Wednesday 3 December 2008

David White In The Footsteps Of Robert Howlett (almost)

Above is the iconic photograph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, without doubt the greatest man ever to wear a top hat. This photograph was taken in 1857 by a young Robert Howlett, within a year the horrible chemicals used in the process were to kill the young Howlett stone dead.
Bristol based photographer David White has recreated the process minus the nasty chemicals and death bit. He has photographed many of Brunel's greatest engineering projects using a precise replica camera he had made and a period lens. The resulting images are beautiful, and lugging a camera that size about is stupid. Beautiful images and stupidity, nay playfulness in photography both appeal to me.

A presentation about the work here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7753000/7753202.stm
More about the project here: http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brunel200.com/legacy/images/david_white/box_tunnel.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brunel200.com/legacy/bristol_arts_projects/david_white.htm&usg=__ErnjPeOGQEBtXeBu067QA5-ksTE=&h=296&w=350&sz=73&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=d5wGqDXIsJv1ZM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddavid%2Bwhite%2Bhowlett%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

And David's website here:http://www.nospin.co.uk/

Found thanks to Benjamin of Duckrabbit here: http://duckrabbit.info/blog/




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