Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It’s called Bertha, it’s a gigantic camera built out of a desire to find out what photography can reveal beyond certain limits.
From the first moment I started experimenting I sensed that there are still many ways to go, past and present can merge, just as old and new technologies, historical knowledge can find new contemporary interpretations.
Sometimes, the stories behind why we may own a certain piece of kit can be more interesting than the item itself. This short film from Andrea Casanova of Branco Ottico embodies that idea. Called “The Camera Collector”, the mysterious narrator recounts his tales of gear acquisition over the past half century. The beating his father gave him after purchasing a Leica, and his determined response to make a living from photography.
He doesn’t collect just kit, though, but all kinds of photographic history. It really is a fascinating look at how we perceive things. What makes something special to us. Is it the item that’s special? Or the story behind it? The unknown collector does finally make peace with his father, in the end, too. The video is in Italian, but has English subtitles.
Looking at a print 24 square meters large up close is impressive, but having it made from a contact print elevates it to quite a different level.
Contact print is a way of printing photographs in which the negative (or positive) is pressed against a the photo paper and then exposed. This creates a photo at the same size of the negative. (Long, long time ago, this method was used to create a full sheet of images from a roll of 35mm film).
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