Raymond Julian-Huxley
TheVirtual Darkroom
My Portfolio
Dedications
This website is dedicated to my dear friend, Phil Douglis (www.pbase.com/pnd1), who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been a wealth of inspiration in his reviews of my work. As I am terribly dyslexic, I can never express my work in words (I just let the pictures do the talking). I communicate with him every week with a new batch of pictures, and wonderful desciptions of my work come back to me. It is so helpful in the way I progress with my visual perception.
I'm not entirely sure how I became friends with Phil, as it must be at least 10 plus years that we have been communicating (I probably found his website). We are both in the twilight years of our life, so there is a great affinity between us. I am at times likely to become very depressed and the demons take over, but Phil is always at hand with his constructive words and makes me feel the need to carry on.
Phil is also a great traveller and photographer. I enjoy so much the virtual travels to all the wonderful places that his website provides. At his age, I just don't know how he does it.
It's also wonderful to have an occasional rant with Phil on the likes and dislikes of photography and the world at large. Sometimes it has me rocking with laughter. It's such a tonic!
So I say, thank you, Phil. I'll look forward to many more years of communication with you.
Two other great influences in the world of photography were Geoffrey Crawley and Richard Nutt.
When I was in my early 20s, I met Geoffrey Crawley at the British Journal of Photography when he was editor, which was then based in Covent Garden in a rickety old building with an old staircase to his office. Sadly, Geoffrey is no longer with us and his like will never walk this way again. They just don't make people today with Geoffrey's kind of intellect. I would visit him every few weeks and have endless conversations about film and cameras. I am one of many who owe Geoffrey a lot in terms of his inspiration to make great pictures.
Another great influence was a near neighbour at the time where I was living as a teenager; Richard Nutt was a very great photographer and worked in several film formats, i.e. 5X4 plate camera, a rolleiflex and also Nikon 35mm. I would often go out with him and take pictures. It was thanks to this man that I learnt the regime of metering the light to get the perfect exposure, which has remained with me to this day. I would spend many an hour with Richard in his, at the time, state of the art chemical dark room. This again taught me the rigours of bringing to life a negative — culminating in a beautiful print. This experience is how I produce my digital prints today. Richard is, however, sadly no longer with us.
Thanks to these two people, a lifelong wide-eyed perception of photography has brought a huge richness to my life.