Only a poor worker blames his tools is a great perspective to live by and is true in many ways, but it neglects the transformative effect that new tools can have on work.
When new tools and new media come into being it’s up to the worker to figure out how to get the best out of them.
I have been working with moving images for many years, first with small pocket cameras which I use to take what I call moving stills. These are pictures mostly from cameras which does not themselves move, but the scene has natural movement within it. Nothing choreographed, no manufactured story. No post-processing beyond very basic color correction. Just life. The world is beautiful and life exists within time not frozen. I simply want to capture this and share it.
The tools along the way have changed what it has been possible for me to produce. Early on I used a small black Panasonic Lumix camera (really simply ground breaking at the time) and got interesting snippets of life, but it was clear when viewing that the work was just a small post card view with a heavy electronic filter over the world. The camera imposed a heavy texture on the world.
When simply showing a frame of life this texture comes to create a barrier between the subject and the viewer. Even though not even consciously seen, noisy dots dancing around would have an impact on how the scene was perceived. I later spent some time filming medium high definition with a large video camera, a SONY, which produced some beautiful images in 720p but which was always cumbersome to carry and therefore was often simply not available when moments happened. It was not completely noise free either but a clear improvement over the previous work though it never captured the SLR view of the world.
I now use the Canon 5D Mark II which is a semi-professional grade SLR producing 1080p full high definition video.
A technical limitation of the 5D is that it only records video for 12 minutes at a time. This is not an artistic limitation though, it’s more a creative frame, a temporal mirror of the early borders around silver prints. It provides a time for the work to exist, which is why I put together www.fifty1point2.com
Even with three lense; a 28mm f1.8 wide angle, a 85mm f1.8 and the legendary 50mm f1.2 - the kit fits comfortably in the camera bag I have over my shoulder almost every day (my laptop, a mid 2011 Macbook Air - which is just a mircale of technology and design - through which I run my software development company, fits next to the camera and the original iPad fits comfortably in the lining of the bag).
I can edit and do final delivery through the fantastic Final Cut Pro X which runs wonderfully on the Air.
It’s nice that both aspects of my life fit so neatly in the bag I carry every day - the design work complements the photographic work and vice versa.
Frode Hegland London, November 2011
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QUIET STREETS
Camera on a tripod, filming life as it passes by. There is little movement by the standards we are used to from television or movies. A basic composition, constrained colour, balanced exposure. People, cars and birds flicker by, tickling the eye:
White Wall. A clean white wall in Tokyo. A building is being refurbished and provides a canvas for the people and cars moving like drops of paint across its canvas. Tokyo 2008
Subway Lingerie. People in their own world. Train. Poster. Pathos, humor. Tokyo 2008
Narita Express Tunnel. Nature with modern life cut through it. Peaceful. Sometimes pierced with the rush of modern life but always peaceful again soon. Tokyo 2009
Rasmus Meyer's Alle. Serene. A few birds. Some people after a while. Still, simple and subtly alive. Bergen 2008
SAS Hotel. Frozen day, flat image until something moves, punching depth. An ordinary bus. A car. A person. Depth and life. Bergen 2008
Bicycle and Town Hall. Foreground, background. Birds. Subtle movement. Winter is fading. Bergen 2008
Yellow Cab. A still moment frozen in time. NY, upper west side. A still Cab. A near-floating ambulance. A few people. Camera on a tripod. Life on a corner. NY 2009
Pigeons. A bit of hectic life creeping into a private enclosure. Pigeons play. London, 2011
Ashtray, Starbucks. An ashtray outside Starbucks early May in light rain. A few drops. Reflections. Still. London, 2011
Singapore Airlines Loading. Bright mechanical scene. Subtle colours seen in the heat from air-condition. Singapore 2009
Frankfurt Airport. Driving in an airport bus at Frankfurt Airport en route to Singapore from London, late December. Rough video. Slightly sleepy. Sounds of passengers. Frankfurt 2010
My mother tells me I used to stare as an infant. Just stare and stare. Looking and recording what I saw has always been a part of me, from the first scribbles and drawings through painting and sculpture.
QUIET TEXTURES
Textures, light, shade, movemement:
Gold Liquid. Texture. Light. Glass of crushed ice at Paul Allen's in NY. NY 2010
Ice Water. Ice Tea, summer in NY slowed down. Cars reflecting sunlight. People shadowing, ice slowly melting. NY 2009
MUSICAL
Rhythms of sound and light, atmosphere and emotion, feeding and supporting each other. My work is primarily with restrained, minimalist music but the occasional increase in tempo shakes it up a bit. Ed Leady calls it audio visual instrumental.
Nyman's Fish Beach Train to Geilo. Speeding, black and white, high contrast. Slowing down. Speeding, breathing. Looking at where we have been. Breathing. Reading our speed, reflecting little. Bergen-Geilo 2007
Nyman's A Wild And Distant Shore JFK-Heathrow. Longing, perhaps a loss, foreign country, traveling alone. Clarity of 30,000 feet, tears on the window when it all stops. NY 2009
Nyman's The Heart Asks Pleasure First Subway. In transit, we are exposed but still in our bubbles. It moves on. NY 2009
Einaudi's Uno with Kaichoi. Love and sadness. Passion, compassion, ordinary into an epic experience for a child. A smile and appreciation from a passer-by. London 2011
Einaudi's L'origine nascosta to JFK. Leaving New York, the timeless state of mind in subtle tones of grey and life. NY 2009
London Fashion Week. They made it clear that "we are not a rock band" but what is more rock and roll than a fashion show posing as a rock band? A fun night. London 2008
I feel that what exists is more beautiful than whatever I can artifice. I therefore look and record. I cannot punch a hole in space and time and freeze it even if I wanted to, so even though my work is minimally intentionally interfered with, it is still very much a subjective view.
OLDER
Older work and work captured in low resolution along with 3D work. Some with sound and some silent:
fleeting moment