As soon as I saw a photo magically appear from the front of my brand new Christmas present, a Polaroid ‘Super Swinger’ Land camera I knew photography was going to play a huge part of my life. I loved how you could capture a moment in time and stuff it in your back pocket. Taking pictures soon became an obsession. I became a regular visitor to our small local library, leaning everything I could about this fascinating subject. One book In particular described how to develop film and print your own photographs.

So I asked my parents if I could build a small darkroom in the corner of my bedroom. ( I think my Dad warmed to the idea when I promised to print his holiday snaps at cost). So with the money I’d saved from my paper round I bought some equipment which had been advertised in the Exchange and Mart. I spent the following weeks blacking out the windows, setting up my enlarger and developing dishes. After multiple kettles of hot water and many days of trial and error, mainly error, I finally learnt how to develop and print my own black and white photographs. Sure, It would have been far cheaper for me to send my films to the local chemist, but the satisfaction of finally mastering the process was well worth the extra cost. It wasn’t long before I set my sights on producing colour photographs. A huge step up in difficulty, but something I was determined to master.

Around this time I became interested in shooting and editing Cine film and with the help of my school mates submitted a short film to Michael Rodd’s BBC ‘Screen Test’ program called ‘The Crime That Never Was’. I later completed a stop motion epic using my youngest Sisters plaster of Paris ‘Magic Roundabout’ figures and my Brothers turntable for the opening sequence. ( well I thought it was epic )

I left school in 1977 and after a chance phone call from the schools careers advisor I managed to get myself a job in a Photographic shop in Hayes. It was sheer luck that during the interview the manager said he remembered me buying paper and chemicals from him a few months earlier, so he knew I was genuinely interested in the subject. He was an elderly man who had worked in photography most his life, so was able to teach me many things that I was unlikely to find in the books I’d been reading. I remember spending most of my first week wages on bits and pieces for my brand new darkroom making the most of my staff discount. The worst part of my job was working Saturdays, but that did give me Wednesday afternoons off so I would grab my camera with a roll of Ilford FP4 and took pictures that I could develop later that evening.

Two years later I got a job in a photo lab in Kenton, Harrow where my duties would include film developing and printing. In 1988 I joined Richie Colour, based in London as a heavy weight C and R type printer. It was a major step up for me as it was then considered to be one of the best professional labs in the country. Clients included Debenhams and Ford UK where we would work on the prototypes for their new models. I later joined their digital retouching department. I was then given an extensive training course using the image manipulating software Photoshop which I still use today.

In 2002 I started collecting equipment for what would later become APG Video. I began by converting my old cine films and video’s expanding to family and friends. Fast forward to 2024 and I’m still busy purchasing machines, to continuously expand our range of services.

Cine still holds such a fascination for me, so as I check the results from our latest order on a widescreen monitor it still gives me the same feeling as the Polaroids did all those years ago.

So if you’re starting a project and need something digitising please get in touch, we’d love to help.

Text or phone : 07880 883622 or email me on : andy@apgvideo.co.uk

I hope to hear from you soon

Andy