Technique

A manual camera

I use a traditional, manual camera and traditional film. My technique requires me to strictly control all parameters.

Parameters

Various parameters play a role in photography: the time of the exposure, the width of the diaphragm and the film. The opening of the diaphragm has an influence on the quantity of light entering the camera. So does the time of the exposure, meaning that one is not independent from the other. Choices have to be made.

Time

I fix my exposure time to 30 minutes and then adjust the diaphragm. I use very insensitive films.

It’s easy to realize long exposure times during the night. A camera, a tripod, that’s all you need. Open the shutter for 15 minutes or longer, and the stars and the moon start leaving a trace. Working with slow shutter photography during the day is more complicated. Insensitive films and a small diaphragm are not enough. You need a filter! I use the ND400 because it lets only 1/10 000 part of the light pass through.

An important issue with this kind of photography is the non-linear behavior of the film. Beyond a certain exposure time, films don’t react in a linear way anymore. There’s no more proportionality between fast and slow exposures. Color films are built of several layers, sensitive to different principal colours (as in our vision). Different layers have different degrees of non-linearity and, from a certain exposure time on, the film cannot record true colours anymore. That’s why the colours change. One can try to resolve the problem using filters, but I made the choice to accept this effect as part of my work.

This unpredictable element contrasts with the strict procedure I use to set the exposure time and the opening of the diaphragm.

Actual material: Mamiya 7 II – Lens, wide angle, Mamiya N 43 mm – Viewfinder- Filter ND 400 (1/10 000) – Fujichrome Professional Velvia 100F – Trigger – Tripod Manfrotto

My previous material was a Nikon FM2 – Lens, wide angle, 17 mm – Filter ND 400 (1/10 000) – Filter ND 8 (1/8) – Films Fuji chrome 100 et 50 (Velvia et Provia) – Tripod – Trigger – Black cloth
I used to use the Kodak chrome 25, but it doesn’t exist anymore.

Video

I share my life and my passions with Francis Van Aeken, who helps me in my research. He has built custom software that allows me to apply the effect of long exposures to moving images (video). Thanks to Francis, slow shutter photography is now also possible with video.

In photography the exposure time is predetermined but in video I set this parameter after the recording. The filter software has the same effect as a slow shutter in photography: everything momentarily disappears.