.jpeg)
Atkins Labcast
Hosted by Kate and Paul Atkins, the third generation owners of the oldest photo lab in Australia. A podcast about living with and loving photography. From philosophy to technicalities, for amateurs, artists and professionals, we talk about it all.
Atkins Labcast
Atkins Labcast Episode 53 - GAS
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Paul and three friends, Simon Casson, Claudio Raschella, and David Seivers get together to discuss GAS. Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
Scott Tin house studio
The Camera Doesn’t Matter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROnOfx38jYc
Simon Casson:
https://www.casson.com.au
https://www.instagram.com/simoncassonphotographer/
Claudio Raschella:
https://www.instagram.com/claudio.raschella/
https://claudioraschella.com
David Seivers:
https://www.instagram.com/david_sievers_photography/?hl=en
https://www.davidsievers.com/
Vivian Maier:
https://www.vivianmaier.com/
Brigitte Lacombe:
https://www.instagram.com/brigittelacombe?igsh=cXFrMzR3OTZsa2xi
G'day listeners, welcome to the Atkins Labcast. There's something different this episode. I've mustered up a group of boyfriends to talk about gas. Gear acquisition syndrome. It's the issue where you're constantly lured into buying that camera or bit of gear that promises to answer all your needs. I think we're all partial to this siren's call. What prompted this episode is a YouTube video from Scott of the Tin House Studio. And there'll be a link in the show notes. The title of his video is The Camera Doesn't Matter. So I thought, who better to talk about this than a group of middle-aged men? I'm so sorry for this imbalance, but as everyone knows, men suffer from gas a lot more than women. And just to let you in on the joke, the four of us in this episode have maintained a group chat for years. So what will sound like a group of old friends is just that. And we're on our best behavior. Enjoy.
UNKNOWNMusic
SPEAKER_03Okay, ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome. We're at a very rare version of this podcast this week. We've got a bunch of friends here. I'm sorry it's a sausage festival, ladies, but these are young working photographers. Thanks. Do you want to go around and introduce yourself? To my left is Simon Casson.
SPEAKER_02Hello, I'm Simon Casson.
SPEAKER_03What do you do? What sort of work do you do?
SPEAKER_02I take photographs of big industrial outside things like defense stuff and aviation stuff and energy and all that sort of big boys toys dirty things
SPEAKER_03but you've also been a wedding photographer
SPEAKER_02yep i'm trying to put that behind me even though so many many years ago um 632 weddings um and glad it's behind me um but hell it was good times
SPEAKER_03and you worked in a glamorous studio
SPEAKER_02starting off year way way years ago that was like early 90s i'm old
SPEAKER_03early 90s wow yeah okay we won't ask claudia richella Tell us about yourself. Hi. Hi. You're the soft-spoken one. You're the quiet one in the group who doesn't gossip. Yes. This is like the gossip girls, by the way, listeners. So tell us
SPEAKER_01about your work. Yeah, hi. I photograph people. I do portraits, which is absolutely what I love. I also did weddings for a very long time, and I'm glad I don't do them anymore, although I did love them. Really? I had a lot of fun, yeah. Definitely. And I think I shot a little bit more than Simon. At last count, I was somewhere around 1,000. Okay. Yeah. Wow, that's a lot of weddings. That could be so wrong.
SPEAKER_03And were they like big productions with albums and all that kind of stuff, or were they sort of lighter weight stuff?
SPEAKER_01No, no albums, none of that stuff. Crap. I was going to say crap, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Crap is fine. What's the rating this podcast has?
SPEAKER_01Brilliant. No, I didn't do those. It was all about – the day and shooting and just trying to get great pictures and that was it yeah yeah yeah that was it for me so and I just yeah I loved it it's great and all my clients pretty much all of them just said do your thing they weren't specific they didn't want old school stuff they were just like do your thing that's why we've got you that's it that's lovely that's great yeah David Seavers.
SPEAKER_05Previous client of Claudia Rochelle. A client?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yes,
SPEAKER_05that's
SPEAKER_01right. He shot my wedding. He shot your wedding.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he did.
SPEAKER_01That was a lot of fun. I loved it. He has to say that now because I'm right next to him. I don't know. Maybe he doesn't like the pictures. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I do like
SPEAKER_01the pictures. Good. I'm glad. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Well, tell us more about your work. Architectural?
SPEAKER_05Yes. I've shot. Pretty much everything, I guess, over the years. But yeah, certainly in the last, what, 15, 20 years, it's mostly been architecture. And in the last 10, it's only been architecture other than the occasional food shoot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Still got some food clients that I do some stuff for. But yeah, 25 years this year, I started my business in 99, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow, and you've also been a lab tech as well. Yes, worked at
SPEAKER_05Black and White Photographics doing a night shift when there used to be so much film that they had to run the machine three nights a week doing processing. So I used to do scanning and processing.
SPEAKER_03And that's not because it was slower back then. It is just as slow now to process... And print film, it was as fast as it's always been, basically.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was just probably the volume, obviously, because it was sort of pre-digital. But when digital was sort of, from a scanning point of view, it was definitely coming in. Yeah. So I think it was about 2001, I think I
SPEAKER_03got
SPEAKER_05that
SPEAKER_03job. Well, that's wild. It's great to be on both sides of digital. Well, from my perspective, knowing people who shot and worked in a lab at the same time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, I think it definitely helped my post-production and my colour correcting and all that. I think obviously having to correct all that kind of stuff over the years definitely helps in that manner. But yes, I like buildings now.
SPEAKER_03I like things that don't talk back to me. They don't talk back. Right, gotcha.
SPEAKER_05No, no, but I still like people. I just don't like, I had my moments where I just stopped enjoying it as much and I guess now the weather controls my mood on the day, whereas it used to be people and the interactions with them, I guess. But yeah, I just like being given a loose task and then working out the best time of day to make it sing and exploring composition. I just love composition a lot. So it's such the perfect genre for that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, it's funny. So Simon shot Our Wedding. So just so that we all know, we're all cards on the table. But everyone here has talked about the stuff they've done and the stuff they've liked to done, but no one's talked about the gear they work in and no one's, even though, truth be known, everybody who's the three people that listen to this podcast, sorry guys, there's a bit more than that. But one of the first things we talk about when we get together for some reason or when we're sharing things are, on our private chats is about the gear, what's come out with. And I think the last round of things that were talked about was probably the latest Hasselblad digital back, which everyone likes the look of and is very excited about. But there's something about gear and what's coming out new. There's something about old gear. There's something about what's the best for certain jobs that keeps coming up. But what prompted this recording is a video that Claudio shared. Yep. from Tin House Studio called The Camera Doesn't Matter. Now, I know you didn't share it for that reason, and we won't say why you shared it, but it was one of those things that I think, David, you may have said we should get together and talk about, or Simon may have said we should get together and talk about. Yeah, that was a joke, but I'm sorry. But it was a
SPEAKER_05good idea. Here we are.
SPEAKER_03I think it is really interesting, and I don't know if it's just a boy photographer thing that we talk about. and interested in chasing gear all the time. And yet in your jobs, you guys are completely engaged with the subject. And I think gear is probably the last thing you're thinking about. I mean, Simon, you do a lot of work in aircraft, out of aircraft, photographing airports and other things. I mean, gear must be a thing because you're trying to resolve things a long way away. So gear must be something that's in the back of your head, though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got, yeah, standard kit that I use. It is, especially if I'm getting in a chopper to go flying, yeah, you can't sort of obviously forget anything. You don't want to have to have, you've got to take backup stuff with you and you've got to, you're spending a client's money, like a lot of money on heli charter and you've got to get it right. So, yeah. I know what I'm going to be doing beforehand as far as shots. I've visualized the shots I'm planning to get for everything. And I'm very, very happy and comfortable with lenses that I'm taking up. They're going to cover off very, very well. So what I need to photograph.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But that's, I suppose, years of getting the plane. You know what you need to do to get that result. You're not sitting around going, oh, what's going to be the most ideal shot? you know, body for this sort of thing. I I'm going to, and yet.
SPEAKER_02No, I look at it as a box. I mean, I think we all do sort of, I mean, people, the cameras, the new, every time, whenever it might be, we get a new body. There's all this stuff in the menu that we'll set up and we just never touch again. Yeah. And then there's just a handful of things, probably half a dozen things that we are constantly changing and on the camera. But other than that, it just – it does what it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as – I'm not interested in something that can track someone's eye, you know, coming towards you at 30 k's an hour because it's just not the nature of what I do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it wouldn't be the nature of what David does either. But, Claudio, with your portraiture work, is eye tracking – and, like, this is where the latest comes from because that's really all it's given us is extra megapixels and then this – This tracking stuff where the focus – is
SPEAKER_01that a big thing for you? It is. The tracking is brilliant. It's actually fantastic. So it depends on the shoot I'm doing. Pretty much with both the cameras, I would just put it on tracking and it 9.9 times out of 10 just gets it. I will not lose a shot. You've always done
SPEAKER_03portraiture pretty much. I mean, now that we talked about weddings – Why did – I mean, and your work's always been – I mean, the first artwork that inspired my parents to lay out some money was a photograph that you took of this woman smoking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a very typical image that fits in with what you're doing now. Like, that couldn't have been a cabaret performer. It was just a woman smoking. But it could have been. So you shot that stuff without following tracking autofocus?
SPEAKER_01Correct. I did. I did. Look, I've had a ton of cameras over the years and I've loved every single one of them. And I've only upgraded them for certain reasons. I moved from film to digital purely because all my film cameras were burnt in a house fire. So I just went straight, yeah. I
SPEAKER_03remember seeing your laptop. I was destroyed.
SPEAKER_01It was molten MacBook. Yeah. So that was in 2007. So I went digital literally overnight. I was like, fuck new gear. So it's digital. It is. Um, and I, it took me a while to get used to it. Um, I didn't love it straight away. I still, I do now.
SPEAKER_03So 2007, there wasn't the same sort of features on digital. There were on film cameras, weren't
SPEAKER_01there? Yeah, it was more like using, yeah, they didn't have the tracking. They didn't have all that high speed stuff. I don't use the high speed on my cat. They're fast, but I don't use the, I'm not interested in the speed. Um, what I'm interested primarily is getting a good, clean image and sharp yeah and not ultra sharp like the new stuff is i'm a canon shooter and i use the new r series mirrorless stuff and man it is really sharp like it is so sometimes it's too freaking sharp really i can see every single pour every single
SPEAKER_03i mean you know celebrities that turn up on the telly you know with 4k tv they're all struggling and makeup people are struggling
SPEAKER_01with that extra resolution. Oh, it's incredible. In some ways it's amazing and in other ways it's just like, whoa, it's too much. Yeah, yeah. So I still love the look of film. It's just, I don't know, something about it. Would you shoot film? I would, yeah, but when I'm not on a job I don't do much else. I'm pretty lazy. Yeah. But, yeah, I would, yeah, yeah. I've still got an RZ and I keep some black and white film for it at home. The last time I used it I did portraits of my daughter. It's one of my favourite photographs. Oh, really? Yeah, it's shot on a black cardboard background with natural light, very moody image. Tri-X 400, my favourite black and white film ever. And it's just gorgeous and it's textured and she's just staring right at the camera. And that's what I love. I just love that simplicity.
