David Burnett's Camera of Choice

It never fails to catch my eye when ever I see an article having anything to do with film photography. When it turns out to be about one of the leading contemporary photographers who is still using film I get even more excited.

David Burnett has won dozens of photography and photojournalism awards over the last four decades. He has done work for many of the leading magazines and is well known for his work at the Olympics.

Images of him and his iconic Speed Graphics 4x5 View Camera like the one shown above lined up with hoards of other photographers and their sleek new DSLR's is always good for a raised eyebrow or two.


The image above from a Wiki article on the Speed Graphics Camera shows the type of camera favored by Burnett for his work. Although he is known to carry a Holga around in his bag and a couple DSLR's too, it is the big view camera that attracts all the attention.

I stumbled into all this when I ran across Tim Barribeau's, October 31, article on the Popular Photography web site which included a 30 minute vimeo video of David Burnett discussing  his take on the whole film versus digital issue and a lot of other interesting ideas at the 2012 Photoshelter Luminance Conference.

Here is the link. If you have 30 minutes to spare it is well worth the time

http://vimeo.com/51632894