Moments in Time photo exhibit

Spy Bar, South William Street, D2

Wednesday March 31st 2010

5pm to 10.30pm

Seth Hookers photography exhibit is on wednesday evening in Spy. The unique thing about this exhibit is taken using vintage cameras Only!

In an age of super sharp - high definition - face recognition - you couldn’t blur this if there was an earthquake - digital cameras it’ll be a breath of fresh air to see photos from cameras with Character. The photos may come out dark, or soft or grainy as a poppy seed loaf but they’ll have a quality that is unique to that moment and that camera. Something I feel has been lost in the wash of hundreds of digital photos that we see online everyday.

(not one of Seths, but taken with a 1940s camera)

Seths cameras range from 1948 all the way back to 1876. He’s been taking vintage cameras apart and rebuilding them into functioning cameras for the last three years. After a six month trip around New Zealand taking photos he’s come back with a collection of images where old world (Ireland) meets New World (NZ). But given the unique character the cameras themselves put into the photos will you be able to tell which is where? Seth will also have about a dozen of his cameras there and encourages you to bring your own old cameras.

When I contacted the photographer to ask about the exhibit he was still buried in his darkroom. So I asked his partner, Star, “why he is putting on this exhibit now?”. “well, when we came back to dublin we just felt a little something had been lost. we thought this town needed a little dash of vintage glamour”. “we would love to set up a vintage camera club so people can take out those old cameras belonging to their grandfather and bring them back to life”. Sounds great.

So drag out those boxes from the garage and dust off that camera that they dont even make film for anymore. Lets have fun comparing our finds. Who knows, after this you may be inspired to put life in the old dogs yet.