SPEAKER_03But mostly now you're like, I'm not sure of who you're shooting, but the stuff we see of your work, they're celebrities. Would you have time to work with a celebrity in film?
SPEAKER_01On some jobs, yes, and some jobs, no. A friend of mine keeps telling me that I should bring the Mamiya to a shoot with a celebrity and shoot a roll of film. And I reckon I probably could, but I would have to arrange that extra time beforehand because my shoots can be, with someone who's very well known, my shoots can be literally five minutes. And if I'm very lucky, anywhere 15 to 30 minutes. Yeah. So if they give me their time. But usually they're very fast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you keep the Mamiya RZ around just for – I
SPEAKER_01don't take it – yeah, I don't take it with me. It just sits at home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you think about that maybe it's something you could pull in? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. I know Simon shoots a bit of film and I know David would like to shoot more film. I know Simon's quite active with film shooting. David, what's the – is the story for you a busy life, big clients – Just like Claudio, just trying to get stuff done. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I guess that the film thing is a romantic thing, I guess, and living back in a moment. What
SPEAKER_03do you mean by living in a moment?
SPEAKER_05It's actually the taking as well. I don't know if it's necessarily about the film. Like if I go travelling, which hasn't happened so much now with my little boy. But whenever I went overseas, I always took my Hasselblad film camera. Half the time it was the only camera I took just because it felt like I was on holiday and that felt like a holiday. It's just not, you know, having something that wasn't your work gear. Okay. I think.
SPEAKER_03So it's a bit of a, it's a holiday with doing the same thing you like to do, take pictures, but you don't feel like you're working because you've got totally different gear. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Yep. Yep. So that's part of it. And then I guess, I don't know, it gives me a reason to keep it.
SPEAKER_03Well, they're kind of clockwork marvels, Hasselblads, aren't they? Like when you're just turning the lens,
SPEAKER_05taking the back on and off. Everything about it, yeah. Loading the back, pushing the button, the mirror slap. Is there any room for it in your work, though? Not with what I do, just because... One, I think the square format would freak a few people out, the clients. But then on top of that, I mean, we used to shoot on a Hasselblad. I mean, early days when I started with Kevin, most of the architecture stuff we did on was on the 40mm Hasselblad, all shot on training. So I certainly started with that. And then we shot obviously 5.4 view cameras as well. But yeah, I just, you know, that part has replaced everything. been replaced with with decent resolution in in 35 mil and and good shift lenses so that's a big thing for architecture really absolutely so yeah i mean we're i guess we're talking about whether gear matters and um but yeah it's kind of like the camera for me is not something i latch on to as much as lenses and it's it's probably always been that way i think the glass is
SPEAKER_03Because you're always posting about some tilt change. You'd swap systems, wouldn't you, if someone came up with the right tilt
SPEAKER_02change?
SPEAKER_03Probably not now, but
SPEAKER_05I did. I was Nikon. Then I had a Canon just for the 17mm. And then when... Nikon bought the 19-hour that I could swap back. But going on talking about gear, I mean, Kathy will tell you, my wife, she'll just say I was obsessed with watching DP review videos and looking at blogs and stuff all the time. And just I reckon in the last 10 years, all that part of me has just switched off. Is that an age thing? I don't know if it's an age thing. It's just I – Hey, can I – for the listening audience, how old are you? 48. Okay. Okay. Look, it was probably part of my big escapade into the gas syndrome when I went out when I was 40 and decided to do a lifelong dream of buying a digital Hasselblad gear and spent a crap load of money on that. And it's just something I find hard to even talk about now. Because it was just such a silly thing. It was all about me and not about the work. So... It's an interesting thing. I think that's part of what we're here to talk about, whether gear actually matters. And I learned my lesson the hard way after spending tens and tens of thousands of
SPEAKER_03dollars. I think you're being hard on yourself with that. I mean, I found I was quite inspired by Terry Han. You know, we all know Terry. Terry does all sorts of little tricks to keep himself engaged. And he reckons buying new gear – Just makes him want to go out and use it. And just to try it out and to learn it. And so for him, it's taking his body through that, getting familiar with a project and a system, which that's a legitimate.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's definitely a legitimate thing. I mean, I think personal projects, I think that's more about the project. But if something makes you do that project, then yes. You know, it just depends on someone's personality. So, I mean, part of that was also me thinking I'm getting older and I always wanted to create more photographic art. And I thought that that would be a means for me to do that as well. So that was part of that acquisition, me thinking I want to do more personal projects. I'd love to shoot more large format stuff for people's walls and all that. And I just didn't do anything with it because, you know, I just decided that I loved being a dad. Or at the
SPEAKER_03time. Okay, so there's a big trade there, isn't there? Because we get our time pie and you slice it up, what you've got to give for. So how old's Toby now? Seven. Okay, so there's going to be a time where he's not going to want to know you. Yeah. Simon's got a 19-year-old? This month's 19, yep. This month's 19-year-old. And Claudio, how old's he? He's 11 and a half. Okay, so you're in the thick of it. Yep. Not yet. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. There's those years where your kids really need you. And then there's the years where they're just returning the van. I can see out the front my youngest with her girlfriend moving house for them. But then do you feel that that's what's waiting for you on the other side of the –
SPEAKER_05Yeah, potentially. I mean, I still love taking pictures. There's nothing that's changed. It's just that the obsession with gear and thinking that it was going to make me a better photographer – definitely changed because that priority changed. I think because I saw that I'd spent all this money and it made no difference to who I was or the pictures that I took,
SPEAKER_03that was the lesson learned. I remember when you got it and you sold it, you went through that arc. I remember it didn't feel great. I could
SPEAKER_05see that. No, no, no. It didn't feel great because, you know, like with anything in life, I think I felt like I failed. But also I lost a lot of money, which from a family perspective doesn't always feel great when you run your own business. But I think, you know, I'm sounding a bit harsh on myself like you are, but it was something that I needed to do.
SPEAKER_03Otherwise you wouldn't have known and now you know. Mind you, you look at the new Blad, the back, are you thinking that this is going the right direction now?
SPEAKER_05Oh, that is certainly more usable now. And I think because, because that I can chuck on my film blood and if I wanted to take it overseas, but yeah, it's, it would still just be a fun thing. I don't know if I would do work with it. It's probably not the tool for that. Maybe the stuff from Fuji would be a better tool for that. But like, like I said, I just think, especially in this age where I think most of my work is only ever seen on Instagram and In reality. That's grim, isn't it? Yeah. So most of the stuff, if it gets printed for award submission, it ends up on an A1 board. So that's still reasonable size. But, you know, A1. Yeah, you could probably do that with 20 megapixels.
SPEAKER_03A well-retouched file with the sort of resolution of a, can look like an AI rendering at any rate. Well, not AI, but a rendered out of CAD image if you're not careful, you know?
SPEAKER_05Well, the retouching thing you bring up is what I think is the real interesting fact in this. I mean, you can have the latest, latest gear and the absolute crazy amount of megapixels, but if you don't know how to treat your files, then I think you end up back in a place where someone might potentially be able to do something crazy with 15-year-old gear or 10-year-old gear that still looks nicer on a screen or even in print. So I think that we all have to continue to push ourselves to learn new ideas and stuff to fine-tune our craft. But I think the gear associated with that is not the big thing.
SPEAKER_03Do you remember when Peter Fisher did a book on – I think it was Adelaide Buildings or something, and it was very early digital. He may have shot it on a digital Hasselblad. This is Randy Larkham's on that same Vlad system that you had. It was all so perfect and so over a touch. You looked at it and you couldn't work out, you know, is this actually a rendering or not? And, like, why are we – You know, why are we going down that path? It's funny that we're seeing this arc around for people looking at that stuff a bit more gritty now and a little bit more like the process is in the way because otherwise you may as well shoot this stuff on a phone. I mean, if your stuff's ending up on Instagram, have you been tempted to pull the phone or use a file from the phone?
SPEAKER_05No, I mean, I'm too much of a perfectionist.
SPEAKER_03Too much of a gear guy?
SPEAKER_05No, well, it's not even the gear. I mean, basically that was another thing of the hustle plan. I mean, I was still finding – With a lot of work that I'm doing, I'm having to bracket for different exposures to maintain detail in highlights and shadows no matter what I was using. So, yeah, that answers your question. I mean, just phone mounted on tripod maybe. You might be able to bracket it and combine exposures and do it that way. But, yeah, I don't –
SPEAKER_03sorry, what was the question? I mean, I was saying like the phone is doing a damn – Good result. And other than the odd A1 board, it's ending up on Instagram. You know, the phone is a reasonable tool for this sort of stuff. Do you feel like in front of a customer, though, you couldn't whip a phone out?
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_03Because that used to be a big thing at weddings. If you didn't have – I remember – David, what's his face from Melbourne? Not you, but the famous wedding photographer who went 35 mil first.
SPEAKER_02Dave Oliver? Dave Oliver.
SPEAKER_03He went to 35 mil first and the parents would complain because they're paying the bill that he's sitting there shooting the family and he puts the Hasselblad on the stand and then he pulls his Leica out and he shoots the people, you know, he shoots the wedding with a Leica and then puts the Hasselblad, picks it up or the assistant and takes it to the next wedding and just sits in the corner because if he didn't turn up with the right camera, The client would be stressed. Claudio, have you come across clients using gear that's better than what you have and you feel like you've got to have the right gear in front of you? Or is your relationship with a client so predominant and they know you that it doesn't matter what camera you pull out? Could you shoot on a
SPEAKER_01phone? No, I wouldn't shoot on a phone. Definitely not. Yeah, I couldn't rock up to a shoot and then set up, spend two hours lighting it and having a celebrity in front of me pulling out a mobile phone going, okay, cheese. No, definitely not. The client doesn't give a shit what I use. So why don't you use a phone? Because I give a shit. Yeah. So look, most of the time they don't know. They don't know the difference between whether I rock up with a – a new Fuji system or a Canon or a Hasselblad or whatever, so long as the end result for them is what they expect, that's the most important thing. I'm happy doing that with the Canon, especially with what I'm using at the moment. The files are beautiful. Have you always been Canon? Always. I do have a Fuji which I like to – that's my holiday camera. I carry it around in a bag. Is that one of the X series? Yeah, it's an X-Pro2. So is that the
SPEAKER_03interchangeable
SPEAKER_01lenses? Interchangeable lenses, yeah. So I carry a 33, which is like a 50mm equivalent, and a 23, which is like a 35 equivalent.
