Kevin, who died in 2001 aged 81, was a good but not great photographer and a good but not great writer. So why did I like him so much? Well, it was his conversational style that appealed to me. Reading one of Kevin's columns was like enjoying a pint with him in the pub where he'd go over what he'd been doing that day. It was undemanding, interesting, friendly and seemed to have the effect of encouraging me to get out and take more photographs.
I didn't know it at the time, but Kevin had an interesting life. He fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco, was refused a sitting by Hitler (something he wore as a badge of honour) and presented a TV show about photography in the 1960s.
He was a regular contributor to Photography magazine from the 1950s to the 1980s. Sadly, I don't have many photography magazines featuring his columns but those I held onto are well-thumbed. Since he inspired me to take photographs, I thought he might do the same for people new to film and darkroom practices or digital snappers thinking of giving it a go. So that's why I've written this page dedicated to Kevin.
On it you'll find scans of some of his magazine articles which I hope you'll enjoy. You'll maybe notice that he seemed rather fond of Johnsons of Hendon products and Tamron lenses. That's because he had very close links to the company which was the UK distributor of Tamron lenses.
I'm going to look out for publications which featured his writing and I'll add further material as and when I find it. If you're already a Kevin fan and have some mags with his columns in them, it would be great if you could spare the time to scan them and email them to me for inclusion here.
For more background information about Kevin, please visit this excellent website.
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Photography Magazine
April, 1981
Photography Magazine
February, 1983
35mm Photography Magazine
November, 1983
35mm Photography Magazine
December, 1983
35mm Photography Magazine
August, 1984
35mm Photography Magazine
February, 1985
35mm Photography Magazine
February, 1984
35mm Photography Magazine
September, 1983
35mm Photography Magazine
September, 1984
5 comments:
When I was a member of the South Essex Camera Club 1952-59 he came to talk about B&W Portraiture with multiple flash and took a photo of ME on his Rolleiflex on Selochrome Film which he got a member to process in 'Capitol' developer that Johnsons of Hendon sold and I still have that print -- I must have been about 19 years old --
Good story, Peter. He seemed like a nice guy from what I've read.
Can anyone put me in touch with Kevin MacDonnell's family?
Minor point but it may be of interest. I don't remember Capitol as a developer but I do remember Unitol by Johnson's of Hendon, a fine grain general purpose developer which I used at the time as a schoolboy who loved photography in the very late 1950s. I can remember an advert in photo magazines promoting the developer, which featured a tug in a harbour and an endorsement by Kevin MacDonnell himself. In fact, it was an excellent developer, not to be regarded as something for mere beginners. Anchell and Troop refer to it in their book, The Film Developing Cookbook, as having a "particularly beautiful mid-tone gradation", a superb and pleasing range of mid greys that was easy to notice even for beginners like me. Later I found that Ilford's Microphen and Perceptol gave me a similar grey palette.
Of course Paterson produced many great developers, particularly under the guidance of Geoffrey Crawley, a distinguished photo-chemist, including Acutol, Aculux and the FX range. Johnstons of Hendon also made a phenomenally sharp developer called Definol that I only used once because it produced portrait images that had an engraving-like sharpness, far too sharp for me!
I was about to say, those were the days, but of course we still have many of those earlier developers (ID11, Perceptol (itself very close to Microdol X), Rodinal and great new ones like Spur.
Thanks for that, Anthony. Unitol seems to have been a particularly good developer judging by all the favourable comments I’ve read about it over the years. I think Capitol was a specialised nuclear brew from the 1950s designed to give films a right kick up the bum in low light conditions.
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