These articles are adapted from those written for and commissioned by various photo magazines in the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia about my published images and the photo techniques which were used to create them.

All of the techniques are simple to undertake... all you have to do is select your own subject with your own creative eye... apply an interesting technique and occasionally break the rules. Sometimes all it takes to make a stunning image from a mediocre subject or scene is to use a photo accessory in a way that it was not meant to be... for example using a deep red filter (designed for black-and-white) with colour film.

Animals Two by Two I went through the oh-so-careful-otherwise-I'll-screw-something-up-and-it-will-cost-plenty-to-fix routine of connecting a Leitz 400mm Telyt lens to an adaptor ring to a Visoflex reflex housing to a camera body to a rifle-stock shoulder grip... Candid Camera When it comes to candids you are looking for spontaneous, off-the-cuff grabbed shots which are not necessarily snapshots. Their essence is capturing the moment in time when they were seen doing something... not necessarily what they wanted to appear doing... nor what the photographer wanted them doing. Colour Film... Colour Filters There's really no limit to the combination and application of "pure colour" to everyday as well as out-of-the-ordinary subjects. However, what may be pleasing to your eye may have no effect on another viewer... Fuzzy Logic My eyesight, like many other people's, started to deteriorate when I was forty. More than twenty years on I'm in trouble having to use spectacles for all close work such as reading, writing, computing... and having to adjust too many controls... Going Digital... My old photo blog done digitally for a third of the price and around a month less time per year sounds very tempting and hard to argue against... so I'll come back to this topic for sure. Although I didn’t realise at the time it would take 2 years... Large Format Loco Gear One lunch hour was extended because the weather, being particularly overcast with a fine drizzle blowing in, was no good for filming. But, the light was flat, soft and from my point of view ideal for product photography... Multiple Images Sometimes there are photo techniques in the back of your mind that you have never used... you know how they are applied but don't know if they will ever be applicable to your kind of photography. There are several such techniques in my head... Playing with Prisms Sometimes photography needs an injection of fun... because in many places of late it has become too serious! If you enter the lion’s den of internet photo newsgroups you may risk serious damage to your mental and wallet regions... Practice, practice, practice... When responding to a spectator’s comment of “What a lucky shot!” after his perfect drive from the tee, South African golfer Gary Player responded with, “Yeh, and the more you practice the luckier you get!” That’s what it all boils down to... practice. Softly, Softly... Soft-focus is not the same as out-of-focus. Soft-focus can be produced by spending a thousand dollars on a specialist lens, breathing on the front element, using Vaseline, shooting through cigarette packet wrappers, and other ways too! Solar Flair The advice to "Always keep the sun behind your shoulder" and "Never look through a camera with the lens pointed at the sun" remove an interesting and dramatic subject from the photographer’s creative palette if taken literally. Speed Camera... Le Mans 24-Hour Race The bright yellow race-winning Renault-Alpine looked a great subject... but probably most photos of it were sharp and therefore boring. I capture fast cars in action by creating action with the camera... Zone System - part 1 Whilst some have summed it up in less words than the number of Zones themselves (i.e., “Expose for the Shadows - Develop for the Highlights” is eight words) a truer understanding of the technique and science is best fulfilled by studying the writings and photographs of Ansel Adams whose name is synonymous with the Zone System... Zone System - part 2 Through personal experimentation Zone System photographers calibrate their equipment and consumables in order to predictably extract the maximum quality possible from them. Artistic elements aside, the rest is just craft and science... Zone System - part 3 Photographers careful with both exposure and processing but whose negatives do not produce the same print quality seen at good exhibitions or in photo-art books have a fundamental problem. They are probably using an incorrect speed rating for all their films... it's as simple as that. Zone System - part 4 Repeat these exercises and you will arrive at both a correct EI and a correct development time for your film. Both may be different from the maker's data sheet - not unexpected given the cumulative variables with your equipment and materials...

All reviews have been written by Ed Buziak - a self-taught photographer and monochrome printer who took the plunge into the tough professional world in 1974 at the age of 30. On his final day at Art College in 1967 he realised, too late, that he wanted to be a photographer, not an interior designer, so bought into the Nikon system with an unmetered Nikkormat FS body and a 135mm telephoto lens. From that beginning he learnt how to select an image through the camera’s viewfinder, process and print film, and enter photo competitions. Winning a bag-full of Nikon bodies and Nikkor lenses was instrumental in steering him through a career change from a secure well-paid production design job with Granada TV to a life of uncertainty as a freelancer where... "You're only as good as the last job you do!"