SPEAKER_03And what do you like about the way it works, and why is it your holiday thing?
SPEAKER_01It's small, and it's light, and I'm not carrying a ton of heavy weight. It's just small. So would it do your commercial work? I've used it commercially, yeah. What, for behind the scenes? Behind the scenes, yeah, behind the scenes. Look, it kind of struggles in the dark. I do a lot of theatre work, so if I'm backstage and let's face it, backstage is dark as hell. It does struggle with that. I can get better results with the Canon. Yeah, it needs a bit of light. But I love the files it gives me. I love the pictures. It's not full frame. It doesn't weigh anything. And it almost looks like it was shot, you know, with high-speed film. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's got texture. It's got grain. It's noisy. Sometimes it's really soft. It's not sharp. I think Fuji's done an amazing job. I
SPEAKER_02love Fuji. Even
SPEAKER_03if
SPEAKER_02the other guy's got Fuji gear? I've got a little Fuji X10, which is a little point-and-shooter, and I've got it permanently set. to a monochrome output. Oh, right. And 16 by 9 framing. Yep. Nice. So it's just good. I just love it. I don't use it that often, but that's what it's permanently set at. And I've taken it on, you know, traveling for work, for jobs or whatever, that it's just sort of sitting in the bag and, you know, little country towns in New South Wales might be waiting for the video guys to finish up what they're doing and I can grab stuff for that. And it's a cool little camera.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So out of all of us, Simon, you probably shoot more film than anyone. And you're really, I think you're really in love with your Leica. Is it a problem?
SPEAKER_02That's not a problem at all.
SPEAKER_03Has your beautiful wife got designs on this? I know she can be like a vengeful woman.
SPEAKER_02No.
UNKNOWNNo.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, not at all. I mean, I've gathered them over many years.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, Karen, I didn't mean that. I know you're not vengeful. I think you're a wonderful person. But I know what it's like to have a relationship with a camera.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, I get a completely different feeling. using my film cameras than I do with my Nikon gear. My Nikon gear is a work tool. It's a toolbox. It's a tradies toolbox. It's so matter of fact. I don't have any passion or love for the Nikon stuff whatsoever. It has a function and does what I want it to do, and that's fantastic. It's reliable. It's great.
SPEAKER_03So what is it about Leica? Because you also shoot, what's your medium format gear that you're
SPEAKER_02using? I've still got my RB, Mamiya RB kit, which I bought early days when I was starting out. That was because at that stage, everything was still medium format tranny. So I've got, a second hand RB kit from Tom at James Place cameras when it was in James Place. Yeah. And I've, uh, I've added to it. So I don't know. I've still got it. And, um, that goes, how many lenses do you have with
SPEAKER_03it?
SPEAKER_02Oh, you got everything. Have you? 50, 65, 90, one, two, seven. Everything. 180, 250, multiple back, 645 back, all that sort of stuff. And again, I've got that over many, many years, but I've got a concise version of that, which sits in a little hard case, and I'll throw that in the boot if I've got a road trip somewhere, and I'll throw the M6 in there as well.
SPEAKER_03So when does the RB come out, and when does the Leica come out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, different. The... RB is pretty much road trip stuff when there's, you know, I'm traveling somewhere by car and I will see something. Because you
SPEAKER_03don't want to hike with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or put it on your bicycle. Yeah, no, no, no. And that's pretty much what I've set that I'll be kept up for is to sit in the boot and I'm driving from one location to the next. It doesn't work so well when you've got your client with you. That falls apart really quickly unless they're a really, really client. And they'll say, yeah, stop wherever you like. That happens. Totally. But it's usually when I'm on my own. I'll do that sort of thing and I'll just see something really, really cool and shoot some shots of that. The Leica obviously is more street stuff and that's just beautiful to use.
SPEAKER_03So what, I mean, we all feel the thing for the Leica. Man, we sound like we're all sick in the head. I sound like I'm sick of it because I adore, I've had a couple of Leicas in my life and I've ended up with a Contax, which is a very early Contax, a 1930s Contax, but it's the same format as the Leica. Everybody kind of knows and understands what is it? What is it for you about the line? I don't know. It's hard.
SPEAKER_02Is
SPEAKER_03it Cartier-Bresson?
SPEAKER_02No. For me, it's just what they feel like. And I just feel like it's just so simple. You look in that viewfinder and it's all there. and the fact that it doesn't disappear, and you've got a little movie happening in your left eye, my left eye, you've got a little movie happening that you're following, and then bang. You stop it. You stop it, but nothing disappears, and you just continue on ready for that next shot. And because it's so small, it's not intrusive. You can get away with using it in places versus what you would be able to use. use anything SLR size in that I use the M's for.
SPEAKER_03Would you ever use film on the job?
SPEAKER_02Um, if it was, yeah, definitely if it happened and I've sort of thought it and I've suggested it a couple of times, uh, to people. Um, and yeah, I think the, I think the last job I shot.
SPEAKER_03It's a cost though. You've got to charge. So people might not feel so joyous about paying the extra.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think the last actual film job that I shot was some stuff for Chivo Espresso years and years ago that was beautiful. We had all these amazing real old Italians with salamis and coffee and blah, blah, blah. And we just shot all these incredible portraits on a shot on the RB and did prints that then got toned, et cetera, and then they got used on bus shelters and that sort of thing. But that was the last – job that was commissioned to be shot on film. Was
SPEAKER_03that close to film still being a thing? Yeah. I mean, Claudio got pushed into the transition because everything caught on fire. Yeah. And David, did you jump quickly with digital? We jumped pretty early. So who inspired you? Because were you doing architectural stuff then?
SPEAKER_05I was, but that was still film. I think digital, what pushed me into digital early days was I was doing catalog stuff. So it just made sense. It made total sense. It made total sense because it was, it was usually produced pretty small and yeah, because I guess my, I started out in the studio. So a lot of the stuff was shot in the studio. So the digital thing happened reasonably quickly for stuff that was going to be small scale. And then if anything was going to be bigger, a lot of the time we went through the, We were pretty early adopter for scanning. So we did an in-house scan of 120. But yeah, I didn't really get pushed in. I still shot film and scanned it. I still found that 120, I still found medium format much better than 35 mil.
SPEAKER_03I really think- There's no sensor as big as two and a quarter square or six six on the Hasselblad. None of the sensors that are- affordable in any of these cameras we've talked about even the Fuji GFX
SPEAKER_05yeah that's still 645 or smaller
SPEAKER_03yeah so nothing and so I think well I know there is physics wise something happens with a lens and the large sensor that is film at the background you see it with 8x10 You know, the depth of field is so wildly shallow and it's just something that doesn't work. The small sensors, you get lots of depth of field and so it's obvious. And medium format's that, but 35mm, like, it's not radically different to digital.
SPEAKER_05Well, this is the funny thing. I mean, for a lot of the new generation, they've only known 35mm in a digital format. But back in the day, we would only ever shoot 35mm for events. people would shoot it for weddings. But even like you said, even weddings were a little bit frowned upon in 35 mil early days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So, yeah, it was kind of events and maybe copy like slides. Like a lot of the time people actually specifically needed 35 mil slides. That's going to bend some people's heads because it's like there was no PowerPoint, there was no scans and people actually had to do – presentations with actual 35 mil slides, which is hilarious in the late nineties. So yeah, you would, so there'd be jobs that you'd shoot. There would actually be jobs that you would shoot five, four, one 20 and 35 mil on because they needed 35 mil slides for, for a presentation, the press ads. And then, yeah, it was just, it was, it was a good time to be, um, to, to start out, but yeah, certainly, um, Yeah, I think that it's – all the resolution and the better quality lenses that we've got now have probably made a big – they've curved the difference. The difference is not as much there. Whereas I think even if you're still saying, would you shoot film on a job, I don't think many of us would shoot 35mm film on a job unless it was like an editorial
SPEAKER_03– No, but you could be doing photojournalist stuff. Like the shift in a field camera – Or even like I've got a Lindhoff up there with front and back movements. Like that's well beyond any tilt shift.
SPEAKER_05I know, I know. But do I really want to stand there with a black cloth for me in a public street? Yeah. I know that you like to. You're the mad scientist with the tie. The
SPEAKER_03theatre about it is. Oh, that's a total
SPEAKER_05theatre.
SPEAKER_03What we're talking about, if you don't, like you've all agreed, if you don't have the right, gear well not the right gear but you don't have proper gear people think you're a bit
SPEAKER_05well this is a funny thing I think we're sitting here going yeah we give a shit but we don't give too much of a shit yeah I'm hearing that I think that's what we've all kind of said like yeah there's a limit and we do but I haven't updated my gear for like other than the occasional lens I think I don't know when my
SPEAKER_03I think it's great you swapped Canon and Nikon systems. That's like Holden and Ford and Catholic and Protestant. You're swapping some pretty serious stuff.
SPEAKER_05Well, I used them together. I never gave up on Nikon. I mean, Nikon was lucky in the sense that it had more dynamic range, which for what I did and do. Did it actually work? It makes a big difference. Did it actually have more dynamic range? Oh, absolutely. I mean, because I used them against each other. I knew it. I know that the tides have turned now and everything's very even. I mean, basically you can use any brand and it's pretty much the
SPEAKER_03– I don't know. I would argue like a digital. I don't know if I'd want to spend the money. I get the lenses and I get the film, but I don't want to spend the money for the sensor to be not as good as a Sony A7, you know?
SPEAKER_05Well, you'd have to watch some YouTube video. Story about a comparison, which I haven't done, like I said, of late. But, yeah, if you asked me 10 years ago, I went, no, no, no, that's like 0.5 of the top different. No,
SPEAKER_03no. We don't need specifics here. But it is really interesting that, you know, these camera systems are absolutely amazing. They're still lacking the basic thing which makes a digital camera is a great sensor.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, the sensor, it is about the sensor, but it's still – to a certain point. I mean, you have to capture it, right? I mean, it all comes down to our craft. And I think that hasn't changed whether it's been film or digital or whatever. I think the video that we sort of watched and sort of that Claudia shared, I think the interesting part about that is there was lots of sort of comparisons made with, you know, quite well-known photographers and books and stuff like that. There is a slight argument, like Simon says he enjoys using his Leica and, you know, like, I think that a camera can bring out something in someone that maybe does actually, what's the word, contribute to the result. And I think when we were sharing that video amongst us, I mean, by the way, we do actually talk, Way too much. No, but that's fine. We are good.
