CAMERAS
1997-8
I started researching cameras for my ‘How to
Cheat at art’ lecture in 1996, and became hooked on making my own cameras and
playing with photographic chemistry. I soon found that the processes that appealed
to me were ones that produced a positive image - but quickly!
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BOX CAMERA
My first camera was a wooden box, one half telescoping inside the other, with a lens taped
on one half and sensitised paper or plastic taped inside the other half. (I only later
realised this design was almost identical to Daguerre’s original camera). |
TEA CHEST CAMERA
Besides wanting results immediately, I also wanted big photos. I converted a teachest into
a camera big enough to take 16 by 20 inch Ilfochrome paper, using the lens from a pair of
‘readispex’ reading glasses. This is not as crude as it might seem. Early
cameras often used simple meniscus lenses as they produced a relatively flat field in
focus. The results with the teachest were so satisfying that I built a second camera,
incorporating everything I’d learnt.
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ROADSIGN CAMERA
The camera is made out of old aluminium road signs (they happened to be in the scrapyard
when I was starting work). I’ve used this camera ever since, doing portraits of
friends and the occasional events or parties. The photos have a wonderful quality of
light, mainly because of the simple lens. Things can be in very sharp focus (as
there’s no enlargement, its like having a 16 by 20 negative), but also have a glow
round the edges (due to the centre of the lens not being in exactly the same focus as the
periphery). The Ilfochrome process gives an enormous depth of colour so it is possible to
pick out details in deep shade that could never be seen in a normal print.
The lens is about f8 and exposures range from a quarter second out
doors to 30 seconds indoors. At first I though everyone I photographed would have
‘frozen’ expressions – but they don’t seem to. The face muscles have
to be at rest to hold an expression for half a minute, but I now think this helps to make
portraits more recognisable and telling. It removes the transitory expressions that make
so many ‘snaps’ look unrecognisable. The cliché of the frozen expression comes
from victorian photos, when people felt they were expected to look formal in their photos.
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SUITCASE CAMERA
This is simply a suitcase with a lens (from an old graphics camera) screwed in the front.
It takes great 12 by 16 ilfochrome prints. As with the roadsign camera, the photos are
developed by pouring the developing chemicals into the camera. I developed it for a
British council tour of Australia - it was the main prop and the suitcase for all the
other props for my 'How to Cheat at Art' lecture. |
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I spent months playing with
collodion wet plate photography producing ambrotypes. Seen against a white background,
these appear as negatives, but against black they appear as positives. These fragile,
spooky images are wonderful – and working with them made reading tales of 19th
century photographers very vivid. I hope to return to them sometime to make the results
more repeatable and to make the process portable – but at the time I got side-tracked
by Ilfochrome.
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Ilfochrome (Originally Cibachrome) photo paper is intended for use in
the dark room for making prints from positive colour transparencies. Used in a camera
Ilfochrome paper will produce a positive image given long enough – it has an ASA of
about 5.
I’ve spent a week with the camera in the V & A taking pictures of the galleries
and visitors, and a month in America (as part of my residency at the Tryon centre for
Visual Arts, Charlotte NC). My portrait of Richard Gregory is in the national portrait
gallery (though not always on display).
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The computer screen
dosen't do justice to the quality of the photos
but I have scanned in one larger print(about 170k)
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