Master Photographer David Burnett Slows Down With His Speed Graphic Camera
By Mark Rykoff (@markrykoff) Photo Editor and Alex Newman (@alexandranewman) Deputy Editor Interactive & Mobile at Al Jazeera America
David Burnett owns and uses modern digital cameras, but he takes his 1940s Pacemaker Speed Graphic camera on nearly every assignment.
Fitted with a bellows and allowing the user to take only one image at a time, the Speed Graphic would hardly seem the camera of choice for one of the world’s most celebrated photojournalists.
But Burnett rarely leaves home without it.
“I love using the old gear,” he says. “The odds are against you in so many ways.”
“In the era of digital, we are used to instant gratification. The Speed Graphic slows you down. You have to become a master of anticipation.”
For his first story for Al Jazeera America, Burnett took the Speed Graphic to Vandalia, Illinois, where the Association of Lincoln Presenters held its annual convention, starting on April 15, 2015, the 150th anniversary of the 16th president’s assassination. The small town was swarming with close to 30 Lincoln look-alikes.
For his Speed Graphic portraits, it takes 30 seconds for Burnett to set up the camera. First, he opens the shutter. Then he positions the frame and carefully focuses the image of the subject on the glass that sits at the rear of the camera.
Once Burnett has one of this Lincoln’s eyes in focus, he flips a lever and locks it in position.
The posing Lincoln is told he cannot move after this point.
Burnett reaches for the cable release, then he stops, holds as still as he can and waits for the Lincoln to become uncomfortable.
“I usually don’t say anything at this point,” he says. “To some of these guys, I said, ‘I am waiting for you to be Lincoln,’” Burnett explains. “And I could see them thinking, ‘Now I am really going to be Abe Lincoln.’”
Only then does he trigger the shutter.
The result is an image that is creamy rich in detail, in which the out-of-focus portions make the focused ones all the more dramatic.
Burnett says he started using the camera after admiring the way that sports photographers of the 1920s worked. “Back then, everything was shot on something like a Speed Graphic,” he says. “The photographers were forced to think carefully about where to aim and focus.”
He used it for the first time in 2003 during Senate hearings on the Iraq War.
“It forced me to start looking for pictures in a different way,” he said. “In the era of digital, we are used to instant gratification. The Speed Graphic slows you down. You have to become a master of anticipation.”
The night before a shoot, Burnett barricades himself in a windowless hotel room bathroom and carefully prepares his negatives. Two 4-by-5-inch negatives fit in a holder. He loads up 16 holders — enough for 32 pictures.
But the next day, he can’t simply glance at the back of his camera to make sure the picture is a good one.
“You have to cross your fingers that you didn’t screw up,” he said. “In the era before digital, when we shot film, you didn’t know for days or weeks that you had a picture. There was always a pit of doubt in your stomach as you were forced to wait for the film to come back from the lab.”
Also in his bag for the assignment in Vandalia was a jury-rigged slit camera that he made himself out of an old 35-mm Canon rangefinder.
After several years of use, including assignments covering the Vietnam War, the Canon broke. Burnett ripped the insides out and replaced the works with two pieces of aluminum foil, leaving a half-millimeter space between them.
“In the age we live in, bombarded by pictures, I am trying to get the viewer to slow down and look at something”
In order to make an image, he puts the lens cap on, then winds the film all the way to its end. Then he asks the subject to run in a straight line across the field of view of the camera. As the subject moves, he takes the lens cap off and moves the film back toward the canister using the camera’s rewind knob.
In Illinois, Burnett asked a Lincoln to run along a road.
“Because the film is moving, you’re trying to match the movement of the subject to the winding of the film,” Burnett explains. “As the film advances, the spool gets full, and you have to calibrate the rate at which you crank the film.”
The technique — created in 1937 for horseracing — makes a surprising image.
“In the age we live in, bombarded by pictures, I am trying to get the viewer to slow down and look at something. Once that happens, then you got their attention.”
For more photos by world-renowned photographer David Burnett, read the full story “Lincolnpalooza: At their annual convention, Abe and Mary Todd take over small-town Illinois” written by Al Jazeera America’s Senior Features Editor, Katherine Lanpher (@kathlanpher).