SPEAKER_03You look at your screen time calculations each week and work out like, yeah, sure, I shouldn't be doing that many a day, but I really shouldn't be doing that much
SPEAKER_05time. How many of those hours?
SPEAKER_03Messaging with the three of us.
SPEAKER_05I think one of the examples I used was Vivian Mayer. I mean, it's an interesting concept that she never saw the work.
SPEAKER_03That is wild. It is. No one saw it and she never saw anyone reacting to her work. Yeah, exactly. So for her, was it about the act of doing it?
SPEAKER_05Well, I think I made the argument that did the camera contribute? I mean, all cameras may have been similar at that time, but the fact that she was using a waist level finder and using a reflex camera, So, again, like a liker, it's the same story, isn't it? You get no blackout because you've got a viewing lens and a taking lens. So did she capture those moments because she – I mean, Elliot Erwitt called it the decisive moment, didn't it? Or was that someone else? Cardiobresson. Cardiobresson, maybe. It doesn't matter. We're all massive fans of Elliot Erwitt here. That's no secret. And David's close friends. Well, no, I'm not close friends. I just had dinner with him once. But – But that was with other people. But what was I saying? I think, yeah, she could see. And I think this is the whole argument. You all have to learn to see. And the thought should disappear. The gear doesn't matter. I think you can either see or you cannot see in a photographic manner to have appealing photos. So I think she had an amazing eye, but I also argue that the fact that her shots are taken from a certain level because she was using a waist level finder, so therefore it has a particular perspective. And on top of that, even though it was a very different time, I think even now you could argue if you were looking down into a viewfinder, I mean, I've noticed that when I've been traveling with the Hasselblad, Because you're looking down into a camera and not at a person. They almost ignore you. You're almost not there. So they don't think of it that a lens is pointing at them. So I think, did she get some of the results she got because the person was unaware that she was there? Or was it the time? Because this is a lot of years ago. That's
SPEAKER_03a really interesting point that came up, I think, in that video was that a lot of those people that he lionized in his conversation and his thing were doing it for the first time. You know, the work was being made in that way for the first time. And there's no hope for any of us making new work really, like in a new way. We're stuck. doing what others have done and copying it or doing our version of it. And that's a tough gig. That is a tough gig. Claude, your connection with your client, though, is everything. And so for you, I suppose with all of you guys' work, every subject is different. So you're not really repeating what someone else has done. But your job is engaging with that subject and you're a really engaging person who I think you get people's guards down and I think you get responses out of people that perhaps I certainly wouldn't be able to get. I don't know about Simon or David, but like do you have something about you that gets these people in the position that you can photograph them in a different way? There's nothing to do with gear, is it? It's just… No, it's not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's the handsome face. He's gorgeous. Let's be honest. It is his handsome face. He's gorgeous. Lord, no.
SPEAKER_02And he gives good hugs.
SPEAKER_01I do. I like hugs. I do like a good hug. You do a great hug. Thanks. Hugs all around. Yeah, look, shooting, the one thing I hear the most is, oh, God, I hate being photographed. Everyone. Really? Yeah, sight light. So
SPEAKER_03who was the most, who said that to you? Like celebrity. Celebrity or – The last celebrity that said that to you, if you feel like mentioning their name. I
SPEAKER_04can't
SPEAKER_03remember. Who was the last celebrity you photographed? The last – Stephen Fry. Okay. Okay, so everyone can hear you. And he definitely didn't say that. No, no, no. So there's a number of people that you're working with, but you've heard it from celebrities. You don't have to give any names, but you've heard them say, I hate
SPEAKER_01being photographed. Most come from people who are not celebrities, but they could very well be a CEO. of an arts company or corporate company or whatever. Some people in the arts and people who are on stage don't like being photographed or they, they're still uncomfortable like anyone else. Absolutely. For me, it's not, I love gear. I'm a, I'm a, I am a gear geek, definitely. But you don't change very often. No, not that often. I don't intend to at the moment. I'm really happy with what I've got. How long have you been with the current system? The R's I've had now since, well, I've got an R5, not the Mk2, so I've had that since it came out. So that's what, four years, I think, four, maybe?
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_01And an R3, which I got about a year or two later. So I've had that two, three years. Okay. Or something like that. And I love them.
SPEAKER_03Do you struggle with the change? Like if you did pick up something new, like the menu changes, where the buttons
SPEAKER_01are. You don't have any problems with that? Canon menu's brilliant. It's the fucking same in every camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does not change. I know exactly where to find it. And I can set up my cameras in minutes. But
SPEAKER_03is that something that would really throw you if you picked up a Nikon?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I picked up a Sony once and after 30 seconds I put it down and went, nope. Everybody says that. Menu system on a Sony? Man, it's a shocker. Fucking sucks. Sorry, excuse my language. No, no, no, no. Terrible. It is so bad. I don't want to spend hours setting up my camera. It's
SPEAKER_03wild that the camera companies haven't sorted these interfaces out really. And I know you know Canon, but if I picked up your Canon, I would be lost. You know, like I would be lost. I would be lost if I picked up your Nikon gear. And I've got a D800E and, you know, like I've got a bit experience with that and I would still sit there going where the hell help me out here what's going on and I know it's your job like all your jobs is to learn these tools and to be able to use them but I pick up my Mamiya 7 and I switch it on and that's it
SPEAKER_01I love that
SPEAKER_03I can just take a picture
SPEAKER_01and I
SPEAKER_03don't have to switch on my contacts
SPEAKER_01I just I started out with Canon F1s that were my first cameras and I had I started with one and eventually had three and just three lenses, and I only used primes back then. I never, ever used zooms. And it was brilliant. You replace the battery every now and then, and you just literally switch it on. And every time you take a picture, it's like clunk, and it was just beautiful. It was awesome. There's no menu stuff. There's no – just your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. That's it. So if Canon came
SPEAKER_03out with some gear that they allowed you to – shortcut buttons and all that kind of stuff. But if they like had a basic background where all that stuff could disappear and you just switch it on and it was set up as Claudio likes to use it and there was no like 50 buttons on the back. Would you then get your gear acquisition syndrome on and buy it? Probably. If Sony came up with it and forget the Sony crap menu system, if they come up with it, would you go? Dude, I'm over here now.
SPEAKER_01No, because I think, look, I personally believe it doesn't matter what you've got. It doesn't matter what camera. If you're a Sony shooter, great. If you're a Nikon shooter, great. It doesn't matter. If Simon gives me his Nikon and says, dude, borrow this for the weekend because yours were just stolen. It'd be fantastic. Thanks. I'd spend 30 minutes. I'd have a quick look at the menu. There's what I need to do and just go for it and still shoot the same way I shoot. Yeah. Except I'm just using a Nikon. None of that makes a difference to me. The only reason I stick with Canon is it's familiar and I've never really felt the urge to change. Change is money. So if I'm going to discard of 20, 30 grand's worth of gear just to spend another 20, 30 grand on a different brand to get the exact same result, to me that just doesn't make any sense. Probably you
SPEAKER_03can not quite get the exact same result because you'll be confounded for… for a while until your memory actually
SPEAKER_01embeds the camera. After 30-something years of shooting, I'll be like, oh, shit. Okay. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. But, yeah, it really doesn't matter. It's just it was my first camera and it's still my existing camera. So when you see gear
SPEAKER_03talked about, discussed, shared amongst these terrorists, what pricks your ear and go, oh, I wouldn't mind? C-stands.
SPEAKER_01You promised you'd talk about sea stands. Sorry, I had to bring that in somewhere. Tell us your love of sea stands. Sea stands. Because it's gear. It is gear. Gear has to
SPEAKER_03have
SPEAKER_01a camera. My gear venture is more, it goes beyond the camera for my shoots. So there are shoots where I will arrive with just a camera and the lenses that I need. But then there's a shoot that I'll go to and my car is full of gear. And that means... C-stands, stands, lighting, tethering equipment, and all of that to me is really, really important. So I get just as excited about a C-stand or a flash modifier or the umbrella I'm using or the softbox I'm using as I do my actual camera. Yeah, right. So hence why I've got so much gear. And I use it all. All of it's used. Every single piece gets used.
SPEAKER_03I mean, lighting
SPEAKER_01gear...
SPEAKER_03What do you travel with for something like that? Is it three heads or?
SPEAKER_01I've got a few. Okay, I keep some lighting in Sydney and some lighting here, and I don't travel with it anymore. So I've got lighting in both cities because it was just a pan in the back packing all the time. The only thing I travel with is my computer, my tripod, which I love to bits. and my cameras. Tell us about your tripod. It's a Manfrotto, but it's, it's. Is it like a carbon fiber? It is carbon fiber, but it's not thin and flimsy. This thing doesn't move. It just stays put. Oh yeah. Yeah. For me, that's important. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Um, yeah, look, I've got lots of lighting both here and. So what's it about C stands? They just, they just, they just, they just do things. You can just, you can put it, You can just put a light wherever the fuck you want. I need to get one of those C-stands. They're heavy. They're a nightmare to travel with. Stupid heavy. Oh, dude, like C-stands are around eight kilos a piece. You know, when you're packing.
SPEAKER_03They're cumbersome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they are cumbersome.
SPEAKER_03I've got a thing that holds lights up and it's a tripod-y base thing and it expands out. It's super lightweight. How's that different to a C-stand?
SPEAKER_01Okay, because if I'm doing a shoot, say I'm doing a shoot and I use my biggest, I've got a flash head with the biggest modifier. My biggest is 1.5 metres. Now, it's not light. It's definitely not light, but it's not overly heavy. If I put that on a regular stand... On a shoot, it starts to bend and you need about three shot bags on that thing to stop it from falling. Shot bags are bags full of it. Correct. Little bricks. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, to stop it from. Yeah. A C-stand doesn't budge. It just, and you can move it any which way you want. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_03So you're looking for stability in your relationships.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. In two towns. I've got about five C-stands. Yeah, I've only got one in Sydney. Okay. Yeah, but that'll change soon. I never got into them. C-stands? No. I just love them. I go to a film set and I get excited over the C-stands more than the acting and the cameras. I'm like, do you want any C-stands in that corner? Simon,
SPEAKER_03have you been asked to shoot motion? What? Like we had film set come up a second ago. Have you had to shoot video at all?
SPEAKER_02I've been shooting video for a couple of years. Right. Um, I saw, uh, the, that I needed to. Writing on the wall. Yeah. It was a case of like, it was an add on thing. Um, I don't pretend to be, um, a cojo or a blah, blah, blah, or even anywhere near approaching what, um, dear Randy does.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Um, but what I do offer to people is add on stuff that is great for additional content and that sort of thing. So, um, I taught myself and it's a continual learning process but I'm very confident now what I do, what I can do and what I shouldn't do and refer to other people but I have really enjoyed the journey of learning video.
