Angry Birds at Sundance
By Jim Urquhart
Courtesy of Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune
I am not a star stalker nor am I a paparazzi. I am just a screaming photojournalist and the Angry Birds Champion of the World!
I was recently given the opportunity to work with Reuters’ photojournalists Lucas Jackson and Mario Anzuoni as part of the photo team covering the Sundance Film Festival. This was my second year covering the event, which is more like a triathlon in terms of photo work. The days can be long, you have to use different photographic skill sets and there’s a bit of competition for pictures.
It is the one assignment a year like it for me. I mainly cover breaking news, features and sports. I know nothing about celebrity or entertainment news. But for some reason this doesn’t deter the editors from throwing me in to it. Luckily Mario and Lucas know what they are doing.
The Kodak tragedy
By Gary Cameron
Like so many consumers who have seen the continual demise of Eastman Kodak and it’s many film, and film-related products, I view today’s filing for Chapter 11 protection with incredible sadness. That sadness is coupled, however, with the cruel understanding of how a great U.S. company that once led the world in its respective industry, is poised now to go the same route as Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Pontiac, and join an ever-growing group of American industrial icons that did not keep up or improve their product enough to stay competitive.
As a news photographer of 32 years, a lot of Kodak film and chemistry has passed through my hands. Having the last name of Cameron played a part. Schoolyard taunts of “Gary Camera, Gary Camera,” never angered me. Taking pictures was a cool thing to do.
When I was five years old, I would swipe my Uncle Dave’s Leica rangefinder camera that was always loaded with Kodachrome color slide film and attempt to imitate the actions required to take a picture. I knew that this lever would advance the film, this window was where you looked through to take the photo, and that was about it. No focusing and no understanding of how to set the aperture or shutter speed to control the amount of light hitting the film plane. It was always a surprise to my Uncle that somehow, in that batch of processed color slides, there were 36 exposures of a roadside park trash can, all out of focus, and all over, or under, exposed.
Most Sunday’s found my family gathered at my Grandmother’s house for a great seven-course Italian meal, followed by an Uncle Dave slide show. Great pasta, but there was no editing of the numerous slide trays of the Mackinac Bridge, the flower show at Hudson’s department store, the retirement dinners from Hudson’s, the building of the Interstate highway system through Detroit, family baptisms, birthdays, vacations, Detroit Tigers’ camera days, (you got to go on the field… and take pictures of the players!), Christmas trees with presents, Christmas trees AFTER the presents, well, you get the idea. That’s a lot of color slides, and I saw every exposure, every angle, every single, damn one. No one in the family was spared, and neither were any slides. Those slides still exist today with little or no color shift. That is some great film and chemistry!
Great timeline and documentation of the affinity many of us feel for Kodak. When I was a kid you’d visit theme parks and there would be signs “Stop here for your Kodak moment.” Same thing with some state/national parks.
As Americans we’ve lost much of our brand loyalty. Perhaps because some of the American auto industry taught us that we weren’t important in their equation. They possessed the technology of their foreign competitors but didn’t employ it. We felt betrayed. It’s natural to go for something better, cheaper or more functional, but unfortunately it’s at the expense of losing some iconic American companies that made the mistake of not moving toward the future fast enough or early enough.
I just received the consumer announcement email today about the Kodak Gallery being sold to Shutterfly and my pictures being transferred to Shutterfly.
So Sad. Having a “Kodak moment” is such a strong brand statement. It’s like “pass me a Kleenex.” Kodak was a part of the American evolution of photography for the every man. They are a real American icon. A brand known round the world, fading. It’s such a shame. I wish their was some cutting-edge technology on your development plate that you could debut and revive your company. Having such a strong brand is not so easy to achieve.
Thanks for the Kodak moment memories.
World War Z goes to Glasgow
By David Moir
The post-apocalyptic horror novel, ‘World War Z’, by Max Brooks, has been adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt and Mireille Enos and directed by Marc Forster. It has started filming in Scotland. The set is mainly on the streets in and around George Square in Glasgow, with its open space and architecture, substituting for Philadelphia.
Road signs have been put up telling you 16th Street, J F Kennedy Boulevard and Ben Franklin Bridge are just around the corner so hopefully you feel like you are in Philly, certainly some of the tourists from the U.S. I’ve spoken to seem to give it the thumbs up.
The Brangelina bandwagon (or train as it should now be known) chartered an entire train for the journey north from London over the border to Glasgow for themselves, their children and cast and crew of the film. They arrived last week in a flurry of media attention (TV crews positioned, journalists lurking and photographers roaming) and blacked out people carriers and limousines sitting near by but with security so tight you couldn’t see a thing.
With that in mind, myself and colleagues all thought the access to the actual filming was going to be super tight, how wrong could we be?
Fishing with film
By Carlos Barria
In the “old” days, back before digital photography, photographers used to lug around tons of extra luggage, portable dark rooms, and set up shop in their hotel bathrooms. Or they would send their film — by motorcycle, car or even plane — to somebody else in a hotel or office close by to develop it, scan it and file. Or they might have to scramble and look for a lab in the middle of a crisis, in a foreign country. I don’t think my colleague Joe Skipper speaks Spanish, but I know that when he covered a showdown at Colombia’s Justice Ministry in the 80s, he learned how to say, “Mas amarillo!,” “More yellow!
