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who are we
welcome to negative outlook - i’m jim, the guy in the lab.
i’m a photographer, a lifelong lover of film, and someone who’s spent years shooting, developing and scanning, obsessing over the little things that make an image feel right.
negative outlook is an independent boutique film lab based in the Midlands, born from that obsession and a desire to get more from our negatives.
growing up through the '90s, film was just part of life. we’d shoot a roll, send it off and get back something that could look completely different depending on where it was developed.
different labs, different machines, different interpretations, and that got me thinking.
the negative outlook way!
we’ve come to accept that whatever comes out of a commercial scanner is simply “the film look.”
but it isn't.
a scanner doesn’t see your photograph. it interprets your negative...
my approach is simple: find what’s already there.
if the colour is there, i want to bring it out. if there’s detail in the shadows or highlights, i want to recover it. i’m not trying to change your photograph - i want to get the very best from what you actually captured.
every frame is individually considered and scanned by me.
see the difference.
below, you can compare commercial lab scans with my own scans of the same negatives - commercial lab scans can be excellent, and there’s nothing wrong with that look. but you might want more colour, more detail, more punch and more control.
there’s no single “correct” way to scan a negative. it’s your photograph.
i want to build a relationship with you and understand how you want your photographs to look.
because film is more than just sending a roll away and waiting for it to come back.
more than a lab.
I want negative outlook to be about all things film, for the love of film.
we’re planning photography walks, workshops, coffee mornings, film discussions and meet-ups, whether you’ve been shooting for 40 years or you’ve just bought your first disposable camera.
the cameras, the chemistry, the anticipation, the occasional disaster and that one frame that makes it all worthwhile.
that’s what Negative Outlook is about.
good film. properly looked after. a lab built around you. For the love of film.