David Usill - Photographer
"Serendipity plays a large part in my work as a photographer, travelling the planet making images”
I follow in the tradition of ‘Straight Photography’, searching for that decisive moment when composition and subject coincides.
I have carried a camera for most of my life, finding inspiration looking up and around when standing on the ground or piloting my hot air balloon for an aerial perspective - looking down.
My work is in colour making images from natures' patterns, landscapes, architecture, accidental art, people and cultural activities.
This website offers a selection of limited edition photographic prints, featuring images curated from my new abstract work.
I have also included some of my favourite previously exhibited prints as important works from my archive.
Themes and subjects reoccur throughout my archive so I have alternative images that are available on request.
It is very important that the concept of a limited edition means limited to one size. The dimensions of my published images will only be printed at the size shown on the website.
My work in commercial photography has involved portraiture and editorial commissions for record companies, travel brochures, magazines and company report & accounts.
Straight Photography, composition, and the decisive moment
"A lifelong quest for high resolution realism"
I have always chased the highest grain free resolution that available technology allowed at various times in my career. To achieve this end in the analogue age I started with a Rolliecord medium format camera with a brief move to 35mm Nikon cameras using Kodachrome fine grain transparency material. My next move was to adopt medium format Zenza Bronicas as lightweight travel cameras with a variety of fixed focal length lenses. My images on film are still an important part of my archive and I produce large prints using a Hasselblad Flextight X5 scanner to digitise these images. Digital prints made from scanning ageing transparencies have characteristic film grain and colour shifts that I try to maintain to show the passage of time.
In 2009 Hasselblad released their H4D 50c digital camera. The resolution of this equipment, and the advance in giclee printing, exceeded that of making large prints from transparencies in a darkroom. So I joined the age of the digital camera!
My latest camera of choice is now a Hasselblad X2D100c with 3 fixed focal length lenses selected for ultimate quality and lightweight for carrying.
I do miss the craft involved in ‘old-fashioned’ photography but the quality I seek in adhering to the principle of Straight Photography means digital processing offers greater control in sharpness and colour balancing.
As I print all my work myself I am limited to a print size I can handle without damaging the paper. My printer is an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 that uses UltraChrome HDR pigment ink for colour saturation and longevity.
This combination of camera and printer satisfies my quest for the highest resolution and quality I can achieve
- until the next evolution!
My camera equipment from 1961 - 2021
Latest camera for travel and general photography - Hasselblad X2D 100c