Inspiring Case Studies

How Cassie Learned To Create Award Winning Digital Pictures

Cassie is a young professional living in Weybridge, Surrey. Her work takes her to the far east as a Civil Engineer. For the short periods of time when she is at home she lives with her parents. She has been interested in photography from her mid-teens and at school she had access to the school darkroom where she eagerly soaked up all the information on printing she could find.

She readily says her prints weren’t great at that time but they gave her the satisfaction of learning the art and craft of darkroom printing. “There is something magical in seeing the print emerge from the paper as the developer tray is gently rocked in the dim glow of the red darkroom safe light” she says. Due to pressures of study Cassie lost contact with black and white photography for a few years. Now that she is established in a stable but hectic job she occasionally has the opportunity to take digital pictures that she displays in frames around her office.

Nagging Doubts

On reflection, there was always a nagging doubt that the digital prints coming out of her Canon A3 Inkjet printer did not have the same look and depth as the prints she had made before in the darkroom. Cassie knows that the paper and ink technology is capable of great prints.She sees the stunning work others are producing but that satisfaction was eluding her.   After a time Cassie decided to take two courses of action. Firstly to upgrade her digital printing skills with the aim of making digital prints with the quality of the darkroom process and secondly, if that was not possible, to return to film photography.

The way forward

After an interchange of emails, Cassie enthusiastically booked herself onto the Mono Masterclass in Snowdonia. After the booking was made Andy sent her a copy of the textbook for the masterclass – The Dark Art – A Digital Black and White Printing Manual by Andy Beel, which Cassie studied as best she could between work and a social life. When the Masterclass came around later in the year, Cassie was excited to meet the other participants and found they all had roughly the same desire to make their best efforts with digital mono printing even better with the help of bespoke training and insights from a leader in the field.