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Embrace The Chaos

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Howzit all! I hope you’ve been having a great week.

Earlier today, I recorded a video about the images submitted for the Focus and Feeling assignments last week, and one photograph truly made me think. The photographer had been experimenting with a relatively simple idea — and it reminded me of something important. Lately, a few people in the TPE Tribe have been engaging in similar kinds of experiments, and it’s made me realise how often, in modern photography, we’re told there’s a particular way to achieve a specific result.

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To me, that feels a bit... limited.

One of the aspects I truly loved about photography when I first became serious about it was its unpredictability. For example, one of the early assignments we had was to set the camera’s shutter to bulb mode and use a torch to paint light into the scene. Back then, you didn’t get to see the results immediately — you had to develop the film first — and I always found that fascinating: the idea that you could offer a concept to the film, and then the film would tell you how it chose to interpret it.

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One of the Tribe members has recently been exploring solarisation, inspired by Man Ray, and honestly, I’d love to see more of this kind of playful experimentation.

Some of my favourite photographs come from a period when people weren’t trying to reverse-engineer extremely convoluted processes to make their work look like it was shot on medium format.
Instead, they embraced the beautiful chaos of working with materials and processes they didn’t entirely control.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this:
Do you feel photography should be a strict, structured craft with a defined method?
Or are you happier having a grasp of the basics — and then asking that essential question: “What if?”

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In the Community

I recently asked you to submit photos on the topic of your home town
Here's a look at what was submitted:
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In keeping with this week's theme, please submit your experimental photos here​

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Featured Photographer: Man Ray

Who Was Man Ray — and Why His Experiments Still Matter

Man Ray was one of the true pioneers of photographic experimentation.
Although he’s often associated with the Surrealist and Dada movements, what made his work so striking wasn’t just his connection to a style — it was his relentless willingness to push the boundaries of what photography could be.

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Rather than using the camera to document the world, Man Ray treated it like a tool for invention.
He created "rayographs" — haunting, dreamlike images made without a camera, simply by placing objects directly onto photosensitive paper and exposing them to light.

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He explored solarisation, a technique where a partial reversal of tones during development gave his images a strange, otherworldly quality.
And he constantly embraced accidents, letting chance and chemistry shape the final photograph.

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For Man Ray, photography wasn’t about control — it was about discovery.
He showed that the photograph could be as much about the artist’s imagination as it was about the outside world.

I think there’s a lot we can learn from that today.

​https://www.manray.net/​

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Personal Photo Feedback

As one of the wonderful people reading this newsletter, I'd like to offer you an opportunity for a 15-minute Zoom call to discuss one of your photos and how to improve your work.
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These are just £10 (I'd like to offer them for free, but to ensure people don't book up the limited slots and then not show, I have to ask for a small commitment), and are limited to 5 per week.
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​You can book a session here​
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Thanks again for reading. I hope you have an awesome week!
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Alex