The Dark Rooms of... Neil Milton

The Dark Rooms of... is an interview series in which a photographer talks about his or her darkrooms, the digital and the mental, or technical and inspirational. What makes you click?

Jan 23, 2024

In this edition of The Dark Rooms of… we focus on the Scottish street photographer Neil Milton

By the way, if you haven’t read the previous 9 interviews, you can find them in the archive.

Here we go.

Who are you?

I'm a Shy though loquacious, youthfully middle-aged, Scottish street photographer, photography teacher, writer, and critic based in Warsaw, Poland. I'm formerly the owner and manager of the too many fireworks record label. Now, I'm the writer of the Photos, mostly street photography newsletter.

Do you think technique is important?

I do. I think it is important to understand technique so we can decide what to what to use and what to ignore. Technique is a broad term, I suppose it encompasses composition, form, lighting, exposure, and even footwork when it comes to street photography. When I learned to discard program modes and work only in manual, my own photography took a great leap forward. I had control rather than letting the camera think for me. Not only was that expertise invaluable when I moved to photographing in film, but I learned to make conscious, creative exposure decisions. Learning the cheat codes in manual made me a better photographer. Learning to read light without a meter, becoming comfortable with the latitude of Tri-x, and learning how to zone focus meant I could worry less about the camera in my hand and more about the scene in front of me.

What equipment do you use?

My daily carry is a 1957 Leica M3 with a 50mm Summicron f/2. To go wider I have a 28mm Voigtlander Ultron, and my long lens is an 85mm Voigtlander. When I need 2 bodies I have a 1991 Leica M6, one of the panda bodies. Leica ran out of the chrome hardware and for a time replaced it with the black, so it's a chrome finish body with black hardware, and the owner before me replaced the red dot with a black one. A wee bit of trivia: At Leica last year, I was told that if I gave my M6 to Leica for repair or for a CLA, they would replace the black dot with a red one. The red dot is a trademark for the photography arm of the company and the black is for, I think, the optical systems.

And what software?

To scan my negatives I use Lasersoft's Silverfast 9. It feels a little Windows XP but it does what I need it to. After that, Lightroom Classic for cataloging and Photoshop for any processing. When I'm working in digital, I will play around with AlienSkin's Exposure 7 Tri-x emulation to get the look and feel that I like.

How do you edit your photos?

I'm a little old-fashioned so when I speak about editing, I describe culling a larger selection of pictures down to a final selection. To do that, I used to use Adobe Bridge, but have moved over to Lightroom. Its system of flagging and rejecting pictures makes it much easier to choose the best work.
Though often different, my go-to workflow for processing is pretty simple. I scan my negatives flat with no contrast or luminance adjustments. Everything is done in Photoshop. I start by setting black and white points using curves. I stay with curves and do some global contrast adjustments. Finally, I'll do more localised adjustments either using curves and masks, or with dodging and burning. I've found there are a lot of competing techniques for dodging and burning but I've never read anyone who suggests using Photoshop's native tools. The method I use is to create a new layer, set the blending mode to Soft Light, and then paint on black or white with a very soft brush. Finally, I like warmth to my shadows, so I add a final curve, select the red channel, and add a point at 40 to bump it up to 45. I set the opacity of that layer to suit, though, it's normally around the 20% to 25% that gives me what I'm looking for.

Inspirational

Where lies your heart?

I’m a street photographer, no doubt. I enjoy making photographs of all manner of things, especially photographing at music shows, but I only get the same buzz I used to get when playing music when I’m out on the street. I picked up a camera for the first time in 2006, not long after I had taken a break from running my indie record label, too many fireworks. I started making photos of friends at their shows, then experimented with portraits, landscapes, sports, abstract things, and street photography. The latter has a bite to it. It was challenging, cool, and a little transgressive. Street photography has a fascinating history, a pantheon of greats, and a lot of iconic photographs that
scratched an itch. In much the same way as Michael Stipe became the frontman of R.E.M.to combat his natural shyness, I fight mine by picking up my camera and getting out there.

Do you have your own style or signature?

