By Richard Hall
The sudden death of John Whitmore in November 2021 was a huge blow to the analogue photography community and his loss continues to be felt. I never met John in person, but I was a subscriber to his ‘Choosing & Losing’ zine series and, like many others, felt that I knew him through his podcasting at Sunny16.
When “The Sunnies” sold some film rescued from John’s darkshed as “Bananachromatic Black & Whitmore” a small group got together and published a zine using photos made with the film on a theme which John had himself intended to use for a community zine. ‘Lucid‘ came out in May 2023, raising £200 for the Asthma + Lung UK. It felt like a job well done.
Conversations online and at the Analogue Spotlight event in Nottingham later that year caused me to wonder if a follow-up zine might be a possibility. After a series of emails and Discord messages, a group of photographers committed to the project began to emerge. The ‘Lucid’ contributors were at the core, but whereas Lucid was produced by seven photographers, this new zine would be a gang of 12 from around the world.
Bananachromatic sold out long ago, so for the sake of consistency, and because film photographers love a limitation, we decided that photos for this project should be taken on Kosmo Foto Agent Shadow 400 film. There was no sponsorship or affiliate deal here – this film was chosen because it’s a good and relatively inexpensive brand that we wanted to support.
The theme and title of the zine is ‘Ambiguous’. Each contributor was able to
interpret the theme in whatever way they wanted. Words to accompany the photography were encouraged but weren’t in any way compulsory.
The result is a diverse and interesting set of interpretations on the theme in a zine which I’m really proud to have been part of. At 60 pages, it is bigger than the average zine, but the price is still modest: £12 to the UK, £15 to the rest of the world.
Surplus after printing and postage costs from sale of the zine are again going to Asthma + Lung UK in memory of John Whitmore. We’ve also produced a postcard of one of John’s photos chosen by his partner and a copy is being included as a bonus with the first 50 zines sold.
Details of how to order are on my website (see link above) or you can contact me through Bluesky. I’m not really doing any other social media at the moment, but you will find me there.
