© Copyright 2021 Steve Wakefield Photography
Cumbria based photographer providing nationwide photographic services online.
I am Steve, based in Carlisle, Cumbria.
I started out in photography many years ago, as a teenager with my Grandad’s old roliflex twin lens 2.8F camera and his manual 35mm SLR camera. He was his town’s photographer, doing press and wedding work.
Back in those days it was all film based and you set the shot up on the lens and dials – working out your depth of field from moving markers on the lens and taking meter readings with a light powered light-meter. You really needed to know your stuff as there were no instant ‘previews’ possible then.
I cut my teeth on these cameras, listening intently to his technical lessons and helping out in his magical dark-room. To this day I still have a chemical Jobo CPE2 colour film processor although I now scan my developed negatives to digital rather than use an enlarger, but I digress.
I started out in photography many years ago, as a teenager with my Grandad’s old roliflex twin lens 2.8F camera and his manual 35mm SLR camera. He was his town’s photographer, doing press and wedding work.
Back in those days it was all film based and you set the shot up on the lens and dials – working out your depth of field from moving markers on the lens and taking meter readings with a light powered light-meter. You really needed to know your stuff as there were no instant ‘previews’ possible then.
I cut my teeth on these cameras, listening intently to his technical lessons and helping out in his magical dark-room. To this day I still have a chemical Jobo CPE2 colour film processor although I now scan my developed negatives to digital rather than use an enlarger, but I digress.
Grandad used to trust me enough to assist on the occasional wedding, loading the medium format film-backs and holding the single use flash cubes. He would eventually let me take the occasional photo because as he used to tell me, “you’ve gotta get folks wedding shots just right, they only get one go at it and you’ve got to get it in emulsion, first time".
30 plus years later and I’m still getting “folks one go” captured– but not so often on emulsion but in pixels. My trusty Bronica ETRSi medium format film camera still comes out with me as nothing keeps a photographer sharp quite like the ‘one go’ life of film photography and it's helped me record many people's happy days!
30 plus years later and I’m still getting “folks one go” captured– but not so often on emulsion but in pixels. My trusty Bronica ETRSi medium format film camera still comes out with me as nothing keeps a photographer sharp quite like the ‘one go’ life of film photography and it's helped me record many people's happy days!
Probably testament to Grandad and his press days, is my style, which is a relaxed and informal reportage approach to photography, using candid shots taken at range to capture the uninhibited emotion of my subjects, although I still like the formal posed shots.
I rely on mostly digital equipment now, with portable studio lighting systems to support me. I am an experienced digital ‘darkroom’ photographer, with chromokey technology (green-screen) and ‘photoshop’ manipulation being second nature to me. I have a well equipped 'digital darkroom', workshop and top of the range gallery-standard lab printers.
Of course, I owe thanks to Roland Revell and Mervyn, my photographic mentors and inspiration, for giving me a wealth of experience, learned the traditional way, for my clients.
I rely on mostly digital equipment now, with portable studio lighting systems to support me. I am an experienced digital ‘darkroom’ photographer, with chromokey technology (green-screen) and ‘photoshop’ manipulation being second nature to me. I have a well equipped 'digital darkroom', workshop and top of the range gallery-standard lab printers.
Of course, I owe thanks to Roland Revell and Mervyn, my photographic mentors and inspiration, for giving me a wealth of experience, learned the traditional way, for my clients.
Steve