Plates to Polaroids: Four Photographers Giving New Life to Old Tech
Believe it or not, but people have been taking photographs for almost 200 years now. In that time we’ve gone from taking blurry, long-exposure landscapes on metal plates to recording every aspect of our lives with the digital cameras in our pockets.
It’s easy to think of old technology as dead or obsolete. At MOTAT, we love to show just how alive and exciting it still can be. As part of our Love / Science exhibition, we are profiling four talented photographers who share MOTAT’s passion for new technology while still keeping old tech ticking.
PAUL ALSOP
Paul M Alsop is one of two people in New Zealand that regularly use ‘wet plate collodion’ photography. A true art form, taking days to plan and hours to shoot a single portrait.
Paul M Alsop first discovered his interest in photography through another of his interests: tropical fish. While in the UK in 2004, Paul began photographing the coral reef environments he created in fish tanks. The challenge of capturing good shots led Paul to not only learn about photography, but also to upgrade his equipment. He later moved on to landscape photography with a Canon 30D.
After moving to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2010, he established himself in Thames working as a doctor at the hospital. Still a keen photographer, the hospital’s maintenance staff set him up with a darkroom in the old boiler house. Here, his focus shifted to portraits and he realised a passion for processing black and white film and the results which can be achieved using older development techniques.
However, some of these techniques required the use of toxic chemicals — leading him to look for alternative methods. A workshop introduced him to “wet plate collodion” photography, which has been his medium of choice ever since.
‘Wet plate collodion’ photography was invented in 1851 by English photographer Frederick Scott Archer. The process creates a negative image on chemically-treated glass slides.
Paul is one of two people in New Zealand that regularly use this method. It is a true art form, taking days to plan and hours to shoot a single portrait.
Despite all the extra effort, Paul doesn’t see it as an obsolete technology: “It’s the detail rendered in the portraits, the orthochromatic nature of the process, and the end aesthetic that will keep this medium alive,” he said.
Medium: Wet plate collodion
Format: A camera from the late 1800s that shoots 4 inches x 5 inches — creating images up to 10 x 12-inch plates. Image is rendered as a one-of-a-kind on glass or metal with liquid silver nitrate. Paul also works on a large-format camera he built out of mahogany and brass.
Camera of choice: a monorail 4 x 5-inch Toyo-View studio camera. “It provides the operator all the movements you would ever want,” Paul said. “Tilt, shift, rise, fall, swing. And if nothing else, it gives me the ability to use the ‘Scheimpflug principle’ — a description of the geometric relationship of the plane of focus and the lens plane.”
Check out more of Paul’s work on his website.
PETER BUSH
Peter Bush (“Bushy”) enjoyed a long and extraordinary career as a news and sports photographer. From 1948 onwards, he shot with cameras spanning the full evolution of camera technology.
Photographer Peter Bush CNZM QSM, enjoyed a long and extraordinary career as a news and sports photographer. From the 1950s onwards, “Bushy” shot with cameras spanning the full evolution of camera technology.
An interest in photography was sparked at age 12 in Kumara on the West Coast. He would look at scenic photographs in the newspapers and consider different angles the picture could have been taken from.
His photographic career began as a cadet at the NZ Herald. He recalls, “I couldn’t believe I was being paid to do it. Boy, could I cope with that!”
Over time he became famous for his sports photography, but early in his career, he seized on the opportunity to combine his passion for the outdoors and photography while working on photographic assignments for The Weekly.
While he enjoys photographing a subject that he can direct, Peter is most famous for his work in the 1950s in a highly physical and unpredictable environment — the rugby field. With rugby boots strapped to his feet, he would hurtle around the sideline anticipating where the next try was going to happen so he could snap the winning shot. “I loved the sheer impact of the game,” he said. He was presented with a Gold Bib which allowed him access to any rugby ground in NZ and was still there until five years ago!
When Peter began his career, he used cameras loaded with glass plates. Each plate was coated in light-sensitive chemicals. While these could produce high-quality photos, they were heavy and cumbersome. During his career, he transitioned to celluloid film cameras which were lighter and could take multiple photos per roll. He remembers, “We’d get a tip from the police that a suspect was going into the courthouse. This is where these cameras were ideal. You only had a matter of seconds. The motorised invention allowed a photographer to be fast-paced and quick.”
