This is our friend Tom: classical musician, music teacher (retired), bon viveur and camera addict. We have known Tom for almost 40 years, much of which time has been spent in his company round the coffee tables, beer halls and tapas bars of western Europe. He has kindly given permission for me to upload this series.

I am aware that Tom has owned a number of classic cameras, notably at least one Nikon F2 and a Leica R3 (or maybe R4), but for the past few years he has relied on a Canon digital compact while considering the options for his main digital camera. In March he decided on a Nikon D600 plus a few lenses.

We met up with Tom at Beamish Museum a few weeks later; it was his first opportunity to put the camera through its paces. By lunchtime we had got as far as the pub whose roaring fire encouraged us to hang around a bit. While there Tom asked me to check a couple of settings* as he hadn't yet got to grips with the handbook; after all, I use a D7000 and the D600 is just a big D7000, isn't it? In return I asked his permission to fire the shutter just once; he agreed.

Back at Woolybill Towers that evening I downloaded the raw files, converted them to DNGs and played with a couple in PS to show Tom 'how it was done'. I extracted this one later and played with it to produce this week's uploads, an exploration of the various moods that can be obtained from a single original by using different crops, proportions and processing.
This is by no means a scientific experiment for the simple reason that it was not premeditated: having processed today's picture (the full frame) I switched the computer off and only returned to the DNG file a week later, so the toning from frame to frame may appear uneven. The files are so huge compared to my Micro 4/3 and APS-C files that they reveal unexpected detail and subtlety even with the kit lens wide open and at minimum focusing distance. And yes, I now want a D600.

I'm not showing the lot all at once as I believe each will stand alone. Naturally today's is presented as the Theme; the four Variations occupy the next four days. Then I can get back to being daft on Saturday

*Tom doesn't agree with setting the date and time in his cameras, as the exif shows!

Tags: Photo journalism Black and white Portraits and people