Earlier this year and during a day of torrential rain, I met up with letterpress print maker Tom Boulton, aka Type Tom. I first met Tom when my wife and I attended a book binding workshop with him a few years ago and we bonded over our mutual love of eating biscuits and drinking copious amounts of tea.
I stayed in touch with Tom and we often spoke about meeting up to shoot some portraits.
Time went on and eventually we found some time to shoot, with the threat of the UK going into lockdown looming on the horizon.
Leading up to the shoot, I threw a few ideas Toms way over email as I knew that I wanted to make a portrait with him that would have some impact, and wasn't just a straightforward portrait.
The idea that I had always had in my head was for him to be part of the printing process by having his head coming through the letterpress frame.
Thankfully he was up for it, so once Tom had locked the type into the chase (the metal frame that holds everything together) we began to precariously balance the heavy frame on one of his other presses. Gaffer tape and a photographic C-stand helped to steady the set up so that Tom could put his head through the frame.
The editorial was published in issue 12 of Pressing Matters magazine.
Special thanks to Tom, and also to John Coe for running the editorial.
Rob Luckins has been a Contributor since 25th November 2015.
