative occupation
John Shufflebotham - Pen's Dad - for the inspiration described above
Mark Wood - for guidance and encouragement

dedicated to the memory of Henri Cartier Bresson who died in 2004 and whose pictures remain as fresh and as inspirational as when they were first taken Susan Sontag who died in December 2004, and who wrote a magnificently challenging and inspiring book about the meaning of photography
	On Photography 1977 - SS			Brussels 1932 - HCB