photography

all text & images © Pamela A Cross

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I have taken photographs for many years to record events and places - much as most people do.  However, my greatest interest has always been to catch shots of people interacting and in close-up, if possible unaware of and undistracted by the camera.  I have also used my camera to record my textiles, to take photos of textiles located in their place of origin and, if possible, being made, used or worn. These two aspects of photography - unaware close-ups and traditional garments have come together in my photography of ethnic minorities.  For many years I have owned various Pentax compact zooms starting with their very first, a 90mm zoom.  These cameras have given me 35mm quality, flexibility and an unobtrusiveness and ease of carrying which have suited me well. I have made odd sorties away from Pentax but never to my satisfaction.  My current camera is a Pentax Espio 200 Zoom (which was used for my photos of China and Myanmar).   The photos of Vietnam (particularly from my trip of 1995) were taken with a Pentax Espio 125 Zoom.

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So far I have not made the change from 35mm film to digital for my location photography.   When I can get a digital camera which will give me both the same quality of photographs with an equal zoom and enough suitable photo storage for a trip of 10 days to 3 weeks during which I might easily take 20 - 30 rolls of 36 exposure 35mm film then I will be ready to make the change.  Watching the quick moving development of digital cameras it seems that the time is not far ahead!  In the second half of 2001 I invested in a Nikon 995 digital camera specifically for photographing my textile collection for the internet.  I have yet to find the time to start this (major) task.

Editing photographs on the computer for presentation on computer, digital projection and on the web hold out very exciting possibilities.  In 1997 as a 50th birthday present to myself, I invested in a new Pentium II computer and a Nikon Coolscan II internal SCSI negative and slide scanner - as usual not knowing anything about any of the problems which I might have in fitting the internal scanner and getting it to  work!  I subsequently upgraded my scanner to a Nikon Coolscan III ICE negative and slide scanner with which I am very pleased.   The ICE technology can remove scratches, hairs and other irregularities off the negatives and slides which I found is very worthwhile and saves hours of computer editing time.  The photos currently on my web sites have all been taken on negative film and scanned by the Coolscan III using Adobe PhotoShop 5.1 for any additional editing. 

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Printing photographs from computer editing is something which gives me considerable pleasure.   Although I still have my first Epson Stylus 600 colour printer purchased in June 1997 I upgraded this in 2000 to an Epson Photo 1270 to take advantage of new technology giving longer, good quality print-life and also to be able to print up to A3 size prints.  

In May 2000 I launched my pacross.net web site with the intention of using it to share my interest in tribal textiles with other enthusiasts.  Photo galleries of ethnic minorities, their textiles and textile skills became a major focus of the web site. I was surprised by the amount of worldwide interest generated in the site especially from a source I had not expected - the diaspora from Laos and Vietnam which settled in the United States and whose young people are now looking back to their cultural roots.  

The extent of the international interest, my own research and enthusiasm for the subject led me to want to develop the tribal textiles material further.  The new 'info' domain name contributed to the decision to launch a new website: www.tribaltextiles.info on which to concentrate all current and future tribal textile material.  This was launched on 6 January 2002 with the existing pacross.net tribal textile material and, once this has been picked up by the search engines the similar material will be removed from the pacross.net site.  

Once this has occurred I can then concentrate on development of the new site.  I still have considerable numbers of photos which remain to be scanned and then used for new galleries - especially material from Indonesia, Myanmar and South West China.  New visits to ethnic minorities will also be the basis for future expansion.  The web offers not only the possibility of presenting photos in a photo album style but offers a unique means of linking photos in many diverse ways in a multi-dimensional format impossible in hard copy.  I am developing the creation and delivery of the site on CD to allow it to be accessed like a book which, until broadband and other fast internet access is widely available, is a way of beating the cost and mind numbing delays incurred in download time.  I hope to be able to link some of my digital video clips to the Photo galleries at least in CD format but with the aim of streaming video on the web as download times permit.  

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I have a considerable (and growing) textile collection which I hope to systematically photograph and then incorporate these photos into the Photo gallery library to further expand on the detail which can be seen in  the photos taken in the field or to fill in gaps.  

Click on to go to website with photo galleries of tribal textiles