I have a style, certainly, but I don’t consider it a signature or in any way mine. My style of street photography borrows from several masters of the craft and blends a wry, ironic humor, with juxtaposition, "drunken horizons", and an emphasis on gesture and expression; the words, "get closer", ring through my mind.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I find inspiration is often conflated or confused with influence. My 1st instinct in answering this question was to cite Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Richard Kalvar, and Elliott Erwitt, and certainly these photographers have influenced the direction I have taken in making my photographs. Cartier-Bresson also. I often wonder if instead of his Scrapbook, I had picked up an Ansel Adams collection as the 1st photobook in my collection if I would now be a landscape photographer. The pictures of the aforementioned photographers are certainly an inspiration for me, but inspiration stretches deeper through my life. Music, such as that of Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor has inspired me to make photographs, as have books by James Joyce, Alasdair Gray, and Iain Banks, or indeed all manner of cinema. I will often be inspired to make photographs through the great work of my peers. When my friend from New Orleans, Mike Murat, shares his work I feel excited to pick up my camera and get out onto the street.

Does your project start with an idea or with a loose image?

Both. My early project, Glorious Failure, started with an idea. Scotland was playing Italy at Hampden in Glasgow in the qualifying rounds of the 2008 European Championships. Had Scotland won, we would have qualified for a tournament for the 1st time in a decade. (Little did we know it would take another 10+ years!) Without a ticket for the match, I set out early that day to make photographs of the city as it built up to the big match. In contrast, a long-term project I began just year started with a single photograph taken a few years ago that sparked the wider concept.

When is your project finished?

Of the 3 in progress, neither of them has any realistic end in sight. Both are open-ended, long-term projects that will end when they end, or when I do. It is a goal for 2024, however, to begin to engage in shorter-term projects the photos of which can serve as stories told in tighter bodies of work, or as individual photographs of a wider archive.

During your project, do you already know how it ends?

It depends on the project. I knew how Glorious Failure would end, regardless of the result of the match at the end of the day. Of course, had Scotland won the match, much of the content of the project may have changed, but it would have ended at the end of that day, with the same photograph. With other projects, it often depends on how the story ends, or what I find when the day, week, month, or year is unfolding.

What is your favorite photo and why?

While trying to decide what my favorite picture was, I fell into the open chasm of trying to decide what my best photo is - and these two things are rarely the same. My favorite photo will change day by day though for now, I'll choose a photo from Glasgow in 2021. Covid was still at the forefront of everyone's mind, and this was the first time I had come home to Scotland in 18 months. Walking around Glasgow, signs of the pandemic and lockdowns were everywhere, then I happened upon an older man, with his mask around his chin and a broken arm. The gentleman was waiting for a bus in front of a theatre poster, itself rain-damaged and the worse for wear, promising "hilarious laughter soon". Bleak yet hopeful, it sums up the post-lockdown, pre-post-pandemic time to a tee.

Future

What do you want to achieve?

While full of photography, 2023 was centred more on finding a place online where I could share my work. I left 2022 with the intention of leaving all social media, and while I do still have Instagram and Facebook profiles, I rarely use them. Instead, I chose to focus all of my attention on my website, however, what use is a website if no one visits? I began writing on Substack to draw people to my website and over time writing about street photography in my Photos, mostly newsletter has become an important part of my work. That being said, I feel that last year more of my energy was spent on writing and growing the newsletter, as well as working on my Photography degree, than making photographs, and this year I will change that.
For the 1st time, I have several projects in progress or awaiting that first trip of the shutter, so there is much photography to be done. I expect to spend a lot of time out from behind the keyboard, and back behind the lens this year.

What do you want to know from others? You may ask one photographer one question. What would that be?

I once read that novices seek praise while experts crave criticism. That has stuck with me since. As important as acclaim is, correction will make me a better photographer. For that reason then, rather than a question, I'd ask for constructive critique of my work. Never stop striving for improvement.

Where can we see more?

My website and blog are found at neilmilton.scot and interested readers can subscribe to my Photos, mostly newsletter over at https://lionelsmint.substack.com
And thank you for having me on Darkrooms!

That’s it for this newsletter

Do you like this interview? Do you want to see more? Lucky you, there’s 9 more of them in the archive.

Send my some suggestions for photographers you like to see interviewed at Darkrooms. Of course you can suggest yourself if you have an interesting story to tell.

Till next time,

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