cool hunting - PforPHOTO

Next time I’ll find myself in San Francisco, I’ll make sure to pay a visit to Photobooth. And you should too. A retail space for classic camera gear and a gallery. But more importantly a tiny type portrait studio. They will photograph you in a unique way. On an aluminum tin type plate your portraiture is developed in a 19th century style. This old technique shows the beauty of photography and the quality it has. Co-Founder of Photobooth Michael Shindler started this studio as a way of putting tangible value back into the typically digital medium.

And this tangible value is being put back by many others. Many photographers featured on PforPHOTO still shoot analog, e.g. Ian Ruhter (also tin type), Misha de Ridder and Alec Soth. They often describe one of the reasons of doing so, the focus it ask of you, the photographer. And if you add that wonderful quality it brings about, you can imagine why many artists love analog large format photography. Even I have bought a Linhof 4×5 field camera last year, for the same reasons.

Please watch the clip about Photobooth featured by Cool Hunting below. And the article about Photobooth at Cool Hunting can be found here.

Photography is everywhere. Because of cameras getting smaller and smaller every day, the art-form is available to everybody. We see a flood of image making across the web. And with Facebook and Twitter, sharing was never so easy.

But photography started as a true craftsmanship. To make an image, one had to understand chemical processes, the adjustments of a camera and the way light influenced everything. You had to understand many thing before you were able to produce one photograph, and in the beginning of photography often a unique photograph. The first photographers weren’t really photographers. You could see them as scientists or technicians.

There is something quite poetic and beautiful about producing a unique photograph. Ian Ruhter is a modern photographer who missed the feeling of being in a darkroom. He decided to go trough great lengths to be a true craftsman. If you can spare some minutes please watch his movie below or read the interview on CoolHunting.