SLOW Photography movement

Take your time and take one picture for bigger rewards.

lane terry
THERE we were, out in the forest taking photos of the waterfall, when the conversation naturally turned to the great Ansel Adams. Just as every composer has the misfortune to work in the shadow of Beethoven , so every photographer is overawed by the American master of landscape photography.

One thing we agreed on was that he would not be using our ‘‘ take 27 photos and one is bound to be OK’ ’ technique. He would have been there before dawn, lugging his heavy plate camera into the best position, checking his composition, waiting for the light to be just so, and then firing the shutter. Then, one perfect image in the bag, he would pack and up go home. His work flow was then to develop the negative and make a print. And then next year another print. And the year after ... and so on.

One of Adams’s famous photos , Aspens, Northern New Mexico, was shot and first printed in 1958. In 1976 he was still making new prints from the negative, searching for that extra je ne sais quoi in the image. And when you see the prints side by side you see that he found it.

In a recent issue of the online magazine Slate, Tim Wu (slate.com/id/2279659) writes about what he sees as a reaction to the mindless profligacy of digital snapping. He applauds the arrival of the ‘‘ slow photography movement’’ .

‘‘ Slow photography is the effort to flip the usual relationship between process and results,’’ he says. ‘‘ Usually, you use a camera because you want the results (the photos). In slow photography the basic idea is that photos themselves — the results — are secondary. The goal is the experience of studying some object carefully and exercising creative choice. That’s it.’’

We know what he means. We came away with some — well, lots of — photos of the waterfall but, if we are honest with ourselves , we would have to say that we didn’t actually see the object. Mind you, it was raining at the time so we were in a hurry but that probably wouldn’t have made Mr Adams speed up and miss the view.

New York Times photographer Fred Conrad’s essay, Slow Photography in an Instantaneous Age

(tinyurl.com/rc5yn4) takes up the theme. Conrad writes: ‘‘ One advantage of using larger formats is that the process is slower. It takes time to set up the camera. It takes time to visualise what you want.

‘‘ When doing portraits, it enables the photographer to talk and listen to subjects, to observe their behaviour. A camera can trap a photographer sometimes. You can look so intently through a viewfinder that you are unaware of the picture in front of you. When I use an 8x10 camera for portraits, I will compose the picture and step back. Using a long cable release, I will look at the subject and wait for the moment. It’s very liberating.’’

From now on, we promise, we spend hours looking at the waterfall and 1/250th of a second taking a single photo.


Copyright © 2010 Fairfax Media

I basically support the idea. The digital generation has reduced imaging success to the " law of Averages" .  I see that large format is great . The full frame sony 850 produces  a 20 x 13 inch image at 300 dpi. That is 4 times larger than an 10x8 contact print. The quality is as good if not better in many way than film. It also can shoot at 3 frames/ second.