Home > Culture > Mentor Showcase > The 2006 Best-of Series: David Burnett
The 2006 'Best Of' Series
For the second annual Best Of issue of the ASMP Bulletin, we selected twenty projects from a field of nearly sixty candidates. It was a tough decision and we thank all those who submitted their work. We hope you will enjoy reading about the projects featured in print and here on the ASMP Web site.
Editorial story on Gulf Coast for National Geographic
On assignment for National Geographic magazine in January 2006, David Burnett documented Hurricane Katrina's effect on the Gulf Coast, from the Texas border around the coastline to the west coast of Florida. Burnett shot most of the images with a Speed Graphic and a 7-inch Ektar lens.
Self-portrait of David Burnett
All images in this article © David Burnett
ASMP: How long have you been in business?
DB: Almost 40 years … 39, to be exact
ASMP: How long have you been an ASMP member?
DB: 35 years
ASMP: What are your photographic specialties?
DB: People, the fast track portrait, lousy light, those situations when you don't have much to work with.
ASMP: Please summarize the equipment used in this work.
DB: All pictures, except one digitally stitched panorama, were shot with a Speed Graphic and a 7-inch Ektar lens.
ASMP: What kind of advance research did you do before beginning the Gulf Coast assignment?
DB: I spent several weeks making phone calls and following up on the excellent research done by Whitney Donaghy of the NGS staff, who really helped me to get a leg up on where to go and what to look for.
ASMP: Were you guided by an editor or others doing research when working on this project?
DB: There was a lot of guidance before I left, and Kurt Mutchler, the picture editor on the story and I went over a number of things he thought would be useful. Kurt lived there for a dozen years, and was extremely familiar with the city, which helped enormously. Of course, once you're on the ground, much of what you "know" has changed, but it was great to get beyond just the TV news reporting we're bombarded with and into more detailed searches for things germane to the story.
ASMP: What was the most difficult aspect of this work?
DB: Time and again you could drive down the same street, see the same calamitous damage and be amazed, shocked and humbled by the forces of nature. It was real to a point of unreality.
ASMP: Logistically, how difficult was it to travel in the region at that point?
DB: I was able to easily travel to the area from Houston by car. In January, when I arrived, most of the man-made barriers to travel were down. There were still a few guard/check points, but very few. There were a lot of bridges washed out and you couldn't always go the direct way. Very often you just had to go around to get somewhere.
ASMP: What kind (if any) effect did taking an assignment like this have on your business and your career?
DB: It's very hard to answer a question like that in advance of publication. But for myself as a photographer, it further helped me to get inside the soul of my Speed Graphic and see what a 60-year old camera could do when you let it.
ASMP: Your past work has included international stories of great adversity and devastation. Is it different to cover large-scale devastation in your own country?
DB: There is something very odd about visiting a "war zone" in your own country when we've been so immune to these kinds of things. And the folks I met in the motels, living there because their houses are gone, jobs are gone, and they live there out of no choice of their own.... Well, in my book those are refugees -- a word that many bridled over, but truly, if they aren't refugees in America, who is?
ASMP: Please describe your methodology for shooting with a 4x5. Do you feel this allowed you to better isolate details from the overall devastation?
DB: Bigger cameras give you bigger lenses, less depth of field, especially wide open, and I tried to maximize that effect of narrow focus so that the viewer would see what I wanted to show them.
ASMP: Have you worked often with this format, and when do you find it to be most effective?
DB: I covered the 2004 Presidential election campaign and the 2004 Athens Olympics with a 4x5. It's humbling, but re-invigorating at the same time. It brings you back to that attempt to isolate a single moment, with just one chance. Of course I carried a 20D digi camera with me too, because I'm not really fast enough to get all the pictures I see with the Speed Graphic. It also really gives you an enormous appreciation for our photographic ancestors: How they made pictures 50 or 75 years ago is a wonderful mystery to me. Little literature, do your own processing, figure it out ahead of time. Slow films, slow lenses ... the list goes on. But they did make pictures, and they made great ones. It would be great for everyone, no matter what camera they use, to spend a day shooting as if it were a press camera. Shoot just one frame. No "chimping." Take a chance. And watch how much better your pictures get!
ASMP: Did use of this format help to mitigate the overwhelming nature of the devastation?
DB: Nothing will mitigate the scale of what happened. There are no photos, mine included, nor any TV or film, that can affect you the same way a five-minute drive through Lakeview or the Lower 9th Ward will. You cannot imagine the scope of things until you see it. And then, you become a simple, single person, trying to capture some little sense of it on film for your readers.
ASMP: Please describe your workflow for shooting and processing film under adverse conditions.
DB: For the most part, I would shoot and ship undeveloped film to Washington. Now and then I would shoot a Polaroid, but for the most part, it was flying blind. Meter it, frame it, shoot it, and hope you're right.
ASMP: Have your working methods for shooting large format changed over time? Do you foresee it becoming more difficult to work with this format in the future?
DB: The only real difficulty will be the ongoing ability to get film, as well as the physical ability to carry it. Yet, one camera, one lens, a few holders weighs no more than a full size modern digi cam with a couple of lenses. You just have to use your Sherpa talent in slightly different ways.
