Anders Schildt

« I was born in 1958, but I am only 35 years old!! and I am keeping it that way…;-)
I am originally trained as a classical musician, playing the flute, but after my final exams, I needed a break… and I am still on that break..
it was in 1987. I attended Vrå Højskole back in 1979-80, and here I met an American, who had used to much money, so he could not pay for the fare home… As a result of that, he asked if I please could buy his old camera.. I did – not knowing that this purchase would change my life..
While finishing the music academy, the photography slowly took over… More and more of my free time was used in practicing photography – and my fellow music students were my models. I did a lot of portraits, but it was also here I started doing nudes.
In the beginning, I had no idea how to go about this « photography-business ».. But I kept at it, and the many, many mistakes I made, helped me in a way, to explore different approaces/techniques..
My mother made me, from an early age, appreciate the good old craftsmanship – not in photography, but more in furniture and such.. Maybe this is the reason, I early on looked out for all kinds of cameras – especially the old beautiful mahogany large format cameras..
I thought they were almost impossible to get, but now I have too many (!)..
I truly like the differences in the different cameras. From the utterly ugly and « bad » DIANA plastic camera – to normal cameras – medium format and large format.. So my range in negative size range from 18x24mm half format to 40×50 cm VERY large format..
And lately I have grown an interest in old lenses too… what a fascinating world – it is not the focal point that is important; it is more how the different types of lenses react to the different kinds of light and subjects. Everybody can take a sharp image!
But sharpness is just a discipline.. how about how the lens makes the image unsharp?
Al unsharp? or sharp in the middle and then a beautiful blur?
…so now I have far to many lenses also! maybe I should go use them, instead of constantly searching for more to the « collection »….
Every camera is a tool – not an end..
My main subjects are people. Portraits and nudes. (and almost always in a studio) But using my Diana camera, I also like to do landscapes. And the odd Still life also gets my attention.
My favorite techniques are as follows: Painting with light. Flash photography.
my favorite printing methods: Liquid emulsion. Cyanotype. Van Dyke. Photopolymer gravure. Bromoil. » Anders Schildt