Auckland’s Maritime Museum hosts an unusual photographic exhibition this month – a collection of images reflecting last year’s America’s Cup in Auckland – but captured with century-old technology.
The images were taken by one of the country’s best-known photographers, Geoff Dale. He’s been in the game for more than 50 years and spent 28 of them with the NZ Herald. Now retired, he turned to vintage cameras to reignite his passion for capturing unusual monochrome images – with plenty of experience to draw on.
“When I started as a cadet photographer at the Herald they had just finished using the large-format (5”x4”) Graflex cameras, so I had a chance to play with them. Made in America, they were considered the pinnacle of the technology in those days – even though getting interesting shots was tricky because of their bulk and weight.”
He’s witnessed enormous change as the camera technology evolved over the decades – the switch from large-format ‘plate’ photography to the 35mm format and zoom lenses, the arrival of digital photography – and the introduction of high-resolution cameras built into the ubiquitous mobile phone.
“Photography’s been a life-long passion – but with retirement and the current technology I’d become a little bored with it all. Modern cameras – I believe – tend to eliminate the creative process from photography.
“Focus and exposure are automatic – much of the process has been reduced to point-and-shoot, and with motor-drives and multi-gigabyte memory cards you can run off hundreds of images. I wanted to do something different – and decided to revisit the old large-format cameras because of the unusual photographic opportunities they offer.”
Despite their age, finding the cameras was relatively easy with on-line searches. He now has numerous Graflex models, but the two he uses most often were both purchased in the US, listed on eBay. They have the same ‘bodies’ but the lenses are different.
One camera only shoots a single plate at a time, but the other has a clip-on ‘magazine’ loaded with 12 plates. One of the cameras – protected by a seal-skin cover – was manufactured in 1906. The other dates to around 1940. Sourcing large-format negative film, he says, is surprisingly easy.
The lenses, too, have unusual histories. “I found one of the lenses locally – here in Auckland. It was being used as a paperweight on someone’s desk. It’s a Ross lens – made in London in 1900 – with a 432.8mm focal length. It has beautiful optics – I pulled it apart to clean it and it works fine.
“The second lens (178mm focal length) was manufactured in 1942 and was originally used in the belly of a WW2 aircraft for reconnaissance photography. With the large-format negatives, the Intelligence teams could print very large images.
“Using a single plate at a time,” he adds, “means you have to think very carefully about composition, framing, aperture and speed. These are very ‘mechanical’ cameras, so for each exposure you set the aperture and focus, cock the shutter and raise the mirror.
“Shutter speed ranges from a thousandth of a second to about a tenth of a second – you change it by varying the tension of a spring-loaded mechanism. It involves quite a bit of educated guess work. One of the most interesting features of the cameras is that the lenses can be ‘tilted’ relative to the camera body and back plane – and that offers plenty of scope to play with focus and ‘warp’ the image, creating something that draws the viewers eye to the core subject more effectively.”
As always, Dale develops the negatives himself (thanks to double-black curtains over his bathroom windows!) and says the process offers plenty of additional leeway for creating unusual effects. “Printing large images is easy because I scan the processed negatives at 2400dpi – that makes for very large digital files.”
America’s Cup
The 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland, he decided, would be a good opportunity to showcase the abilities of the old cameras. “I liked the concept of juxtaposition – photographing a modern, high-tech sport with century-old technology – and in monochrome.”
Persuading the America’s Cup press department to give him accreditation for the event wasn’t easy – “I’m sure they thought I was a little eccentric but decided to humour me and they eventually acquiesced. I did get a lot of puzzled glances from other photographers at the press conferences.”
The results speak for themselves. The exhibition at the Maritime Museum – titled Light on the Water – comprises 20 images. It is a collection of arresting images that provides a different interpretation/perspective of America’s Cup sailing.
An obvious feature is the unusual composition of the subject matter, but there is also the strange ‘softness’ of the images and the ‘warped’ focus used with such striking effect in many of them.
Light on the Water runs from 3 June – 28 August and entry is free for those visiting the museum.
Press Pass
Many readers will be familiar with Dale’s earlier work, and some of the most famous images taken over his career have been included in Press Pass – a book he published in 2009. Personalities he photographed (and presented in the book) include the so-called ‘fish-and-chip brigade’ (when David Lange lost the leadership of the Labour Party), former political prisoner and South African President Nelson Mandela and the American boxer Muhammad Ali.
There is also a photo of All Black Michael Jones diving over the line to score the first try at the first Rugby World Cup at Eden Park in 1987. That image subsequently became the inspiration for a 4.5m bronze statue of Jones, created by Dale’s sculptor daughter. It now stands at Eden Park.
“One of my first jobs as a 19-year-old cadet photographer in the mid-60s was going on board an Australian submarine off Tiritiri Matangi – she was on a training exercise off our coast, pretending to attack shipping in the Gulf. I was accompanied by Chris Bouzaid – winner of the One-Ton Cup.”
