Photojournalist David Burnett and his vintage 4×5 film camera drew a lot of attention and curiosity when he began photographing at the start of Wednesday’s first public impeachment hearing. The feed of every TV network showed Burnett loading and unloading sheet film, and peering into his viewfinder to photograph the two witnesses, George Kent and William Tayor. “Shooting large-format today was a reminder that even though I have many frames per second with my Sony a6500, I’m still shooting film one solitary, isolated frame at a time. In a world of 10 or 20 fps, two frames in 30 seconds is a big deal,” Burnett tells PDN. While his press colleagues were firing fast, Burnett says, “I shot 16 frames today.”

As the testimony wound down, a reader emailed PDN to ask, “In this digital age, what media outlet would assign a press photographer to shoot 4×5 film?” The email also noted that “in the hurried environment, he was forced to hold a dark slide in his mouth.” Apparently the reader was unfamiliar with Burnett’s work covering the Olympics, presidential campaigns and other news events with a Speed Graphic, Holgas and other vintage cameras.

After a query from a reader, we checked CSpan, then contacted David Burnett.

Burnett began using old 4×5 film cameras regularly in 2003, he says, “as a reaction to the fact that we were all shooting the same kind of digital kits,” while he wanted something different.

His favorite vintage camera is “my original Speed Graphic with the AeroEktar lens,” but at Wednesday’s hearing, he shot an Aero-Liberator, a custom camera made by John Minnicks. Burnett says it’s “basically a 3.25 x 4.25 Super D Graflex” that Minnicks customized to add a holder for 4×5 film.

Burnett shot both the hearing and a Veterans Day parade earlier in the week using Ilford HP5 black-and-white film. “Unlike the all-digital shooters to my left and right,” he told PDN, “I won’t know for a few days if I have a picture—or two. It’s a fun wait. Builds character.”

From JohnMinnicks.com, the website of John Minnicks, who sold Burnett his Aero-Liberator.

Burnett wasn’t on a tight deadline: He went to the hearing for his agency, Contact Press Images, which represents him for assignments and stock sales. (Burnett’s stock archive, we should note, includes coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973, an impeachment hearing that felt, Burnett says, less “tribal.” )

Shooting film, Burnett says, “makes you think twice before flicking that shutter.” He notes, “I’m happy to still have a couple of labs who keep me confident that if i do get a picture, it won’t die in the darkroom.”

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