With the partial solar eclipse only a couple of hours away, my friend Jaap and I cycled down to the Copernicus Science Centre on the Boulevard of the Wisła River. The idea, of course, was to make some photographs of Varsovians enjoying the once-in-a-generation celestial moment.

We arrived to find a queue to the rooftop snaking all the way along past the centre and down the road. The ol’ press card got us to the front, and as we waited, Jaap noticed something odd. There were more than a few Secret Service agents setting up security pat-down tables. Things just got interesting. Who’s coming along to this, then?

Through security, we discovered that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Donald Tusk, would be joining observers on the roof to enjoy the solar eclipse. An added bonus for our respective photo stories.

On the roof, the Science Centre had provided telescopes, filters, and everything folk might need to enjoy the solar eclipse.

Editing Music

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A Tom Holland Double Bill

Despite the many well-publicised and much-debated issues with the film, I thought the Odyssey was a fantastic spectacle. Sitting 3 rows from the front in Warsaw’s IMAX cinema, I felt like I was inside the movie and my tiny wee mind was blown throughout. It was quite a journey. (Sorry). I don’t disagree with some of the criticism, though throughout I’ve found some of those online classicists to be so conservatively joyless in their appraisals. Somebody get these purists out of here.

The very next day, I enjoyed the second film of my Tom Holland, John Bernthal, and Zendaya double bill at the pre-premiere of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It’s so Spidey. I loved it. Again, it’s not perfect but my goodness it’s so much fun. Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle was a particular highlight, as was Sadie Sink’s debut as [redacted]. With choreography heavily based on the Insomniac Spider-Man games, on Day 3 of my holiday, I found myself back at the PlayStation and proceeded to lose several hours swinging around being the most carefree bastard in New York City.

Superstars and the broken Meta

A little earlier in July, British glam indie icons Suede visited Progresja in Warsaw, and I was in the photo pit for what were an incredible first three songs: Disintegrate, Trash, and Animal Nitrate. What a show it was too. Brett Anderson is a proper superstar. The 15mm on the Leica came in more than handy when he jumped down into the pit to be grabbed and pawed by the adoring fans. It was a real moment.

Holiday or not, I still have my 2026 365 project going on, so I’ve been snapping some work whenever I’m out and about, and when I’m not, I’ve been sharing stuff from earlier in the year. At the end of July, I chose to stop sharing each photo on Instagram. As someone with several thousand followers over there, not breaking into triple-digit views each day rendered the whole exercise pointless. Instead, the photos are shared on my website. A wee bit more about the website in the digest below.

Anyway, enough of all that. Welcome to the first issue of f/Stops, the newsy bit of The Contact Sheet newsletter. If you’ve been here for a while, you may remember the Dispatches series on Substack, where I shared some posts I had read, some news from the world of photography, and some other stuff I was enjoying. In this newsletter, Dispatches has become f/stops, and is much the same, sans the Substack of it all.

Let’s get on with it.

F/Stops

^f/2.8 The British Journal of Photography discovers photographers_struggle_memes.

^f/4 Despite the allusions to the Gen Alpha meme, the Pentax 67 is having a moment and had a key role in the making of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

^f/5.6 Aperture has compiled a list of 25 books that define America.

^f/8 Tish Murtha’s new book, Vandalism on a Grand Scale, is now available, and while mine still waits for me in a box under the stairs in my parents’ house, having seen some of the photos, I highly recommend it. It’s a limited run, so snap it up quickly.

^f/11 Several European countries are considering bans for Meta’s Smart Glasses, something, as a long-time Ray-Bans wearer, I fully support.

^f/16 Stepping away from photography for a moment, the algorithm served me this performance by Molly Walker of her poem Alkaline Reactor. Tremendous.

Digest

To end every issue of f/Stops, I’ll close with a digest of anything I’ve published on neilmilton.scot over the last month.

The Tinnitus Diaries

The Tinnitus Diaries, found at music.neilmilton.scot, is an incomplete and ongoing journal of gigs that I’ve shot since returning to photography during the pandemic. Part diary, part publication, The Tinnitus Diaries finally gives me a place to be excited in sharing my music photography. Initially I toyed with only adding a gallery on neilmilton.scot, however, it felt out of place among all the street photography. What I needed was a site with its own (admittedly similar) look, its own identity, and its own subdomain. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and over the next few months, there’ll be a lot going on over there.

Too Many Fireworks. An Oral History

Before photography, I was an indie-label underachiever. From 2002 until 2019, I owned and managed the Glasgow and Warsaw indie record label, Too Many Fireworks. On January 21st 2027, Too Many Fireworks will turn 25 years old. To celebrate, I am writing about each catalogue number, the club nights, and the other bits and pieces. Speaking to bands, DJs and fans, I am building a small oral history of the label.

And finally…

If you’ve enjoyed this issue, I’d be very grateful if you could recommend it to any photography-loving friends.

This newsletter is free to read, however, as a freelancer in the creative arts, every penny counts. If you like what I do, please consider buying me a roll of film. You can do so by clicking here, or by aiming your camera at the QR code below. Your donations help me keep making photographs and writing.