North America chief photographer Gary Hershorn arrives to the Vancouver international airport with all his photo lab luggage. REUTERS/Stringer
I began my career as a photographer at the beginning of the digital era, working at La Nacion in Argentina. There, in 2000, I had a front row seat to the transition. I shot film myself, but for a very short period.
La Nacion newspaper photographer Rafael Calvino edits film at the newspaper lab in Buenos Aires. Courtesy of Hernan Zenteno
I have to confess that I always admired photographers who worked with film. I admired their patience. I love people who are organized and meticulous working with film; I’m definitely not one of them.
La Nacion newspaper photographer Rodrigo Abd cut film the lab of paper as he edits his pictures. Byline Hernan Zenteno
like the analogy you draw to hunting and fishing (very much inspired by Bariloche, I guess). totally agree on the two modes of working: I always compare the two modes of working to the way you buy presents for someone: you either “search” for a present (more common) or you just happen to “find” one.
Come, fall in love
I first encountered the 52-year-old Maratha Mandir movie theater while I was on one of my walks to explore Mumbai. Being new to the city, I do this often. It was just a casual walk down the lanes of the city when I saw a huge billboard promoting a film outside the cinema. The billboard proudly advertised it as the longest-playing film in Indian history.
The film “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” (The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride), starring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, is a simple romantic film shot in Europe and India, where a boy meets a girl and falls in love with her – girl is about to get married in India – boy takes the journey from Europe to India to win her over.
I still remember when the film was released in 1995, it became an instant hit amongst the youth. Fifteen years down the line it’s unthinkable that people still love to watch it and in a cinema to boot!
At Maratha Mandir, it was the watchman who first told me that DDLJ, as the film is popularly known, still runs to a full house in the 1000-plus-seats cinema. I, of course, didn’t believe him until I met Manoj Desai, the cinema’s executive director. He invited me to watch the film, promising it would answer all my questions. He asked his manager to reserve a seat for me, as on Sundays the film is usually sold out. He said it was the first time in the history of Maratha Mandir he was allowing someone to shoot inside the ‘heart’ of the theater — the projection room.
On the day of my shoot, I arrived an hour before the ticket window was to open…and there was already a long line waiting to get inside. There were young men, old men, women, children…all equally keen to catch a glimpse of the iconic Bollywood film.
I hope you know that the cinema is owned by Yash Raj Films.(Wonder why this crucial information is missing from your journalistic report) Yash Raj films are the makers of DDLJ. That explains this unique phenomenon. Why exoticise so much!
Yusuf Khan
Remember the days of black and white film?
Do you remember the days of black and white film? Life before digital and the preview screen? How about shooting one frame per minute?
I have made several trips with U.S. President George W. Bush to his ranch in Crawford, Texas over the last couple of years.
Crawford is a small, sleepy town, population 705, a place where time has seemed to have passed them by. There are no hotels, one small flashing traffic light, and definitely not a Starbucks to be found.
A Holga is a $25 toy, plastic, medium format rangefinder camera with one fixed exposure, and I have been using it for about 7 years. I brought some 120 Tri-x film on a visit when we had a couple days with no planned coverage of the President, just to kill some time and have some fun. But I realized that a lot of the images that I was trying to make had more of a horizontal look than the traditional square 6×6 images produced by the Holga, and thought they might work better as “sprocket” pix. If you put 35mm film in a Holga, it will expose the entire negative, including the edges numbers and sprocket holes. I thought it might be an interesting photo project to shoot some views of this town whose notoriety is home of the “Western White House” and the impact his presence would have on their town. I wanted the images to have an old dusty, historical look to it. And with Bush nearing the end of his presidency, it might be interesting to make a picture package on the town that will probably slip back into its quiet world, probably losing its most famous resident when he retires down the road to Dallas.
Shooting with a Holga is a very patient process. The viewfinder is nowhere near the image you end up with, especially with sprocket photographs. The angle is much wider than it looks, having to correct for the parallax error, mentally blocking out the top and bottom thirds for the 35 mm film….ughhh, never mind, click! F/8 @ 1/100th second. Turn the winder knob 36 clicks, and you are ready for the next frame. Sometimes that is the best thing to do with a Holga, just trip the shutter and move on. Don’t over analyze it. It is after all… a toy camera!
But what I love about it is the simplicity of it all. Film, plastic lens, and a black box. The basics of photography. It’s not 10 fps, 15 second photo ops, or rocket science for that matter. The anticipation of the film to come back from the lab days later, getting a loupe and seeing what happened. Isn’t what this is all about? A simple image from a moment in time. Trying to create something from nothing, and having some fun in the process. If you don’t slow down every now and then, the world just might pass you by…..
Where do you take your film to be developed? If you wanted some printed from the negatives, where do you take them for that? I have several 3 1/4 x 4 1/2 negatives over 60 years old that I want scanned. I can’t find a place to do this yet. Thanks. Jan Humphrey.
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