SPEAKER_03So does Does that now open up an avenue for gear acquisition syndrome? Do you look in the film world and say, oh, now I need one of those cages to put my camera in?
SPEAKER_02I've got a cage in my…
SPEAKER_03Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_02I did the thing. Listen, that was probably the setting up the video was probably the last gear, GAS, whatever it's called. Gas. Gas thing that I went through because it was like, okay, there's the Sony body. Yeah. And then, yeah, okay, small rig. let's buy everything from small rig and add it on because it looks so and it wasn't very expensive but it looks
SPEAKER_03like a land rover in the camel trophy pretty much
SPEAKER_02yeah so it's got wooden handles and that sort of stuff but it works really really well and you know and you know i've got a gimbal for it and blah blah blah and all sorts of and you know good mics and things so that has been a good process to learn to set up and you know when i it I think about two years after I started up, I actually looked at my numbers and to see what percentage of my numbers were video, I was really surprised that I wouldn't have got if I had just continued to do what I'd normally do and refer to other people. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02That's great, Simon. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like that's a really interesting pivot. And also it's so far away from an M6 device. around your neck. Yeah. With, with, um, FB four is your favorite black and white film, is it? Or,
SPEAKER_02uh, yeah,
SPEAKER_03usually. Yeah. So, so that's a mile away from shooting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I just think it's, um, I, it was weird. I said, I remember saying to myself something years and years ago that, uh, uh, first, first 50 years, um, is, uh, is, is stills in the second 50 years old. I'll do motion. It was just a random throwaway thing that I said, and it was about that time. No, it was a bit afterwards, actually. But no, I'm really enjoying learning about it. I don't have any aspirations to be something crazy bonkers as far as production of motion.
SPEAKER_03So you don't want to go, like, do you listen to the Roger Deakins podcast? No. No. It's like it will make you sick in the head about making films because he interviews other filmmakers. So your brain now is suddenly, well, my brain is running off down this path. I don't particularly want to be a filmmaker, but it is so interesting.
SPEAKER_02We think our world's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I love film as in the genre of film, that sort of stuff, and certain directors, et cetera, are just absolutely fanboy over it. But I enjoy it. watching good film.
SPEAKER_03So what sort of motion pictures do you, I'm making it sound like movies, but what sort of motion are you taking with your gear? Don't mention the adult films. We don't need to. No, no, no, no,
SPEAKER_02no, no.
SPEAKER_05After he warned us not to get
SPEAKER_03inappropriate. I said I can be inappropriate. I don't know if I can control it. It's going to come out of your mouth. Good on you, Paul. Yeah, sure. What am I doing? So what sort of movies are you making?
SPEAKER_02Well, listen, one of the early things I did was like bang straight after COVID had a big defense client that had to put a a bid in for a big defence contract and they couldn't do it in person. Normally they would actually do a three-hour presentation in person to defence, a panel, et cetera, with a gazillion word written proposal, et cetera, and they couldn't do that. So it was a case of we had to put together a video, which was two hours and 50 minutes, 2050? Yeah. That's bigger than a movie. Yeah, but they were allowed to put, because they would have had three hours in person, so they were allowed to have up to three hours in motion. But it was like, you know, it was epic. Wow. It was a case of 90 PowerPoint slides. It was audio coming from all sorts of people all around the world, which had to be put in. It was going to and fro. And this was still early days of my video foray.
SPEAKER_03So everything shifted when DSLRs got video. Yeah. Really, that was a thing. Because other than that, You had to use a dedicated video
SPEAKER_02camera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for this one, I actually shot on my bloody Nikon, believe it or not. And I just knew that I wasn't going to have the leeway of S-Log, you know, capture, et cetera, which I would get from. So
SPEAKER_03that's basically
SPEAKER_02raw format. Basically raw. So basically this particular, it was so short notice. It was like, we need to start this tomorrow. Can you help us with it? Yeah, I can do it. Let's just go for it. So basically it's shooting the equivalent of bloody JPEGs. So you have to get it absolutely. Thank
SPEAKER_03you for getting that right and taking that risk.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, I was confident that I could, I could nail it, et cetera, and we were fine and put it together. But yeah, there was, but it, it killed my computer. My then computer, which was dealing with still was not put my door, but the hero I am
SPEAKER_03throwing, that's the big issue, isn't
SPEAKER_02it? It's throwing a three hours of motion at it. And it'd take that. It was, it wasn't built for, for motion computer. So I, I render something and it'll take that much time or longer.
SPEAKER_00to
SPEAKER_02render something. So you'd render it and then you'd send it to the client and they'd say, oh yeah, at the 1 hour 27 mark, can you actually take out those 3 seconds of footage? So it's a 10 second fix but then you've got to wait 3 hours for it to render out again. And it changes
SPEAKER_03everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so when the When they paid the bill, I went and bought a new computer straight away. Right.
SPEAKER_03So I don't know if that helps that much because then storage becomes an issue because they don't have enough internal space
SPEAKER_02any. Yeah. Honestly, external drives. I'm chewing through storage compared to what I used to when I was just on stools.
SPEAKER_03So do you have separate camera equipment for your motion picture stuff now?
SPEAKER_02Yep. I've got, um, uh, Sony, um, seven, whatever it is, um, which I use for that. Um, and that's, that's, that's fine for what I, what I use it for. Um, it's, it's perfectly fine. Um, I've used my SL for stuff cause that shoots a hundred frames a second really nicely. Um, so I've shot a few things with that, but yeah. Hang on the
SPEAKER_03SL.
SPEAKER_02Like SL. Right. Yep. Um, so that's
SPEAKER_03super lubrication.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. They're, they're mirrorless thing. Um, But the Sony is, yeah, it's nice. That's what it needs to do.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Okay, so there's a whole other world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have been looking, yeah, at going, okay, what's next? I admit I have looked, okay, what's the next step as far as camera is concerned? I haven't felt that nudge of I need to get Something yet from a quality or anything point of view. I'm still producing what I and delivering what needs to be done. But that's not to say that won't change what that would be. I have no idea. I mean, I'm looking very closely. It'd be really nice if Nikon brought something out that was tick the box. And I'm sorry, Nikon, but you haven't yet. Let's
SPEAKER_03use this opportunity to pressure Julie Clinton from Nikon to speak to the developers to get on with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, we've spoken about it as Nikon users. It's an $18,000, $20,000 changeover for me to go to dump all my stuff and go to Zed stuff. And it's just not on the agenda right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I know. Well, that's the big thing everyone's talking about, making the jump. To mirrorless. I
SPEAKER_02mean, I've looked closely. I was holding out great hopes for the Z6-3 as a sort of gateway drug, if you like, to get into the system where I could actually substitute the Sony. Oh,
SPEAKER_03the Sony gear with
SPEAKER_02it. Yeah, dump the Sony and bring the Z6-3 into there. If Nikon want a lonely one for a long time and try it out, let's go.
SPEAKER_03Have you seen the ARRI? Here we are with gear again. ARRI's just released... a new camera that has 17 stops of latitude for motion picture. So, you know, like. That'll
SPEAKER_05do.
SPEAKER_03What do you need anything else for? Yeah. 17 stops. Claudio or David, do either of you shoot video?
SPEAKER_05I haven't yet. I have an interest in it. I've always conformed to the do what you do best and handle the stuff that is not your focus. So over the years, like I'm probably more than capable of jumping in a helicopter and doing aerials or doing drone stuff, but I've always hand-boarded. A lot of that's gone to Simon over the years if someone's asked me. So it's kind of like I think one of those things as you get older, you kind of, especially if you've got a very focused genre, I feel like you do kind of say, yeah, no, if you want some portrait stuff, you know, call this Cool Claude. Hang on, Simon just said he's gotten older and he's,
SPEAKER_03Expanded.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I know. Well, no, it's, I think the mirrorless thing will definitely push me into video. I guess I was getting to this, but I have said no, no, no, no, no. For probably a good, you know, before, since it become a thing, which was probably about, five or six years
SPEAKER_03ago. Surely that's a headspace with the kid's age, you know, your child's age, like just adding this into your world whilst Toby needs you to be a dad.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, there is that. And then, but I think it's because I overthink everything. It's just a personality thing that I, I wouldn't do it unless I could do it really well. But the problem is if I wait too long, then I'll never start. So I think it is, I'm bordering on the fact that, you know, I probably have this conversation with Simon quite regularly because I haven't even gone mirrorless yet because just that whole viewfinder thing, you know, was just a change for me that I didn't feel that it wasn't needed. I don't have, I don't need eye detect. You know, it's kind of like most of my work shot at F11 on a tripod and And that's base ISO. The only time I ever take it off base ISO is if I want particular types of movement in people, walking through a shot, et cetera. But I think that I do want to do video, but I want to do it differently. And that's probably what's holding me back. So I'm just trying to
SPEAKER_03come up with the idea. So differently.
SPEAKER_05So differently in the sense that, you know, because I'm in the architecture world, I think a lot of people walk through a project and it's very show everything. And I think I still want the stills to be the hero. I think that it's just that, you know, it's like a vision of everything coming together in one composition kind of thing. And I think video... I don't really want to walk through a project and show everyone everything, but I think that there's lots of stuff that I could do in a manner that I, exactly the way I do it now, except the elements are moving. Yeah. So, you know, if you think about, you know, it's a thought that I've had for years now. I just haven't jumped and done anything about it. But I think in the next few years I'll have to make the change. It's just another learning curve for me, which I'm sure I can jump on pretty quickly. Have you felt threatened by rendered work? Well, thankfully I have a lot of ethical clients. It might be a moral thing, I don't know, but it's kind of like they've always had renders and renders have got ridiculously good. Yeah. But they all still get everything photographed. And so that's a bit of a saving grace for the work that I do. Whereas, you know, I know that if you go back with the stuff that I did 25 years ago, which was a lot of product stuff in studio, then that, That's probably very much in the 3D world now rather than it being photographed. So I think they've had that option for a long time. Like it might get to the point with AI and, you know, I mean, it's funny. A lot of the stuff, I get sent walkthroughs, as in video fly-throughs of renders to then quote on a job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_05So do you know what I mean? Like they've got the stuff, but I just feel like, It's nice that they want to show how it sits in its environment because all of these renders don't take into consideration a lot of things or surrounding buildings and all that kind of thing. And I think that a lot of people want to see the end product. And sometimes the end product changes from those renders and they don't get the renders redone. If designs change along the process, they might, but a lot of the time it's not the budget to do that.
SPEAKER_03So you think that, you know, you... Photoshopping work because, you know, you're an architectural photographer and you're always tidying things up. Do you think that then, you know, you can do more and more and more of that stuff and end up pushing it into that, you know, it's too clean, you know?