Now in his 90s, Bushy continues to take photos well into his retirement and still insists on having his digital Canon G12 around his neck wherever he goes. He is very much admired for mentoring young sports photographers.
Camera of Choice: The 120mm Rolleiflex, as used by top photographers for Life and Time magazines, is a personal favourite. He said, “It was a beautiful camera to handle — look down in it. Two lenses and you could compose it. The second lens took the picture. It was the camera of great photographers.” Unfortunately, this great photographer couldn’t afford one in his magazine days, settling for the cheaper Rolleicord.
Check out more of Peter’s work on his website.
EMILY RAFTERY
Emily Raftery is a portrait and wedding photographer based in Devonport, Auckland. Although she shoots her commercial work using digital cameras, film remains her passion and format of choice for personal projects.
Emily Raftery is a portrait and wedding photographer based in Devonport, Auckland. Although she shoots her commercial work using digital cameras, film remains her passion and the format of choice for her personal projects.
What began as a means to avoid more academic subjects in high school quickly became a life-long passion and later developed into a career.
At age 19 she moved to New York City, bought a film camera, and began capturing her experiences and people she met along the way. During this time, it became clear to Emily that photography was more than just a hobby “I knew that this was something much more serious for me, what I wanted to be doing, and needed to explore the artistic side of it further,” she said. Emily later returned to New Zealand and enrolled in a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in photography.
In the final year of her degree, Emily became a mother and began a photography business to support the young family. This meant abandoning some of her more artistic leanings in favour of modern digital photography. Over the last four years though, Emily has found time to return to her roots. Her personal photography is all shot using her collection of analogue cameras.
The self-portrait displayed in MOTAT’s Love / Science exhibit was taken on one of Emily’s favourite cameras: a Polaroid SX-70. She loves the instant, tangible nature of Polaroid film. It’s a love she shares with photographers across the globe.
The rise of digital cameras led to Polaroid discontinuing its film products and declaring bankruptcy in 2008. However, another company bought the Polaroid name and began producing new film and cameras in 2017.
Her personal projects focus on portraits of people in their everyday environments, using natural light. She says “I love the connections and interactions I manage to find or create with people when asking to take their portrait.” There is also a synergy between her portraits and a love for smalltown New Zealand that really works — seeing the frequently overlooked and turning it into art. “It’s where my passions lie: for the real, the natural, the everyday, and championing the mundane,” she adds.
Camera of Choice: “It is hard to pick a favourite. It kind of feels like I am being asked to choose a favourite child!”
Check out more of Emily’s work on her website.
LORENZO THAPLIYAL
Lorenzo Thapliyal discovered his passion for photography at the age of 15 while working in a photo lab, where he learned to process film and was inspired to invest in his first camera — a 35mm Pentax SLR.
Photographer Lorenzo Thapliyal discovered his passion for photography at the age of 15 while working in a photo lab, where he learned to process film and was inspired to invest in his first camera — a 35mm Pentax SLR.
As a photographer, Lorenzo prefers portraits — shooting on medium or large-format film on a Cambo 4 x 5 camera. “I like how much soul and emotion you can pack into a portrait,” he said. Part of the appeal of the format is the massive size of the negative, which he feels produces amazing quality and depth.
Camera of choice: Cambo 4 x 5 camera
He also enjoys experimenting with alternative processes like pinhole photography and lumen prints. Doing away with physical cameras entirely, lumen photography involves placing objects on silver gelatine photographic paper and exposing it to sunlight. This creates colourful, otherworldly silhouettes.
Lorenzo has turned his passion into a business, opening his own photo lab in 2017. Despite the ubiquity of digital cameras these days, he has seen a steady rise in analogue photography. “In particular the last year has been a boom for the industry with a lot of new labs popping up all around the world and lockdowns giving people more time to research and get back into it,” he said.
See what Lorenzo and his team are up to at The Black and White Box.
Visit our current exhibit Love / Science online.
By Todd Dixon, Exhibitions Curator, MOTAT
Cite this article:
Dixon, Todd. Plates to Polaroids: Four Photographers Giving New Life to Old Tech.
