Interview: Salgado in the Frosty North

amateriat

amateriat

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Not much detail on camera-related stuff (save for mentioning shooting "in black and white", which these days can mean almost anything), but some interesting stuff involving getting in, out, and around his chosen territory. (Hot tip: use a really small plane. And bring a lot of cereal.)


- Barrett
 
Barrett,

Thanks for this...nice article.

Best regards,

Bob
 
amateriat said:
Not much detail on camera-related stuff (save for mentioning shooting "in black and white", which these days can mean almost anything), but some interesting stuff involving getting in, out, and around his chosen territory. (Hot tip: use a really small plane. And bring a lot of cereal.)


- Barrett
Click to expand...

(...) save for mentioning shooting "in black and white", which these days can mean almost anything (...)

Last year a very long article (20 pages) on Salgado was published by the French Magazine "Réponses Photo": among other topics, one focus of the paper was how and why Salgado had just switch to digital and how he literally recreated a film workflow with digital files.
The MF Pentax 645D not being available yet and other MF digital cameras being to "fragile" for his Genesis project (i.e. brands such Hasselblad etc.), he chose the Canon 1DS Mark III which he really liked (I guess he has reverted to the Pentax 645D since though), the files of which are fed to a Kodak LVT Rhino that "prints" negatives, which in turn are dark room printed printed on traditional photo paper. It appears complicated -and it is- but the results are well worth the hassle.
(The main reason for going digital was that he got tired of fighting with the transport security rules when he routinely travels with hundreds of 220 film rolls...)
 
Thanks for this, Kawabantam. That is one tortuous workflow, the mirror opposite of my own. I certainly grok his reasoning, though.


- Barrett
 
Thanks for sharing this article. I reckon you can't get these kind of images by walking a mile or two from a cruise ship port.
 
Kawabatnam said:
(...) save for mentioning shooting "in black and white", which these days can mean almost anything (...)

Last year a very long article (20 pages) on Salgado was published by the French Magazine "Réponses Photo": among other topics, one focus of the paper was how and why Salgado had just switch to digital and how he literally recreated a film workflow with digital files.
The MF Pentax 645D not being available yet and other MF digital cameras being to "fragile" for his Genesis project (i.e. brands such Hasselblad etc.), he chose the Canon 1DS Mark III which he really liked (I guess he has reverted to the Pentax 645D since though), the files of which are fed to a Kodak LVT Rhino that "prints" negatives, which in turn are dark room printed printed on traditional photo paper. It appears complicated -and it is- but the results are well worth the hassle.
(The main reason for going digital was that he got tired of fighting with the transport security rules when he routinely travels with hundreds of 220 film rolls...)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this! Even though there seems to be a temporary set-back on the Kodak LVT Rhino I'd been researching and trouble-shooting, I had always envisioned something grand like this that the LVT is made for.
 
Mr Salgado is one of my heroes for a long time with his socially engaged documentary photos. But this landscape work it shows me a new side of this great artist. Stunning work and technique!
 
Kawabatnam said:
(...) save for mentioning shooting "in black and white", which these days can mean almost anything (...)

Last year a very long article (20 pages) on Salgado was published by the French Magazine "Réponses Photo": among other topics, one focus of the paper was how and why Salgado had just switch to digital and how he literally recreated a film workflow with digital files.
The MF Pentax 645D not being available yet and other MF digital cameras being to "fragile" for his Genesis project (i.e. brands such Hasselblad etc.), he chose the Canon 1DS Mark III which he really liked (I guess he has reverted to the Pentax 645D since though), the files of which are fed to a Kodak LVT Rhino that "prints" negatives, which in turn are dark room printed printed on traditional photo paper. It appears complicated -and it is- but the results are well worth the hassle.
(The main reason for going digital was that he got tired of fighting with the transport security rules when he routinely travels with hundreds of 220 film rolls...)
Click to expand...

Thank you Kawabatnam.. This is very interesting. If you find more explanations about his "process" please share with us again..

Bob
 
SS is one of my faves, so i am stoked that he took his camera, conscious, and cereal to the great north to help preserve these natural wonders.
i saw his pics, clearly they are "fortified" with post-processing, especially the contrast. in any case, they are beauties, and ansel adams himself would be proud.

this technique of creating plastic negs from a digital file has been around for some years, but I think the printing industry has made it more economically feasible to do this. yes, its a helluva lotta work, but if you are paying an assistant 10 bucks an hour for the honor of working with you (and by "you" i mean SS), then it is more doable.

This application of creating plastic negs is also leaching out into other areas. e.g. you can take a digital file, create a tangible negative, and make a tyntype, a kallitype, etc in the darkroom. The old meets the new. Like a 50mm Summitar on an M8. Cool.
 
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