Page 9 - Fujifilm Exposure_8 Wildlife John Downer_ok

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world armed with his handy multi-purpose Aaton camera either refreshing the library or refurbish- ing it where necessary. Says Weinbren: “Some things don’t age. On the other hand there are always new bridges or an evolving skyline. In our library we’ve got some of the earliest colour stocks which are now becoming just a bit iffy because they’ve been stored for perhaps 40 years. We will update but at the same time we’ll
“Incidentally I think Fuji’s 500 fast stock is fabu- lous and has made it possible for us to do things we haven’t done before. Philip asked me to shoot things in Singapore especially the main undergound sta- tion with its stainless steel facade. We can’t afford to light things but this stock has meant we can shoot in very low light, as we did in Singapore, and there are no problems with grain. In other words, you can really push it with available light only.”
enough resolution. When I learned this I modified all the cameras to full gate, to shoot wide across every scrap of film. And that’s the way we’ve been shooting since 1989 with the best cameras we can.”
Naturally it isn’t all plain sailing. Laughs Weinbren, “I’ve always wanted to write a book called You Should Have Been Here Yesterday because it always seems to turn out that when I’m shooting weather it was better earlier. I once went to Alaska
often try to shoot the sort of things which can remain timeless.
“Philip regularly gives me a list of things we need, maybe silly things like a handshake or a baby’s face. Mainly we go around the world shoot- ing locations. It’s amazing, for instance, how much stuff we shoot in the States and then send back to the US for use. At least 50 per cent of our material goes outside the UK. In fact this sort of library wouldn’t be viable if we were only dealing with the British market.
For the future, Weinbren’s favourite hobby- horse is HDT - High Definition Television. “What we see at the moment on widescreen is basically a con,” he says. “Eventually TV will go HDT properly and the result will be glorious. Of course it should have happened years ago but it’s all political.
“Anyway, the only way the stock shot will exist then is on 35mm; 16mm simply doesn’t have
to shoot bad weather and hit the best Spring they’d ever had. Bad weather mostly happens by accident and sometimes you just have to be lucky enough to have the camera with you at the time.”
As for buffalo stampeding or elephants charg- ing straight at camera, that particular pair still remains on the current wish list. If, as the man once said, film is like “little pieces of time” then here in what’s rather quaintly described as ‘The Quintessential Library” is surely stored a near definitive index of life itself. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Photo: centre below: Philip Hinds, librarian and part owner of Index Stock Shots