This image is a straight un-retouched scan of an photograph I created around 15 years ago of a girl called Tess, for a calendar project and employs no special make-up or Photoshop.

To be altogether accurate and to give credit where credit’s due, this was but one of a number of photographs I created at that time with Iain Claridge who has since gone on to become a very fine website designer.

Iain and I used to spend far more time than is healthy in the darkroom back in those days!) and involved ourselves in a fair bit of fiddling with colour filtration settings to get this result. It makes me appreciate how much easier it is to achieve such results nowadays, with Photoshop, sat at a computer with a coffee in hand, rather than hours stuck in a hot, dark and stinky darkroom – that said however, I remain a purist when it comes to the unique attributes of film and chemistry, and the infinite variables of the darkroom.

What you might find amusing is that almost 15 years later, I bumped into Tess again; as the wife of one of my design business clients.