Nick Brandt - The day may break

[Jorgen Udvang]

He's out with a new book. Again it's something really, really different. This one is shot on digital medium format. He commented when I asked him "This had to be digital (medium format) because with the fog constantly shifting every frame, I needed to check to see what it looked like at the end of each session."

Nick Brandt

Nick Brandt’s photography addresses humanity's destructive impact on the natural world and now on humans too. Books/projects: The Day May Break (2021), This Empty World, Inherit the Dust, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls, Across The Ravaged Land. Solo exhibitions worldwide.

www.nickbrandt.com

 

[Duff photographer]

Thanks Jorgen,

I like different (with thought and meaning), and for a right reason!

Cheers,
Duff

 

[scho]

Thanks Jorgen. I have long been a fan of Nick Brandt's work, starting with his MF film portraits of African animals.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

His earlier film portraits of animals are fantastic. His digital work is not as compelling and dynamic, imo, but that could simply be digital's lack of character when compared to the Pentax film images. While this new book's photographs are impelled by the forces of human nature, it seems superfluous and contrived with unnecessary "set design", imo.

I agree on what you say about film vs. digital. In search for digital perfection, he, and many other photographers, lose the raw dynamics that often come with film, particularly high contrast and/or large grain b&w films. I would go as far as saying that his story would come through clearer with film, both as a result of the more elaborate process and because of the nature of film as a medium.

 

[Godfrey]

I kinda disagree on the quality of the work, but it's always a matter of taste in these things. I like what he's done with the theme, which is a construction of ideas, not just portraits of animals. It is of its conception a contrivance, not a natural scene. They're scenes made in an unusual and highly artificial environment to begin with, meant to express a point.

I certainly disagree on the notion that film "makes the work more compelling and dynamic" ... to me, that's just nonsense. I shoot a lot of film and digital: how it looks is all a matter of how I process and render it. Sometimes the idea works the way I want, sometimes it doesn't. But captured on film vs captured with a digital camera is by and large the least influence on the look and feel, unless I'm abusing the film way beyond its normal recording spec to achieve a desired (usually highly distressed) end. Like exposing HP5 at ISO 50, or underexposing digital capture by 5 stops...

G