SPEAKER_05Yes and no. Like I think that there is a bit of a push now to go a little bit. A bit gritty? A little bit more gritty. Maybe not as light and bright and all that kind of thing, but. I feel a lot of people still ask me to retouch stuff out that annoys them. Like exit signs and all that kind of
SPEAKER_03stuff. I'm sure builders, architects, they all wish that something didn't go quite go that way.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. But I, yeah, I, I mean, I touch up everything, you know, it's, it's just the way I've, I've always had the concept. This was something I told myself when I first started and I don't know why, but it's always stuck. It's my concept has always been, assume that everything you do will be on a billboard with your name on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So everyone will see any mistakes that you make and it will always be big enough for you to see something. So even though someone might say to you, oh, don't worry about retouching that. We're only ever going to use it small. It's, you know, they might have a different marketing manager in five years time that ends up deciding that they want to do a massive campaign with that image. So you can't always, so yeah, I'm a bit of a, nutcase like that in the sense that I, so I, but everything still doesn't, I don't think it looks like a render, but Kathy occasionally says to me, man, that looks like a render. Cause you just got the perfect clouds or the perfect sun direction and stuff. And, but I've got no issue with that. I think I know it's not, and the client knows it isn't. And I think that's all that matters. And I think, yeah, it's kind of like a moral thing. Like they want to show what was built and I don't know what, That might change.
SPEAKER_03I mean, do you feel like what came out your mouth then is kind of tempting? Like it just sounds like a nice idea but the reality is about to, you know, like I was speaking to a client today who was struggling who had done the normal Photoshop, used the patch tool on a landscape shot and then they'd uploaded it and Photoshop, Facebook or Instagram had flagged it as an AI image because he'd used the patch tool. And, of course, the patch tool has AI in the latest version of Photoshop, has AI tools in it. And so suddenly, and he's one of these people, he doesn't think overly broadly, and it's like, oh, my image is labeled as AI. It's not a hater. AI is the worst thing in the world. And all he's done is used the latest tool, which, of course, if you think about the amount of retouching that can be done within Photoshop now and with the assistance of AI, you keep going, it may as well be a random thing, really. Stop, Paul. Oh, shut up. Oh, I have no business. So, Claudia, can you shoot motion picture at all? No, no, no.
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_03Straight no? No. No
SPEAKER_04interest? Nah. I've dabbled in it a little bit. Why? Why? Why no interest in it?
SPEAKER_03Someone
SPEAKER_01else's job? Yeah. I just prefer pictures. Yeah. Still pictures. Yeah. For me, a photograph can say a ton.
SPEAKER_04Like a lot.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't matter what kind of picture it is. Just video for me. I don't want to sit down for hours editing. That's a big thing. Yeah. I'm not interested. And AI has been helping that that much these days. It's not. No. I spend hours on my pictures, let alone videos. So no thanks. I've dabbled in it. I didn't mind it. I had fun. It was great. Just this is your setting. You plug this in here. You put the microphone there. You point the camera that way. That's what I was taught. And you do it. And then you just push play and just watch. Okay. Really simple, simple stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But no, no, not interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's cool. With the people you shoot, you could do some wicked Warhol portraits. It's moving. Motion portraits, you've seen those? Yeah. They are so cool.
SPEAKER_01I did once think about doing – and I think I've seen a photographer – Like a long still. Yeah. Yeah. I usually stare at the camera. Yeah. I actually thought about doing that a few years ago is to do 10-second portraits. Yep. And just literally have someone in front of the camera just stare. Yep. And then maybe – record something and put a tiny, quick, whatever thought process they had at the time over the top. I don't know. Maybe I might revisit that. I
SPEAKER_05don't know. I vaguely remember being at the National Gallery once. And what was it, the Portrait Gallery? In Canberra. No, no. Someone did. I can't recall who it was now. It was something in the SA Gallery. They did a portrait of Lane Beachley. Ah, yeah. And she was rotating. It was like, you know, it was just her head and shoulders. But she must have been on a, or I don't think the camera was going on. I think that she was on a. Lazy Susan. A lazy Susan. And I thought that was really. That's a bit
SPEAKER_03rough on Susan.
SPEAKER_05It was. I think we. It was really kind of interesting. But, you know, it forced you to sit there and, you know, wait for it to come around again. Yeah. And I was waiting
SPEAKER_03for something. I think Blanchette done the same way. But it was full body and she was talking and it spun just very
SPEAKER_05slowly. Yeah, I love
SPEAKER_03all that
SPEAKER_05stuff. I think we're all visual people and I think that the, I mean, when I was at TAFE I did do, you know, I did do film. I remember this funny film we made back then, which me and Jackie Way. Wonderful. Steve Laxton on that as well. Yeah. But yeah, we did a video, a movie on just the mechanics that hung around the tape and it was kind of a parody really. Yeah, yeah. Because they had funny eating habits. So we were like interviewing them going, what did you have for morning tea? It was like chips in a coat. What did you have for afternoon tea? And it was like. chips and a nice coffee. But anyway, no, it was nothing against mechanics. It was just kind of interesting because it was such an interesting tape because you had all the creative people and then you had all the mechanics side. But I enjoyed that process and I'd enjoy it now. And I think Claude would be amazing at it. But, yeah, we just don't have the – it's funny actually because I think there's been some really good photographers over the years that have become directors. Yeah. And I think that's because that's the thing. They don't want to necessarily do the work, but they have the vision. So, you know, I think that that's kind of something that's interesting for people in photography. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Being able to see what's going on.
SPEAKER_05Because every single thing is basically a still picture. It just comes together as
SPEAKER_03a… And some directors are much… like Carol Reid with The Third Man, you watch that film and every scene is a brilliant still. And if you Google The Third Man and just look at the images, you pretty much watch the movie just by looking at the stills and understand what happened. But it's the same as Life Aquatic. Who's the director? Wes Anderson. Wes Anderson. You feel like everything you look at Wes Anderson is a still, like even a pantomime theatre with this character's moving but everything locked. And it's a very interesting – Look, you can see there's inspiration from great steel work.
SPEAKER_05But it is just another world. So I get it. He's probably been a late adopter. But, yeah, I think, I mean, I remember that Nikon event we went to in Queensland. Gold Coast one. Yeah, the Sunshine Coast one. So how many years ago was that now?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I didn't have a beard then.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I reckon it would have been about. The
SPEAKER_03beard of disdain that came from being in the AIPP senior management. At a guess,
SPEAKER_05I reckon it was 2010.
SPEAKER_03I could look it up if I wanted to open Lightroom up.
SPEAKER_05All right. But needless to say, I remember that the whole message around that event was diversify or die.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And it never really happened. It's a dramatic title. Well, it wasn't a title as such, but there was a few speakers that talked during that and that was sort of a bit of the message. And you had some great film people like Mark Toyer. Yeah. He's unfortunately deceased now. And he was amazing at what he did, but came from a stills background and then went into shooting car commercials.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think there's always that. There's something new coming. You're going to be scared. Get on top of it. And I think the camera companies benefit from it. I mean, they wouldn't love to sit around and hear you guys hanging onto your mirrored cameras.
SPEAKER_02They'd like to think you're excited. I've got a second D10 boxed body under my desk that I bought secondhand. It's got 1,200 frames on it for when my other one wears out. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean – I get that. I get that. And there's a lot of people talking that way. I just don't want to, I just don't want to do it. Like the, just the sheer battery turnover that you need to do to run a mirrorless system. You become a different person with managing that bit of
SPEAKER_05technology. I'll let go of it one. I'll let go of it soon enough. But yeah, I think that it's a kind of a bit of a romantic thing that it's not a video or a a kind of leveled up version of the picture. They're literally looking through a piece of glass. Yeah. So I still show my clients through the camera often. Um, on some things I shoot tethered, but yeah, for the most, most part, people look through the actual viewfinder.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_05And I, and I, I love the fact that that's what they've seen. You make a few calls or discussions about things you might move, et cetera, but then they don't really see the real thing until they get a finished result. Yeah. Um, Whereas I think, you know, I don't know. It's just a personal thing. But I think I need to get over it
SPEAKER_02because it is just… I was amazed when I got my SL to look in that viewfinder that it was, you know, it was not an optical. It was electronic. I just went, Jesus, this is amazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I can get that. It's up to your eye just seeing what's being recorded on the sensor. Because that is something you need to get used to with… like an M-series Leica or any rangefinder, you know, you're not seeing exactly what's being recorded. It's that leap. And, of course, being film, you're not seeing until it's processed and scanned anyway.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I was, you know, if there was any sort of pushback against the whole mirrorless thing, that sort of knocked one of the doors down for me, that's for sure, just seeing the quality of that viewfinder and that it's not as big a jump as I thought it would be as far as looking through the camera. Yeah, right. I
SPEAKER_03love it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you? Yeah. I'll tell you what I do like when I use, and I use it most of the time for personal work, but just the fact that it's instantaneous. I remember looking through, I reckon it was your Expo 2 at Dave's wedding. And this idea of adjusting the camera. Oh, and seeing that. And you're seeing the adjustments like in real time. Sounds so old, don't we? But look, seeing the adjustments in real time, like in this viewfinder, hey, that's cool. That's
SPEAKER_01what I love about it.
SPEAKER_03It's great. So tell me, guys, what do you think of like young photographers and this real interest in film photography? as a thing. What are they doing with it? Like these are people that will never grew up with, they didn't even know what film was and they're like finding this, you know, anyone seen it with their kids?
SPEAKER_02Uh, yeah. Ted's got a, um, I bought him an F4 for Christmas last year. Um, doesn't use it much. Um, but she likes the idea of it and he's got another little,
SPEAKER_03what is it though? What's the, what's the attraction do you think? Is that a gas or gear acquisition thing?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. It's kind of like a gear acquisition syndrome in reverse. Like it's kind of like, I don't even necessarily think it's an interest in, um, where we came from. I think it's more of an interest in, they want a particular look.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And, and they see everyone else wanting this look and then, They like it. So, I mean, the funny thing is I lost money on my digital Hasselblad, whereas my film Hasselblad's gone up threefold in value. And I had a beautiful Pentax 6.7 kit, which I-
SPEAKER_03We know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We all wish we'd have bought
SPEAKER_05it. Which I often discuss about. That's the one that got away. I loved that camera, but I had to choose- which one I was going to keep and the Hasselblad stayed.
SPEAKER_03And was that after the digital Hasselblad problem?
