Community Amigo: Laurence Arnold from South West London

In this new series, we talk to film fanatics from all around the UK about their passion for film photography and the best places to shoot in their home town. Meet Laurence Arnold from South West London.

Name: Laurence Arnold
LomoHome: laurencea
Where I Live: New Malden (SW London)

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I work for a charity, dealing with gifts left in Wills. It may sound odd, but it’s great fun and very interesting, plus the people who do it always have the weirdest sense of humour, so it suits me. I love wildlife, cycling and music – sometimes all at the same time.

Where did your love for film photography start?

Years ago, when I was a kid. My dad developed his own B&W film and I would watch the images appear under the red light. I couldn’t wait to get an SLR of my own. For some reason I stopped taking photos and then didn’t really embrace digital until I went to the London Wetland Centre. A couple of years ago I saw the Konstruktor featured somewhere and bought one. The first results were a bit rubbish, but I started a new job and one of the team [members] was a Lomographer (catx) who suggested the Lomolab for processing. My world exploded after that. Soon I was getting addicted to 120 film as well as 35mm and it’s not unknown for me to have six film cameras in my bag at the weekend. Film has added a whole new dimension to photography at the center.

What are you favourite cameras and why?

Tell us a bit about these photos you chose.

The first shot is me. This is at the Olympic park on Good Friday and one of the very few self portraits. The 2nd shot is when I realised what a Konstruktor could do, by accident as I hadn’t really thought of double exposures at this point.

The red swans prompted a friend to suggest I get it printed on art paper as he loved it. Number 4 shows how good the Konstruktor is with extended range film, purple in this case.

The sprocket swan always gets praise. It was taken at the Wetland centre and the swan just swam up, posed and then went away. The goose is one of my favourite shots – taken in York. the LC-A just caught the light so well. The rest are all 120 and have that ‘thing’ that only film has. The final one is a Waterloo Sunset – taken with the last shot on the roll at the end of a day of photography.

Share your top 3 locations for shooting in your town?

I spend a lot of time at the London Wetland Centre, it is a must for photography. Other than that, London is great, the South Bank always has something and the City, especially on a weekend when the streets are quiet, can be a fun place to snap away.

If you were to invent a new film camera what would it do?
It would have a facility for multiple rolls of film to capture the same scene in a variety of ways (B&W, redscale, etc) AND be able to take 120 and 35mm at the same time. Not too much to ask, is it? Either that or and LC-A that does 120 (in case anyone at Lomo wants to give me one).

written by hannah_brown on 2014-11-23 #people #accessories #analogue-photography #photographer #films #uk #lomography-gallery-store #multiple-exposures #gallery-store #cross-processing #analogue-cameras #film-reviews #lomoamigo #eastlondon #35mm-films #120-films #londonsoho #soholondon