Telling the ‘Story within the Story’ with Sony’s FS7
The main character in The Picture Show is Ruhter, who is using one of the oldest photographic processes in a way no one else currently is. Ruhter gets in his moving truck, which serves as a camera, and photographs Slab City residents using gigantic life-sized glass plates called Ambrotypes. We’ve all seen Wet Plate portraits in history books. It’s how they captured the first images of American legends like Abraham Lincoln and Billy the Kid. Because of the intense physical and technical requirements involved, the photographer and subject interact and work on the image for at least a few hours. The ghostly, magical images portray an authenticity rarely seen in modern life, and the difficult process of making them yields an unexpected alchemy of its own.
Ian Ruhter and his camera truck
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