SPEAKER_05Well, it was part of that. It was part of that acquisition. Like it was kind of a discussion in the household. I think it was sadder. That, you know, if I was going to spend this money, then, you know, I need to get rid of some toys. So I had to choose between the film Hasselblad or the film Pentax 6-7 kit, which I'd only really gathered together like a couple of years before and But, you know, that camera, just camera and standard lens, and I had four lenses, but I think now they're worth about four and a half grand for a Pentax 672. And the same as you guys with your Mamiya 7s, because people just want that look. They want that, you know, 2.4 aperture with a 105mm lens and the 67 neg. I mean... It is very nice. So, but yeah, that, that, that, so in a way it is, it's exactly gas, but it's not the latest, greatest thing. It's just going for a different look. It's a gas for a particular look like that. They, that they want to achieve and you can, it takes more time to try and replicate it. Yeah. Whereas if you've got a good lab, like Atkinson, Thanks, Dave. And then you have a particular type of camera. But I still love 120 in film. It's just got a particular kind of look. And, you know, it's kind of I think we all.
SPEAKER_03Well, everyone around this round table has expressed that today. Do you think Cartier-Bresson, Claudio, do you think Cartier-Bresson was thinking about new gear? No. The latest? No. He had everything he needed.
SPEAKER_01I reckon it was just the picture. He was just after the picture. I reckon he was happy with the camera that he had. He's a Leica shooter, right?
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01What's not to love? I don't own one. I've never had one. I've dreamt of it. Many times. Not so much these days. I don't really like – it's just like, yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER_03Do you dream of making – pictures though like making better pictures do you dream of people you'd like to photograph and always okay
SPEAKER_01absolutely yeah so i i think of an image and i and it's i don't i don't automatically think oh what camera we're going to use it for me it's more like how would i light it
SPEAKER_00yeah
SPEAKER_01or would i would it be natural or would it use flash or gear or whatever and then what's the picture going to feel like what's it going to look like um that's that's what i envisage when i'm sort of picturing either a dream case scenario or an actual job, I don't really think.
SPEAKER_03Do you ever, too, guys, think about subjects and things you could photograph?
SPEAKER_02I have a constant ongoing 24-hour day nagging feeling that I haven't done what I wanted to do yet.
SPEAKER_03Really? Yeah, I feel the same way. And this is about dropping dead and not doing that or is it about I forgot this thing? No,
SPEAKER_02no, no, no, no. I just, and I don't know, I can't even nail what specifically it is that I should be or, you know, in an ideal situation that, I didn't need to work, but I can just go and photograph whatever I wanted to. I'm not even sure if I know what that is, but I know I haven't done it. Same. And it niggles me a lot. Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_03Do you think that, David? Oh, absolutely. I
SPEAKER_05used to sleep with an ideas book. Well, not technically. But yeah, on the bedside table, there used to be an ideas book. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd write my ideas down. And it was funny that it had all these ideas in it. And. Would you sketch shots out? Sometimes, but most of the time it would just be dot points. And then I knew, I knew that I would recognise what I was trying to say at that point and I'd always remember it. And I, yeah, I still have a list of shots in my head that I.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you talked about one earlier today, looking at that building. I did. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I did. You want to tell the audience what your great idea was?
SPEAKER_05Well, I don't actually know that it's possible, so we can say it.
SPEAKER_03No, it was just – As long as everything has its name on its collar, that's all that really
SPEAKER_05matters. No, I don't know that I can do it because – yeah, no, I was talking – Don't tell the audience. All right, okay. You don't have to do that. All right. But anyway, you've got these ideas that keep you awake. I'm the same as Simon. I don't feel like I've accomplished
SPEAKER_04anything.
SPEAKER_05A lot of stuff that I would have liked to, and I don't know what that is either, but I think I do remember all the things that I drove past because I couldn't be stuff turning around at 110 Ks an hour, which Simon seems to manage to stop more often than I ever did. But, um, but yeah, look, I think, I think we all should have more personal projects, but
SPEAKER_00And
SPEAKER_05then, cause then you don't feel like you've just always done the work. I mean, obviously we always want to be in a position where the work doesn't feel like.
SPEAKER_03Oh, sure. But it's an antidote to being a commercial working photographer, making money professional is to shoot personal stuff.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I think, I think it, I think it's important. I think, but. It's like going to the gym.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. For me, if I'm going to shoot film in the street or whatever it might be, for me it's like going to the gym for seeing. So you're just getting out there and you're just fine-tuning yourself so that when you actually go and do something for a client, you're just a bit more on it.
SPEAKER_03You're
SPEAKER_02right.
SPEAKER_03And you're practising using your gear. That's the other thing too, so it becomes more embedded in your… In yourself, it's more automatic and you're just using your brain to get that picture rather than faffing around with the gear.
SPEAKER_05Well, I don't think I'm the only one here that would think this, but I think my happy place is being somewhere I'm not used to and walking around and seeing stuff and wanting to see stuff. And I guess that's why I've always taken something a bit different when I've gone travelling because it's kind of like my moment to just walk around and, Just flex the eye muscles like Simon's talking about. I think that, yeah, I think that's the happy place, walking around a strange city. Do
SPEAKER_03any of you use the phone for that? Like you're somewhere different? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I used to take a lot more stuff on the phone, not so much this, but I can tell you that most of our shots of Toby are. On our phone. Yes. Great. Yeah, we just, like, we rarely get real cameras out to take photos of family gatherings
SPEAKER_03and stuff. It's tagged with the location, the date. Oh, that's the
SPEAKER_05best.
SPEAKER_03They're straight into an album. They're shared with family members. Like, it's the system you can't beat, really. It is
SPEAKER_05amazing. But, yeah, look, it's funny. I used to jump up and down and have something against phone photography when it first took off. Photography, yep. Yeah, I remember having some weird thing that I'd be horrified to read back and read back now about when they used to be those exhibitions. I think Cathy was part of once. Do
SPEAKER_03you remember? Well, yeah. Benjamin Lu ran.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And I remember saying, oh, we should not be promoting. Yeah. I was saying we should, we should be trying to. I was in one of those.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. We all
SPEAKER_05were. I don't
SPEAKER_03know if Simon was.
SPEAKER_05Anyway, I'm sorry, Ben. I was a bit of an arsehole.
SPEAKER_03I was overthinking that as well. He did it because you represented the common opinion and he was just wanting to poke the bear.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I wasn't – I guess it was just because I didn't want to say you can – I guess I was just trying to protect that you can do this too. kind of message. The phones are so good that you can do this. So gear is important. No, but maybe I was at that point because I was so obsessed with gear back then. So
SPEAKER_01now I'm the opposite. I think yes and no. Why do you sit on the fence, Claudio? It's
SPEAKER_03not comfortable. Not these corrugated iron ones, anyway.
SPEAKER_01No, definitely not.
SPEAKER_03Do you think Elliot Erwitt was thinking about gear? And I asked you about, but like, was he thinking about the shot? The next shot? Was he upset? That's about 35 mil. Was he upset about phones? No,
SPEAKER_01I don't reckon. No, no, no. I reckon he just wanted to go where the dogs were. Yeah. I reckon he was in his moment in the moment, just living life and loving it and taking pictures. That was it.
SPEAKER_03So yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I think it gear was
SPEAKER_02from, I don't know. It was probably. Was it even more important back then, whereas now everything, content, is just so consumed and done and thrown to the side instantly? Well,
SPEAKER_05this is an interesting thought that I was thinking about today because I think it's part of the conversation. Simon is pretty obsessed with some of those adelaide now and then and all those kind of historic photos and historic buildings things that he occasionally messages me about
SPEAKER_02just as an aside there i've said this to dave as well like he's infatuation i to the extent of um delirium of supplying the level of quality of imagery he does to his clients i've said to him you're looking back at the old stuff captain samuel sweet um you know from 1800s and blah, blah, blah. He took amazing stuff all throughout South Australia and Northern Territory. The quality of it is out of control. Well, Dave's creating that now for the future generations, like the stuff that he shoots of buildings and that sort of thing. He's going to be looked back at with that same level. Context
SPEAKER_03change and sort of
SPEAKER_05looked at differently, yeah. Well, thank you, Simon. But I more so was going to say it's funny how on these Facebook pages they put up this beautifully shot, perfect time of day footage black and white image from the late 1800s or the early 1900s. And everything's, all the verticals are straight on buildings and it's the perfect time of day. And then they put the Google Maps image next to it of like, you know, the building keystoning. The dog's taking a poo in the corner. It's just like, yes, it's exquisite, but what's going to happen? So I guess that kind of goes back to the phone moment as well. If all our... memories and all our history is recorded. Like, yes, it's proper, but could it be better? And it's funny how everything was thought about and everything was done properly back then when it was. You had no choice though, really,
SPEAKER_03did you? Yeah. I mean, I've got a box brownie result. I mean, I was, so I'm looking at the early Darien Smith archive stuff, which he was sort of 1920s onwards. And he was photographing from a biplane. with a full plate, which is about six by eight inch negatives. And he was photographing down on the city and he would correct for verticals. But the biplane was doing, I don't know, how fast does a biplane do? 80 mile an hour. Yeah, right. And it's bouncing on thermals. And the speed, the ISO of the film would have been 30 at most. And he was getting the verticals upright and he was stopping the stuff. So he went through that and did that amazing work, which at the time he thought nothing of because I asked him, he thought, you know, this is not important. It was just record stuff. And now the State Library have inhaled it all as the most exciting thing. He moved to Hasselblad shooting, you know, from, you know, 8x10 half plate, sorry, 6x8 full plate. So he moved from that down to 2 1⁄4 square, tiny little shots, comparatively stuff. But he would go and get three lenses from the camera store and he would shoot the same shot with all three lenses and then we'd make a huge print to work out which lens worked the best. He was purely what was going to do the job. That's all that mattered. He was glad that the camera got smaller. He's glad that he didn't have to put a flight suit on and climb out of a biplane and stand on the wing. You know, he was just excited that thing had moved on. I don't think he was – sitting there turning the Hasselblad over going, click, how beautiful is this? Click. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05No, I mean, you're right. They probably didn't have the choice because it was like, you know, the old portrait photography. So it was all big, large format. They
SPEAKER_03just want to make money probably. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I guess more so what I was getting at is, are we going to have this gap in our history? Like before and after it was done properly.
SPEAKER_03Well, there always is in that period where technology is taking up. And, you know, like all the crazy stuff comes out and people do crazy things because they can. And the stuff all looks wild and stupid, spot colours and all this sort of stuff. And then suddenly everyone goes, oh, yeah, we know how to do that now. And it settles down and we get back on track.
