I think someone with four years of photoblogging history can be called veteran. Jim Green of jimbus.org definitely is.

Tell us a little about yourself

Jim Green, 35 years old and living in SW London. I work as a children’s book designer for Penguin Books. Other than photography I am also a very keen long distance runner, in some way they are quite similar disciplines, I always see my best photo opportunities when I am out running, I need to strap a camera to my head some day.

When did you get interested in photography?

I can remember always wanting to use my dad’s old Agfa Silette as a kid and annoying him once by wasting an entire roll on some flowers in Portugal when I was about 8. I had various compacts as a teenager including the now defunkt Kodak Disc camera and a couple of crappy 110’s both of which took bad grainy photos. I dabbled with photography both on my BTEC and Design degree but never got completely into the whole black and white processing side of things, I also used to mess around a lot with cine cameras and projectors at art college plus image manipulation and basic computer animation with photography just before Apple Macs really kicked off in the design world.
After I graduated I went on to work as a designer and photography didn’t play a big part in my life apart from holiday snaps and the usual until I got married when I was 27. On our honeymoon we drove across California and visited lots of wonderful places taking pictures all the way on a little Nikon APS. On returning home I excitedly got my 20 or so films processed only to find that nothing at all had come out, the camera was faulty, I was absolutely gutted. From that time on I think my viewpoint changed.
Not long after I decided to buy a lomo compact (£70 at the time and I remember thinking they were expensive) and it spiralled off from there. After a year or so I sold the lomo and got a Minolta SLR, then scoured eBay for bargains and experimented with various cameras including old MF cameras and Polaroids.

When and, more importantly, why did you start photoblogging?

I started jimbus.org in 2003. I can’t remember exactly why but I think it was just a way of cataloging my work and seeing how it would progress, I previously had a static portfolio site but it was a pain to update as I don’t know much html and had to rely on a friend to update it so the blog was something I could manage myself quite easily.

Can you describe the style of your photoblog?

I find it hard to categorise my work or label it under a specific style, I suppose it’s a mix, sometimes street, sometimes abstract, it depends. I am not project led, I just take a camera about with me and see what takes my eye. I do tend to photograph more travelling, and I have been lucky enough to visit some really interesting places over the past 6 years or so.
With regards to the upkeep of the site I suppose I just post stuff when I feel like it these days. Now I have the use of Flickr as well I have become less strict as I tend to post a mix of images to Flickr and then post images that stand out more to me on jimbus.org. When I first started out I used to post an image almost every day but seeing as I pretty much shoot with just film it was quite tedious trying to keep up a consistent level of posting without the quality dropping.

What has your blog brought you so far?

Well firstly add most importantly my site has introduced me to lots of great friends and interesting people from the UK and overseas that I would have never normally met in day to day life.
As far as other opportunities I have had work featured in a few photography books and in some magazines. I have some friends who work as designers also that have been supportive of my work and have used it on various CD sleeves, packaging and posters.
I have image collections with three photographic agencies two based in London (onimage.co.uk and untitled.co.uk) and one in Berlin/New York (fstopimages.com).
There is also a solo show next year at the Dimbola Lodge Gallery on The Isle Of Wight from April - June.
You can see examples of work in print on my folio site www.jimbus.co.uk.

What camera(s) do you use?

My main carry around camera is a Contax T3 (small with an amazing lens). I also use a Contax G2 with a 45mm and 28mm lens and a Mamiya 7II with an 80mm and 65mm lens. I usually carry one camera at a time unless I am travelling then I carry two, one of which will always be the Mamiya. I don’t lug around lots of kit.

Which tools do you use for post-processing, and do you use a lot of post-processing on your shots?

I get all my film scanned straight to disc at the lab, after that I just use photoshop to tweak the curves a bit and add some sharpening if I need to, other than that nothing more. I never crop or retouch any of my images (apart from dust of course). Whatever is on the negative stays there on the image.

Do you ever have any lack of inspiration and, if so, what do you do about it?

Of course, sometimes I am totally uninspired, On occasions I don’t even get through a roll in a month, especially in the winter months when everything is drab. It’s dark going to work and dark coming home. Luckily for me I have the running to distract me, I try to run a marathon in the spring every year so my training takes place through most of winter, photography can sometimes take a back seat during that time.
For inspiration I sometimes check out books of photographers who’s work I like or visit galleries, go see a good film, or simply put some music on. If all else fails I go for a short run, that usually gets the brain working, especially first thing in the morning when the sun is out.Would you like to share one or more other photoblogs with us which you personally like?

There’s a lot of people who’s photo sites I visit so I find it hard to pick just one without feeling bad about not mentioning all the others.
Can I throw in a wild card and link a photographer who’s Polaroid work I find very inspiring? I have three of his books and his polaroids for me are just leagues ahead of anything else I have seen - his name is Mike Slack and he lives in LA - mike-slack.com. Not strictly a blog I realise but definitely worth a look.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm and is filed under LPB Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.