UKC

`Photographer Henry Iddon was recently involved in a photography project using an antique Underwood 'Instanto' Whole Plate Camera. His work is currently showcased in the 'Instanto Outdoors' exhibition at Keswick Museum and Art Gallery until 12th May. 

We sent Henry some questions to hear more about the challenges of shooting modern day climbing with an antique - and rather cumbersome - glass plate camera.

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In reply to UKC Articles:

Good stuff. Saw Henry on Countryfile at the weekend as well (with a leftfield snippet on the ethics on not climbing on wet grit).

In reply to UKC Articles:

It has been a great privilege to have been involved with Herny's "Instanto Outdoors" project and to see an original Abraham camera in action once again.
Maybe someone will dust the cobwebs off in another 100 years!

Pete Gunn

In reply to UKC Articles:

I enjoyed seeing Henry's work enormously both on TV and at Keswick, nice article here too. Interestingly, he mentions the effort involved in transporting the camera to some of the locations but doesn't mention that the subjects had to hold their positions for five or six seconds to allow for the long exposure time. A bit of effort involved there I reckon

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fascinating article and great photos. But I'm going to put my head on the block here and say that, to my untrained eye, the results don't look as good as the Abrahams' originals. I've just been leafing through George Abraham's "British Mountain Climbs", and to me, the images seem better - not so much the compositions, but the contrast, depth of focus and overall clarity. Now some of this may be down to the light leakage mentioned, or the way they are reproduced on UKC, but I'd like to think it goes to show what complete masters the Abrahams were. I suspect that even a photographer as talented as Iddon would need more than a few months, and 75 shots, to reach that level. I'm a total amateur when it comes to photography, so I'm bracing myself for the drubbing which I will no doubt now receive. All that said, I absolutely love the picture of Shauna Coxey!

In reply to Derek Ryden:

Hi Derek

Unfortunately the detail is lost as they are reproduced for modern media such as for ukc.
Iam a collector of most Lakes based climbing history and can say that the images that Herny and Pete have produced are in fact of a superb quality, the clarity is crystal clear in many of the photos, the strata of the rock and even the different grains of the different rocks can be seen easily.
I was quite shocked by how good some of the images are myself in this respect.
If you are going to be near Keswick in the next few months, I highly recommend visiting the museum to see the photos in person.

Pete Gunn

In reply to petegunn:

Thanks. I'll definitely try and get there.