SPEAKER_05Like cross-processing in the late 90s. Cross-processing.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I think I tried that once. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I got very obsessed with that. But the, yeah, well, I mean, but if you look back at all early digital stuff and I know that, the first digital cameras we were using were 2.3 megapixels. Yeah. So it's kind of like if you weren't shooting film as well, it'll be interesting to note if anything of importance was done back then. It's
SPEAKER_03not about resolutions. Can you still read the file?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, that's the other side of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's why all my personal stuff I shoot on film because at some stage there's going to be in a cupboard folders of negs and then there's going to be things with hard drives that someone's going to look at and go, what the hell are these? And just chuck them much less try and work out how to make them work. Whereas negs are going to be quite obviously photographs and they're going to be kept.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. I've still, I've still got a firewire drive somewhere. I wonder what I can get to plug that into like an old firewire 400 plus some, plus some zip.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. The first one was a 50, then there was a hundred. So, so what happens? I mean, I've, frankly think a bigger problem is the share quantity of imagery that's being taken. Like at least film, you slowed you down to doing 30, 60 or whatever, you know, 12, whatever the format you're working with. But, you know, I've got 60,000 pictures on my phone. Like surely that's a bigger thing. I mean, let's assume we can keep all these digital files. Is that a sort of acquisition? Like because you've got the phone – And because you're walking down the street and you see the building like that faraway house and it looks cool. So you get nice and square on it and you take your nice square, beautifully, you know, framed. Every vertical is a vertical. Then you maybe take it into Lightroom or Photoshop and you straighten it and you go, oh, that's a nice picture. And you go, tick. Is that an acquisition syndrome like gas? Because that photo has been taken a freaking million times. Like postcards, you know, the process. What is
SPEAKER_02it? It's the process up until the click of what you've done, what you just described. It's the process of taking the shot, which gives you the buzz.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. You know, it might have been done a zillion times before and you might not necessarily do something different, but, you know, you've decided, you set out to capture it and how you wanted to. So, yeah, for me, it's the process.
SPEAKER_03But how much of what you want to do is what you've seen other people do? And you just want to do... I do that. Or you guys, like I'm not judging you guys for that. Like this is definitely me. Like I get excited by seeing an Elliot Erwood image with the cameras down on the ground and there's dog legs. And, you know, I like, and I want that shot. I want to take that picture. But it's like freaking, go and buy Elliot's book.
SPEAKER_02I got, when I got the SL, and again, I've got that. Like a
SPEAKER_03SL for those. He's got a like a digital.
SPEAKER_02Sorry for bagging. I've got the screen set to monochrome, so the display shows me that. Now, I was wandering around the streets with that for a while, and there's a really big push on Insta at the moment where there's massive dark shadows creating shapes.
SPEAKER_03Ban Ho style from Hong Kong. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02I've seen that. It's everywhere. And I got sucked into that, and I thought, hang on. Hang on. This shot is about the light. It's not about the actual content of the shot. And I got sucked into that for a while and stopped doing
SPEAKER_03it. But that's about learning that technique, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So that then now Simon knows how to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure. I'll tick that box. But now I've sort of went, okay, no worries. I'm back to.
SPEAKER_03That's a skill acquisition syndrome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, probably. going, yeah, I can do that, no problems at all. But it doesn't give me any joy copying some sort of style that is hip and is all over Instagram right now. So I'm back to the M6 and film and actually capturing things that are happening.
SPEAKER_03So, Claudio, does that happen to you? Do you see other people's work and go, oh, I'm going to order other styles and say, let me see if I can do that style? Or are you just totally in your own world with
SPEAKER_01sitters? Sometimes. I probably find more influence in older photographs, not so much today. There are some that I'll look at. There are some modern photographers that I'll follow on Instagram and just look at it and go, that's really beautiful. I want that feeling, that same feel. I don't like to copy, but it's hard not to. It's
SPEAKER_03imprinted. We're AI, aren't we? We see this stuff at We ingest it and then we spit it out in some other way, don't we?
SPEAKER_01Like if I'm lighting someone, it's like, well, you can only have – I mean, there's no new way of lighting. It's like you put it and you aim it and you have the way you – do you know what I mean? It's like
SPEAKER_03– But Stephen Fry in 2024, that didn't happen again. It's happened before. So there's your chance to do something incredibly unique.
SPEAKER_01Actually, for that, I did – that was a very fast shoot. I'm not being specific. I'm just
SPEAKER_03saying – You know, with your subject being like that, you make a brand new picture every single time. Are you thinking about another shot you've seen of Stephen Fry? No. Are you thinking about the way you're shooting him because you know the venue?
SPEAKER_01I knew the venue, but I arrived about 15 minutes before, 20 minutes beforehand, and I walked straight into the room that I knew I was going to be shooting him. And within a few minutes, I went, that's where I'm going to shoot him. And I did two shots in the one room. So one was with flash, one was without flash. And that was more about knowing the room? No, it's more like I'll look at the light and say, okay, it's falling in this particular direction and this is what I want my end result to feel like. So I kind of knew what the shadows were going to be like on his face. Are
SPEAKER_03you thinking about Stephen's shape and his body?
SPEAKER_01Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, sometimes. Not often, but sometimes I'll consider that. I mean, everyone's very different. I can go and shoot someone else in exactly the same spot and it'll be exactly different. So what about a glamorous cabaret
SPEAKER_03female performer? Like, would you be going, okay, my brain is going, like, I need this, this needs to be stage lighting and... And so you're thinking of great stage directors and all that kind of stuff? Sorry, say that again. Like a cabaret, female cabaret performer, all the glamour, all the light, all the makeup and hair. Are you then chewing through that genre? As a portrait shot? Yeah, let's say you're asked to go and photograph. No, I
SPEAKER_01don't. I like my portraits really simple. I don't like knowing too much about who I'm shooting. Really? Oh, yeah. And I don't – I might Google them and have a really quick squeeze if I don't know who they are, but then that's it. I won't go any further than that. I like a certain type of feel and a certain type of light. So for me, simple, even though it's kind of not, but simplicity. I don't like over-lit. I don't like complex, big shoots. I don't want to show up with two assistants and a – Excuse me. You know, and a truck full of grips. That doesn't interest me. But C-stands. But C-stands do. One of my favourite photographers is Bridgette Lacombe, I think her name is. She's French. She's older than me. Shit, that's old. Yeah, it is. Shut up, son. Her work is so fucking simple. yet not. It's just gorgeous. Yeah. Love, love. So yes, I do follow a few modern photographers, but most of my influence would come from old. Yeah. Yeah. So Richard Avedon, one of them. Wow. It's my greatest, probably one of my greatest inspiration. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing.
SPEAKER_03Well, look, we, um, we're getting towards the end. Have, has anyone got anything? They, they'd just been on the tip of their tongues. Thank you for the beer. On the tip of the tongues. I want to talk about in the, under, under the subject of, um, that we've been pulling apart. I don't think we've got anywhere, frankly. I
SPEAKER_05was just going to say because Claude was talking about lighting, like I think an interesting concept is the fact that people can get pretty carried away with that as well. So everyone. We
SPEAKER_01did talk about it in terms of Bonner.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean a lot of the time everyone's like, you know, Profoto is the best. lighting gear and you know you need it to be like Annie Leibovitz or whatever but it'd be an interesting experiment because if you get an amazing you know product or portrait photographer and you gave them some a couple of a couple of bits of wood some tracing paper and a couple of hot lights from the 60s and then gave some you know person with a couple years experience whatever like it'd be it'd be interesting to see if Like I don't, that way it's just light. You can make it work. Like it's, yes, you can crank up cameras these days with ISO and all that, but I think you could get, it's about learning the craft. And I think someone could do something amazing with a torch. Yep. Giving them, giving them half a chance versus having. you know, 20 grand worth of lighting
SPEAKER_01gear. I've made stuff to bring to a shoot for a few bucks that I know costs hundreds and it does the job exactly the same way.
SPEAKER_03But that's because you know what you need to do it. Like whenever I play with studio lighting, I often, it's just, I'm so ham-fisted with it because I'm not using it all the time. And it does take a lot of experience. You hear a lot of photographers say, oh, I don't like using, you know,
SPEAKER_01artificial lighting. Yeah, it's overwhelming. Yeah. Like flash is, is really overwhelming, but.
SPEAKER_05Well, it's, it's funny though, because like gear, a lot of people can just be put off by everyone talking about numbers, everyone talking about numbers and light ratios and that kind of stuff and metering everything, you know, especially in this day and age where you can just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. I think if you, I think that's why people get a bit scared of it all, but honestly, you could just try a few things out trial and error and you'll get there. With whatever you've got. That's the beauty of digital, seeing the result. Well, we shot Polaroid back in film days as well. Shot Polaroid. It costs a lot, though.
SPEAKER_03It
SPEAKER_05costs even
SPEAKER_03more now. It costs a lot of time with digital. We say it costs nothing, but, you know, you talked about what you spend your time doing. We said earlier, like, I don't have time for that quite right now. No. It is expensive time as Polaroids are expensive.
SPEAKER_05I think the lighting thing is interesting because that's what, That's what we're capturing. That's everything. Whether it's not lit with studio gear or shot outside. Or
SPEAKER_03homemade lighting gear like Claudia was talking about. Experiment. Do you have any lighting?
SPEAKER_02Yes. I've got... I've still got all my Bowens monoblocks. So like two 1000s and a 1500 when you're shooting... 3,000. Yeah, you just needed that huge gutsy power. Now I've got a case with Godox stuff in there, which is my daily go-to gear, which travels around with me. Yeah. And it's, oh my God, it's fantastic. It's battery powered. There's no sync cords. It's all radio connected. I sit there on top of my camera and there's the controller thing on top of my camera and I can change the output of the heads from my camera. It's fantastic. It's great. It's just so convenient. And it's good. And yeah, it's hella cheap compared to... Yeah, and
SPEAKER_03you don't need the power. You don't need the power because the ISA sensitivity is a totally different world. Nope. Unless we all went back to film. I
SPEAKER_02occasionally have to get the Bowen stuff out. But, yeah, I'm glad I don't have to get out as much as I used to because it's bloody huge and cumbersome and stands. And dangerous.
SPEAKER_03And cables. You know, when you're putting 4,000 watts through a block, you know, like it's terrifying stuff. Yeah. Well, let's wrap it up. Yeah, fun stuff. What a fun chat. Thank you so much, all three of you. We'll try and get some links from you to put in the show notes of any things that we've. come up with. Because I've not made my notepad as blank as because I was having too much of a fun chat. So I might have to listen to this and say, what did you say, Dave? Who was that? What was their name? And Claudio, your suggestion of the female photographer you're following. I will chase all that stuff down so our listeners can have a follow the bouncing ball. But thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thank you for
SPEAKER_03asking. It was fun. It was. Let's do it again. Yeah. Are we going to pub now?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We all got time? Yeah. We got a hall pass?
SPEAKER_05I'm saying use that term.
SPEAKER_03I know what hall pass means. It was a very funny movie. It was a very funny movie. And you know what? I feel like it really nailed me at that time in my life. Oh, that's a bad terminology as well. CPAP machine and all. All right. Thank you so much. We'll catch you all around.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. Take care.
SPEAKER_03Cheers. Cheers.
UNKNOWNCheers.