Hello my name is Martin Dorey and you are watching AdoramaTV. Welcome to the
second episode of my new series about photographers working at the extremes. I'll
be rummaging around in their kitbags to find out what they use and how they get
some of the shots that they have. Now, today I'm back with photographer and
lecturer Andy Hughes on Dartmoor National Park - it's amazing - to talk to him about the work he
does with some of his students. He's going to be teaching them, today,
how to capture images with a large format camera and how that can relate
back to their digital photography.
OK, Andy, so you're here today on Dartmoor,
with a bunch of your students from the College with your other hat on,
so would you mind explaining to us what you're doing today and what you're
students hope to learn from it.
Yes I'm here today with a bunch of my first year degree students from college
and we're out exploring the landscape today really and getting them to look at using some
digital technologies but also get them to still appreciate the sort of..the
beauty and the slowness of using analog photography, and that's why I brought
this 10x8 plate camera today and we're going to be setting this up this afternoon and
basically, instead of using film, we're going to be using photographic paper and that's
going to be, touch wood, processed in the van. So I've turned the van into a little mini darkroom.
So today, you're students will learn everything from setting the exposure to loading the
camera and eventually will end up with a finished print?
Well, yeah, they'll end up with a print but it will be a negative, of course, so
maybe at some future point, later in the week, they will
scan that in and then invert that in Photoshop so they end up with a positive.
So you can use positive paper which I have
been using, but that's particularly temperamental to use, it's quite difficult to use.
So you're going back to absolute basics and how do you find that that
will influence your students when it comes to going back to their digital photography?
The key thing is, is because this is basically a box, isn't it really?
And it has a lens, it has a bellows and has something where the light receives onto a
plate, onto photographic film, because the reality is, most photography that's what it's
about. It's just about light hitting the surface, whether that's an analog surface or a
digital CCD. So, today, you know, by the end of today they've all realize that
this stuff we call light is controlled by, you know, a lens, passes through this space and
hits, so I think the key thing is sometimes digital photography is very
much related to, you know, literally pressing a button in a sequence and maybe
using the fact that a computer is inside there, it's doing things for you that you
need to control. This is entirely different because you have to set the
aperture, you have to measure the light, you have to use, you know, cock the shutter. It's all
sort of like a.. It's like a finely tuned watch. You know digital photography is fantastic but it
does allow people to work at ease, but also with speed and anybody will also begin to
understand that looking after and archiving a digital photograph is a task in itself because
nowadays people are shooting thousands of pictures and all those thousands of
pictures maybe never get looked at really. When you're working with a camera
like this that uses film, you take one picture, it takes 20 minutes, you know, you're
going to get five pictures done in an afternoon, not 5,000 so that slowing down is like
yoga for photographers. It's a yoga experience.
So they're having to really think about composition, aperture, exposure, the whole thing
And I think it stops you. It makes you look because
when you have this camera and you've got a cape over it and you're looking at this flat screen it's
like, I would say it's like watching a film on an iPhone or being in the cinema.
They're two different things aren't they? If you're in the cinema you get the whole
scale, size and smell of thing. If you're watching it on an iPhone small, it's a private moment.
Sometimes it can give you that vastness. This is a vaster, different kind of experience and
those two things compliment themselves.
So where would you rather be? Where are you
happiest? Using this or using a digital camera?
I won't come down on either.
I would think... I mean the thing is inclement weather is obviously a problem
with this sort of technology because it's longer. So if it's colder,
windier, I mean you can't use a camera like this in the wind.
This is the polar opposite of how you shoot when you do your trash photography isn't it?
Well I think what I'm going to do, though, is I'm thinking I might try the... I might take this to Glastonbury.
Can you imagine having this in Glastonbury? In a tent, 4 inches off the ground,
taking one photograph? I mean it can be done.
But surely it would be less of the moment than your previous stuff.
It would be less of the moment but you know what will happen? You'll get into conversations because
photography, often, is about conversations, so whether it's photographers talking about a kit, talking about the
latest camera, talking about the subject... This, when you take this out to public
space, people stop and talk to you. Because photography is a conduit conversation. I
think a lot of people tend to think photography is this instant, visual recording of
things and memories but the reality is, whether it's, you know, the family
snapshot or the GoPro piece of film, you know, snowboarding, when you're watching that
piece of film you might be with your girlfriend, your partner, your kids, you're have a
conversation about how amazing it was to go down that snow board or surf that
wave with the GoPro. It's about conversations.
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