Cornish Mining interviews Tristan Barratt about his breathtaking work entitled Light Painted Cornwall
How did you get into photography? When I was 9, my school Carnkie CP near Redruth, invested in its first Instamatic camera. As a result, each pupil was allowed to take one photo each. The school overlooked the derelict workings of South Wheal Frances, so I chose that as my subject. It wasn’t a great shot but it inspired me to ask for a camera for my birthday. From that time on I have always been interested in the subject. It wasn’t until 2008 that I was able to purchase my first DSLR (a Canon EOS 450D), it was only then that I was able to realise the ideas I had been dreaming up.
What was the inspiration for you to capture mining structures in such a unique way? Some time in 2006 I joined the photo-blogging website Flickr. I was thrilled that I was able to get near instant feedback from photography enthusiasts when I loaded my images onto the website. I observed and became fascinated with the effects achievable with long exposure photography, such as cloud movement, light painting and light graffiti. I was drawn to the idea of being able to photograph what the eye can’t naturally see. Living in Camborne, the heart of the mining heritage district, I knew that I could, with the right equipment, use the historical mining sites as a perfect canvas upon which I could draw my own ideas. Early on in my experimentations, I came up with the tagline for the project; “Showing Cornwall in a different light” and that’s what I hope to achieve with these images - being able to present very familiar sights in very unfamiliar ways.
Does the subject require any special techniques in order to capture the right shot?
It requires patience, warm clothing, little or no wind, well defined clouds and more often than not, the moon! I set the camera up on a tripod; use a remote release to lock the shutter open for lengths of time usually around 2-3 minutes, and then wander around the shot with various lights and illuminating instruments, creating streaks, trails and effects. My Dad David provides the structural illumination for most shots, with a 15 million powered candle spotlight covered with a coloured gel ‘painting’ the light evenly across the surface of the subject. What I love about this technique is that you NEVER know what the shot is going to be like until you finish it and check in the viewfinder. Some shots you expect to be great end up disappointingly poor, whereas others really do have that wow factor.
What’s the future, where would you like to take your work? I do the lightpainting as a hobby so have not openly displayed any of the shots in galleries to date. I do upload them to Flickr, which again, is a great way of gauging reaction and you can get a good feel for what works and what doesn’t. I have recently built a website,
www.lightpaintedcornwall.com for the project. It would be great to fill a gallery with my images one day. I do realise they won’t necessarily be everybody’s cup of tea but I like the fact that they are an alternative take on the ‘normal’ shots that you see of Cornwall’s greatest landmarks. I love the fact that I am able to leave my own stamp on the landscape!
If budget were no issue, what type of shot would you like to take? I would upgrade all my equipment to Pro spec gear to further develop what I am doing. My ultimate goal would be to photograph every remaining engine house and chimney structure across the Duchy so that I can record them for the future in an unusual and hopefully eye-catching way.
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