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LT26.6 Is this going to be too bright? · The Downing Arts Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
• 0:05
  The sun is shining and there are definite signs of spring beginning to emerge
• 0:09
  around college. It's been a fruitful week for arts related activities too with the chapel
• 0:13
  choir's visit to Ely Cathedral and the opening of the new exhibition in the gallery.
• 0:19
  Here with me in the studio today is third year computer scientist Brian Abykaram.
• 0:23
  Welcome, Brian. Hello, Louisa. You've obviously been at Downing for roughly
• 0:28
  two and a half years. Um, how's it been? Busy. Busy, I would say
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  both in ways and bad ways. It's been really interesting, I think.
• 0:36
  So. I mean, you're obviously doing computer science, which must be quite full on,
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  that is. Yeah, it's quite an intense course, I would say,
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  but loads of stuff to look at. Always really interesting.
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  And you know, on this on the side I sort of. I enjoy a couple
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  other things. I'm in the choir. That's good fun and.
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  Yeah. Anything else? Well,
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  I do, I do, I do sort of enjoy a bit of photography as well.
• 1:01
  I think the choir quite likes that for me. You know, I'm quite popular
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  in the choir for the photos. You've ended up doing a lot of stuff actually.
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  I know we're always asking you to do choir stuff and I know music society,
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  you've done lots of stuff for them and possibly the dramatic society.
• 1:16
  Yeah, there's a lot of stuff there as well. Yeah, I know it's. So do
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  you find that being creative in that way is a good kind of foil to
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  your scientific things that you're doing? Yeah, it's sort of,
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  it's almost, it's not entirely separate at the same time.
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  It's a good way of sort of getting distracted and I think it goes hand
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  in hand with choir in that respect. But yeah, it's a sort of way to
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  disconnect and just think about colors and beautiful things and creative
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  compositions and such. But you also do have to think in a sort of technical
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  way of, you know, how is this actually going to work? Is this going to
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  be too bright? Is this going to be too dark? Is this. So there's always
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  a bit of overlap, which I think is quite fun. And I know on Quietor
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  you're sort of. When was it two years ago or something, you discovered there were
• 1:59
  multiple cameras on sale at the airport and we had to sort of physically restrain
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  you from spending all your money. Yeah, that was
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  really fun. So, yeah, you have a bit of a reputation for
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  always having at least three cameras about your person.
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  Yes, that's correct. How do you decide what to use for
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  which occasion and so on. Yeah, I mean,
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  that's a really, really interesting question. I think with cameras especially,
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  and you might find this, with a lot of other things, is there's many different
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  situations in which you can use cameras and all these cameras
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  can sort of do things very well and you find that no camera
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  can really do everything, so you sort of want to cover all your bases.
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  And that's why I have, like, all the different cameras. So I think with me
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  especially, there's. There's a sort of different range of cameras
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  that I do carry around. So I've sort of got my main. Currently now,
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  it's a. It's a mirrorless camera. So that is sort of the one that you
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  see me around a lot, all the time. So it is very versatile.
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  It's probably the most powerful, most versatile camera that I own. But then
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  you've got other things. You've got small digicams, which are obviously much, much more
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  comfortable, much more portable. Sorry. Because they're tiny and,
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  you know, they have a different aesthetic. They produce photos that are sort
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  of more nostalgic. They sort of reminisce about the early, early noughties.
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  So that's always good fun. So it's not only just a practical choice,
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  it's also sort of creative aesthetic choice. You can sort of
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  pick cameras that make different kinds of photos. I think one of the big ones
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  is nowadays is film. I think a lot of people will sort of pick
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  film for the aesthetic because it's definitely not practical and
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  I think I've done that as well. So I always like to carry around sort
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  of both a digital and a film camera just to get both sides of the
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  coin. How did you get into it in the first place? I guess I've always
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  sort of like. I mean, everyone likes taking a good photo. You know, you sort
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  of stop there at the train station and you go, wow, that looks pretty.
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  And so it's sort of like. It begs the question, when do you actually become
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  into it? When do you become a photographer? I think for me,
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  that sort of happened at the end of my A levels.
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  So my mum had this camera.
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  She had this. She's. She's a dentist and she
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  has this camera that she uses for taking photographs of people's teeth.
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  She's got quite a nice lens that comes with that and at
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  the time she wasn't really using it very much. And I sort of went,
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  I quite like to have a go with that. And so this was like a
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  dslr, so sort of a Proper camera is many
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  people would call it. So I sort of experimented with that a lot,
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  had a lot of fun, because I think the thing with
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  those DSLR cameras is they expose a lot of the sort of manual
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  aspect of how you're meant to like or how you. How you take photos.
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  Whereas with your phone camera, it sort of does everything automatically and it pumps
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  out a photo at the end. So I experimented a lot with that.
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  And I think the first sort of big thing was I took it on holiday.