All labour required to publish The Contact Sheet is undertaken by me alone. As I try to be a better socialist, I donate 10% of all income to anti-capitalist, leftist, or progressive causes or organisations that help make the world a better place. Thank you!

The post f/Stops #1: Vandalism, Struggle Memes and Defining America appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

2013 was a notable year in the history of Too Many Fireworks. In March of that year, the imprint returned from several years in the net-label wilderness to concentrate again on physical releases. After the success of the Variations of Chopin record released in May, the summer saw our first Polish release from Plug&Play.

Plug&Play

Fronted by founder Kuba Majsiej, the Lublin band had recently made several line-up changes and moved from post-punk to a more polished pop sound. As Kuba told me, the transformation from a raw, dark band into something more danceable and pop-oriented was led by his desire for bright clean sounds and that prior to this they hadn’t necessarily had the technical and financial means to play music that broke free from the shell of raw post-punk. To my ears, the music reminded me of a less frantic incarnation of The Matchsticks (post-Too-Many-Fireworks Flying Matchstick Men), so the e.p., Reisefieber, felt like a suitable first dip of the toes into the Polish music scene for the label.

I must confess that I don’t remember exactly how or where Kuba and I met, but I have to imagine it was through one of the myriad record fairs that I was visiting with Too Many Fireworks at the time. It may even have been through their manager of the time, Monika Mazurek – now a Michelin-recognised chef and co-owner of Peaches Gastro Girls, in Warsaw.

Plug&Play became our first Polish artists and the relationship benefited us both. I was looking for Polish music, specifically, and though I showed interest in several bands at the time, a couple of whom found their way onto our compilation record, in the end we didn’t continue the relationship thereafter, choosing to work with Plug&Play. The band, on the other hand, had recently seen the bankruptcy of their previous label, where, to this day, they never managed a physical release of their debut album, Why So Close? Too Many Fireworks, then, came along just at the right time.

Reisefieber

Beautiful, soft, pastel-coloured artwork wrapped the EP (four tracks and two radio edits) and signalled to the band’s audience that this record might not be quite what they were expecting. The songwriting was, to me, exceptional. The inclusion of Wojtek, a reggae-influenced bass player, and the voices of two women backing Kuba in Luiza Orpik (guitar and percussion) and Agnieszka Ozon (keys) brought out a more mature side to the composition.

Looking for ways to freshen up the band’s sound, they featured a guest saxophone (Sahara Beach and Brand New Day) and added spoken-word passages in German (Like Analog Tapes), something Kuba said they would have considered heresy just a few years earlier. All being said, the record has faint allusions to the bands they were listening to at the time, Foals, Alt-J, and Metronomy, to name a few. On Reisefieber, the band swims in catchy, melodic indie pop, while the darker post-punk/new wave sound remains an undertow ready to pull the listener deeper down toward it.

Bright Moments

I’m far too shy to include the kind things that Kuba wrote in our messages back and forth, reminiscing about the cooperation with the label and me; however, I do remember feeling the excitement shared by the band and me as we prepared for the release of the e.p. – an event that coincided with Kuba’s wedding. All in all, everyone involved shares warm feelings. Searching for a photo of the band to accompany this post reminded me that Plug&Play shared the stage at Palladium in Warsaw with my band, The Frozen North. That was some night. Another memory that sticks out was my trip down to Lublin for a record fair to promote the record and to hang out with the band during rehearsal. Those, more than many of the more official functions of being a record label, are often the most fun.

I’ll leave the penultimate words to Kuba, who, when looking back on the record, sees it as one of those bright moments in the band’s history that gave us the confidence that it was good we existed. For Too Many Fireworks, Reisefieber was a diving board into a deeper pool of Polish music that we may not have waded in were it not for Plug&Play.

Reisefieber was released on CD and digital download on July 15th, 2013, and we gave it the catalogue number 2mf014. You can listen to the single here

The post TOO MANY FIREWORKS. AN ORAL HISTORY, MOSTLY. 2MF014 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Supported by local band Bujaturla, English indie glam superstars Suede come to Progresja in Warsaw to promote their new album, Antidepressants.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

Listen

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Kilsyth’s The Twilight Sad perform at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow for a cathartic, emotional return home. Supported by London Dream-pop band Deary. This was honestly one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

Listen

The post The Twilight Sad. Glasgow, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Kilsyth’s The Twilight Sad perform at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow for a cathartic, emotional return home. Supported by London Dream-pop band Deary.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

Listen

The post The Twilight Sad. Glasgow, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Albion’s premier songwriter and former enfant-terrible, Peter Doherty, performs an intimate show for fans at Warsaw’s Niebo.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

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The post Peter Doherty. Warsaw, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Pioneers of Desert Blues, Tuareg collective, Tinariwen, visit Progresja in Warsaw on the Polish leg of their Hoggar tour.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

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The post Tinariwen. Warsaw, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

UK alt-rock veterans Bôa return to Warsaw, this time to the Progresja stage, to perform for the Polish audience.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

Listen

The post Bôa. Warsaw, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.

Ukrainian folk quartet Dakhabrakha return to Progresja in Warsaw on their tour to promote their new album Ptakh.

Three Songs, No Flash

The Archive

Listen

The post Dakhabrakha. Warsaw, 2026 appeared first on Neil Milton Photography.