Twelve Months of 4×5 – A One Shot Story

This is a one shot start to the story, so to speak… it’s of an Old wooden structure on the shore of the Solway Firth, Cumbria, England taken with an Arca Swiss 4×5 Camera.

I ended last year in a bit of a rut. As an amateur photographer I had burnt out over the winter months trying to photograph with ageing cameras in less than ideal condition craving to get out and shoot. As we all know winter is a tough time for photographers, although some flourish in the harsh conditions, I do not.

One of my many new years resolutions for 2026 is to expose at least one 4×5 sheet per month to pursue some consistency and get me out of this rut. I decided to send my main camera, the Leica M4-P, to get a full overhaul and the degrading prism re-silvered. With a 4-5 month turnaround it was good motivation to dust off my other cameras namely my 4×5 camera and start the year off sticking to my resolution.

So in true British winter style the weather did not let up for almost the entire of January and time was really ticking by on this project.

Finally on the 31st January I said to my wife, I’m just going to nip to the post office and take a shot on the 4×5. I’d planned the frame over many months, it’s nothing special but the tide needed to be out. I checked the tide: perfect, all the way out! So I packed the 4×5 kit and set off on my microscopic adventure.

Setting up my franken-camera, made from parts of an Arca Swiss large format camera I picked up from the popular online bidding site for a bargain price, it reminded me that my photography gloves were worth every penny! If you have never shot large format I would highly recommend it to anyone but the process is slow, intentional and until you’re all set up you don’t know exactly what the camera will see. It’s a beautiful process and the negatives are simply fantastic!

The one shot in question is fairly basic, I spent a little bit of time working out my framing to capture all of the elements without over filling the frame. I’m relatively pleased with the final image and like I said I had been planning to capture this frame for some time having driven past it several times when the tide was in. The scene itself is on the West coast of Cumbria on the shore of the Solway Firth looking over to Scotland with Criffel in the distance.

This project is a motivational tool to inspire consistency and although it’s only the first shot of (hopefully) twelve I am excited to continue planning and making the photos. The film used was Ilford FP4+ exposed at f16 for 1/15th of a second & developed in DDX.

At the time of writing this I’ve already massively messed up the February shot… but that’s a story for the next instalment.

Keep up to date with my recent work on Instagram or my newly created Portfolio.

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