Community Amigo Nick De Marco and His LC-A Adventures

UK-based photographer and lawyer Nick De Marco has been shooting with the LC-A 120 and LC-Wide around the streets of Amsterdam. We caught up with Nick and asked him about his love of film photography and his latest analogue project.

Photos by Nick De Marco

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m Nick De Marco, a photographer, lawyer and blogger based in Hackney, London. Many years ago I was a film and video editor in the days of 16mm celluloid and VHS video. Now I’m a barrister, specialising in sports law. I love my job but also the freedom being self-employed gives me. I spend all my spare hours working on photo projects. My passion for photography drives me. I have too many ideas, too many projects, and never enough time!

Photos by Nick De Marco

What is it you love about film?

I have used film since I was a young boy. I learned how to make prints in the bathroom my Dad made into a makeshift darkroom. I’ve had and still use many different digital cameras, including my wonderful Leica M, but I have gone back to film in a big way in the last few years. It’s everything about it. The look, the feel, the process. I love the colour of film, or the tones when using black and white. The fact I don’t need to spend ages editing on a computer—the look is just there. The fact I can’t look at the back of my camera and check whether to take the same photograph four times, and the excitement of picking up my negatives from my lab. Because film costs money I am more careful when using it. It means I have a higher hit rate than when using digital.

Photos by Nick De Marco

Tell us a bit about these photographs.

Last December I had to go to Amsterdam for work. I decided to stay a couple of extra days and take only the two cameras I had just bought—the Lomo LC-W and the Lomo LC-A 120 do some creative street shooting. I told myself, ‘No Digital, No Leicas, No Cheating.’ I used the LC-W to make multiple exposure panoramic shots, each of which I hope tells a story about my journey, and the LC-A 120 for more composed, textured photographs. I enjoyed the results so much I made a short book, lomodam (available here). I plan to make some large prints of some of these shots and hopefully have an exhibition in London soon.

Photos by Nick De Marco

What do you like about the two Lomo cameras you used in this project?

I have been genuinely excited about both of these cameras. I collect and use all kinds of cameras, and whilst I have enjoyed using Holga before, I never really took Lomo cameras seriously until recently. The LC-W is a great pocket camera, with accurate exposure and a fabulous super wide 17mm lens. The fact that you can do multiple exposures and shoot half frame panoramas makes it an exciting artistic tool. But it’s the LC-A 120 that has blown me away. I love medium format and regularly use a Rollei or Mamiya 6. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the sharpness and quality I have obtained from the LC-A 120 often matches the best from those cameras. I have just been scanning some negatives I made with it over Christmas in Italy and the colour and clarity is incredible. Yet it’s light, portable, easy to use and has the widest lens for a 6×6 handheld camera. I love wide-angle for street work and the LC-A 120 is going to be a regular companion on trips from now on. If I had one gripe it’s the way it often doesn’t let you shoot the last frame of 12. But even if it only gave me 10 frames I would love this camera.

Photos by Nick De Marco

Anything coming up in 2016?

Hmmm, too much! I have so many projects to complete. The ones I have promised to finish this year include completing a couple more of my Café City books (photographic journeys through various cities in the world interspersed with reviews of my favourite cafes there) – probably for Taipei, Hong Kong and Milan, shot on film with a Hassleblad XPan last year. I’m also working on a book about the architecture of the London Underground and keeping up my regular Rangefinder Chronicles blog , where I feature photos and reviews made with some of the various cameras I collect, mostly old film cameras. I am currently going through a phase with 35mm cameras pocket fixed lens rangefinders and compact cameras, mostly from the 1970s. I have a special trip to Japan planned this year where the LC-A 120 and Hasselblad XPan will join me. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I have just got into shooting super-8 film with a couple of vintage cameras, and I want to make a short black and white film about Brutalist architecture in London.


Visit Nick De Marco’s blog for more information and follow him on twitter at @nickdemarco_.

2016-02-27 #people #uk #lomoamigo #community-amigo #lca-wide #lca-120 #nick-de-marco

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