James Hill’s Russia: The Land
Click the URL above for a wonderful B&W photo essay from New York Times Moscow-based contract photographer James Hill.
This is some of the best new B&W photojournalism we’ve seen in a while.
We have a short interview with Hill, below.
We hope you enjoy his work.
-E.R.
Photographer James Hill talks to bwphotopro about the making of his striking photo essay Russia: The Land:
Tell us about the technical aspects of this essay:
The work was shot on three different kinds of camera - one digital and two film. The digital is a Nikon D2x on which I was shooting RAW and b/w at the same time, using the b/w format on the Nikon cameras. The portraits were shot on a Rollei TLR 2.8 and the the other landscapes were shot on a Speed Graphic 5x4 with the Kodak Aero lens that my colleague at Contact, David Burnett, helped me organise. One reason I was shooting the 5x4 is that, as you may know, Russia is very, very flat. Using the tilt function I was able to make points of focus that help give an extra dimension, to combat the problem (of the flat landscape).
The film for the medium format was Fuji Acros 100. The film for the 5x4 was Ilford FP4. Mostly (I used these films) because of what film is available in Moscow. I used to be a firm believer in the Afga APX b/w film, but that no longer exists. The Fuji Acros is, in my opinion, by far the best 100 ASA film I have used. Ilford 5x4 is the only one available in Moscow in sheet form which is why, happily, I use that.
I had all the film processed here in Moscow and scanned on Imacons at my local lab, which mercifully is cheap!
How did you choose to shoot this in B&W?
Black and white because I went to shoot the first part using digital both in colour and b/w, and found that the b/w simply rang closer to what I was trying to say. I was actually surprised by that. Since I had initially imagined this to come out in colour. But there we are.