Negatives by Thom Davidson

Hey my name is Thom im 30 yrs old, I'm a commercial lifestyle photographer, I live in Perth WA with my partner and our cheeky golden retriever Wilbur. I shoot Food and Cocktails every day for Restaurants, bars and Hotels and I love working with the wonderful people that make up the hospitality world. 

I never really actually set out to be a photographer, I always thought I would have a desk job, I went to uni and got a commerce degree. My first proper camera was a Nikon D3000, I got when I was 18 and instantly fell in love with photography, and pretty much shot everything I could. I shot bars, live music, friends party and eventually started getting offered paid work and here I am today.

Over the past year I have started shooting a lot of film again for all my personal work as I love the realness that it brings back to photography. The feeling of pulling your negatives out of the tank and seeing what you shot for the first time really brings me back to why I love being a photographer.

I currently shoot all nikon for my digital commercial work, and have just started to switch over to the Nikon Z system. I was a massive sceptic about the whole mirrorless thing, until Sam at Camera Electronics gave me one to try and I haven't looked back. 

For all things film, well I have switched around a bit with various cameras and mediums but have now settled on 3 of my favs. I'm currently running:

Hasselblad 500cm With 80mm 2.8 and a 45 prism

Leica M6 with a 28, 35 & 50mm

Nikonos V with 35mm 2.5

I really love shooting on black and white film for a couple reasons. One it's timeless and secondly it takes all distractions that colours can give and allows the viewer to rally focus on what's happening in the image. Some of my favs are:

JCH Streetpan 400 (for anything in the ocean) really love the deep blacks you get out of this

Ilford HP5 - Common classic, just so reliable and versatile, can shoot it anywhere from 400-1600 with no issues

Tri X 400, Just has that classic black and white film look 

For colour I generally only shoot Portra 400 at (200), but I have a couple rolls of ektachrome 100 to try out.

Some of my favourite photographers are:

Samuel Elkins

Willem Verbeeck

Joe Greer

Joe Brook

Giles Duley

Chase Jarvis 

The photos attached are from a little project I am currently working on. I have grown up around the ocean from a young age, surfing at any opportunity I could. There is a real strong community amongst surfers and hopefully these images give an insight into a place called Trigg Point.

 

If you are interested in checking out my commercial work see below.