Mark Moran’s black and white film series capturing quiet, instinctive encounters with strangers, where mood, light, and subtlety take precedence over spectacle.
Photography has been lurking in the background, following me around for as long as I can remember. A constant presence growing up and has remained in my shadow during my other creative adventures.
I have an itch to create, to draw, to paint and photography is a medium much like any other I choose to work with. Painting with light. Portraiture and documenting interests me, creating strong images, whether drawing with a pencil or painting on a canvas, I strive to project the image I see in my mind.
Photography, particularly film photography, is a medium to capture a raw image and I immerse myself in the slow methodical process. Shooting with film produces a negative which I can take into the darkroom and paint with light to create a print. Finally, the image I see in my mind is projected and I can hold it.
I have stripped away colour so I can concentrate on the subject, location and composition but more importantly, the mood of the black and white photograph.
I use black to draw a line, adding other values of blacks and greys to create a drawing, working from black to white but never adding white. I try to bring this method across to my black and white film photography. Using flat low light as the basis for the image. Intentionally seeking out low light and avoiding bright contrasty scenes.
Portraits
I am drawn to subtlety. The ordinary and plain that fits with my vision and will excel in black and white. Over recent years I have moved further away from a flamboyant or ‘interesting’ looking person because I don’t want this to overpower the portrait.
Choosing someone and approaching them is a decision made in a split second. I can’t say what makes someone stand out to me, stance, movement, clothing, all these will no doubt have some influence but it happens so quickly I trust my own judgement knowing there is the chance of a good outcome. It doesn’t always work but gut feeling and a sod it attitude can work wonders. Mix with a smidge of luck and occasionally all these elements just align.
I have trained my eye hard to see how colours will look in black and white. Even though I’m shooting black and white, colours or tones catch my eye and I know how they will convert. I pick a village, town or city and set off to explore. I don’t direct too much, maybe position the person where I’d like them in relation to the background but that’s about it. Oh, and don’t smile.
Mark Moran is a portrait and documentary photographer working with 35mm and medium format film in North Wales. Photography has followed him like a shadow through other creative pursuits—drawing, painting, making—each driven by the same impulse to express mood and form.
Hannah Caldwell uses nature’s forms and suspended blooms to explore impermanence, and the tender dualities at the heart of human experience.
Andrzej Wojciechowski’s minimalist, meditative journey through symbolic landscapes where body, technology, and myth quietly converge.
Michael Wriston captures America’s backroad gospel in bold, sun-bleached signs—part sermon, part spectacle—shouting belief into the roar of passing trucks.
Juan Galán documents life on Trani’s breakwater — a social crossroads where locals of all ages gather daily to swim, fish, talk, and connect by the sea.
