Stockland Martel

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A still from the movie The Cove.

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With so many photographers adding film and video to their repertoire, it’s worth taking note of those who have managed to do big things with this new-to-them medium. The Cove, for example, is a documentary about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan and the environmental consequences of same that has swept up a slew of awards—including the Audience Award at Sundance earlier this year—since it made its premiere on the festival circuit. That represents a major triumph for the film’s director, Louie Psihoyos, who had previously been known for his photography, particularly for National Geographic. In a two-part interview with him at her blog, Stellazine, photo consultant and photo editor Stella Kramer basically asks Psihoyos if he’s making film his new medium. Here’s what he said:

“I don’t want to disparage still photography, I certainly couldn’t have pulled this without working as long and hard as I did in this field, but I feel like I’ve been wandering around in the wilderness in comparison to filmmaking. Film is the most powerful medium in the world, the ultimate weapon of mass construction. I have been shooting at the top of my profession for nearly 35 years but I’ve never seen whole theaters of people crying then laughing then cheering and then raising up to give a standing ovation. But this happens routinely with The Cove.”

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“He was miserable with the quality of commercial underwater housings and cameras—even the Hasselblad—so he built the best underwater camera ever made by an order of magnitude.”

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Meanwhile, SiliconValley.com reports that exhibitions of photographs from the Cove shoot are being planned for New York and Los Angeles. Interestingly, the images were taken with a camera designed by the film’s executive producer, Jim Clark, a Silicon Valley iconoclast who cofounded Netscape and Shutterfly.

“He was miserable with the quality of commercial underwater housings and cameras—even the Hasselblad—so he built the best underwater camera ever made by an order of magnitude,” says Psihoyos of Clark. “David Doubilet came diving with us and declared it the holy grail of the underwater camera. Unbelievable detail. It’s a 65-mega-pixel back on a view camera with the unbelievable optics. We dive with rebreather teams so we can stay down for up to three hours at a stretch and not have to worry about bubbles or decompression obligations. We take up to 12 lights and light up the best-preserved reefs, in the most remote parts of the world, like a movie set. Places like Papua, Andaman Islands, Silver Banks. The results are stunning.”

Read the rest of Stella’s interview here. The Sundance Film Festival has also posted a video interview with Psihoyos here.

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