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  I mean, that's fantastic. You know, taking a camera on holiday and just sort of
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  focusing on taking photos is really fun. So I guess that was the sort
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  of big event where I'd say after that, I actually really do
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  like taking photos. And it sort of continued on. So throughout my first
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  year. I didn't really take many photos in my first term. But slowly,
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  slowly I'd sort of like, you know, walk around college, take some photos.
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  It's a very pretty place, Cambridge. So there's always sort of opportunities to
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  test out cameras and stuff. And then I would also. I also at this
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  point started taking the camera to, like, events, social events.
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  You know, we had the Carol service in first year. That was a big
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  one. And sort of people would go, oh, take a photo, take a photo.
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  And they'd come out really nice. People would love them. So that was, I think,
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  another big factor in the kind of work that I did just photographing.
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  And I remember when we. I think it was the America tour a couple years
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  ago that you had a. Was it a mishap with the film camera? And all
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  the pictures came out sort of psychedelic or something. So I did have some film
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  and this is actually quite interesting. So I had some.
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  For those who know about it, it was a Harmon Phoenix,
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  this film called Harmon Phoenix. And Harmon Phoenix is a very interesting
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  film because sort of with the end of the film era,
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  you know, as digital cameras take over, a lot of the smaller
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  companies that did make film, or, well, I would call them small, but a lot
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  of companies that did make film sort of pivoted away from mainstream sort of
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  color films. And in the end, really, it's only sort of Fujifilm
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  in Japan and Kodak in America that make color film
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  anymore. And a lot of the smaller companies that you have nowadays that make film
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  will usually stick with black and white film. I guess that's
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  just because you have a smaller market for film nowadays, even though
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  it's having a little bit of resurgence. But regardless,
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  Harmon Phoenix is a really interesting film because it's
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  Actually British made. So there's this company here, this factory called
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  Ilford photo and they primarily focus on black and white film. They make some
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  really fantastic black and white film. But Harmon Phoenix is an experiment
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  they did a few years ago trying to make a color film emulsion.
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  So this is a sort of. They bring out a new formula to make color
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  film from scratch because it's such a new thing and it was sort of an
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  experiment. It ends up looking really, really interesting. So you sort of get
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  very like cyan y blues and very harsh reds and oranges.
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  And so I guess the photos that were at the pool,
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  because they were taken with Harmon Phoenix, the blues looked
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  very sort of saturated cyan. People's faces turn sort of very orangey red
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  and the grass turns this sort of orange hue. So it's really interesting.
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  That is probably one of the most interesting films I've ever used. And they
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  brought out a new version. So I think it's Harmon Phoenix 2. So that
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  one's a little less sort of insulting the formula.
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  Yeah. Wow. Gosh. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I remember.
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  That was all very exciting when it happened. I guess you're graduating this year,
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  next term, in fact. That's true, that's true. So, I mean, I don't
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  know what, I don't know what plans you have for post Cambridge, but is photography
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  something that you're going to continue with? I think so. I think,
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  at least for me, I sort of lead
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  2 sort of very double lives in photography where I do have my professional.
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  Well, maybe not professional. Well, I guess if you're doing it as a job,
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  you could call it professional. Do you think I'll leave that professional bit behind?
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  So, of course I did a lot of the dramatic society.
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  I did some stuff here for the adc. There's societies
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  that asked me to take headshots. I've done even a couple
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  times sort of individual photo shoots for couples or.
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  Or for singing groups. And that's been really fun.
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  But I think that's always quite tiring because you're sort of. You're stressed to deliver
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  the products. And while it's been great to earn a buck on the
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  side, I think I sort of enjoy the sort of more casual photography.
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  So I think I'll definitely be carrying that forwards. I think one of my most
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  enjoyable types of photography is holiday photography.
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  And I mean, you've seen that with a lot of the tours that we've done.
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  There's always sort of three, four cameras on my person and I'm running around snapping
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  left Right and center. I think I definitely will continue with that.
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  And that's almost sort of stressful in another way because holidays are
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  fast paced enough and now you're trying to throw in a bunch of photo
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  taking. But I think it's really important to sort of capture the moment. And you
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  do get to see some really interesting things that you wouldn't normally see. And you
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  can maybe try and paint those in a different light to what maybe you see
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  online. Do you have a favorite type of photo? Do you like landscapes? Or do
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  you prefer people or what's your favorite thing to do?
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  To do? I think one of my recurring favorites is sort
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  of church cathedral photography. I think it's one
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  bit of photography that I'd really like to sort of eke out and
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  geek out about because I haven't really properly done it. It's sort
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  of quite difficult to get photographs in a chapel or a, or a cathedral
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  or whatever because you sort of, you're in a tough situation sort of lighting
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  wise. And I mean, ideally you'd sort of have a license to bring in a
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  tripod and you sit around all day and just click buttons and tweak settings.
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  All the sort of amazing features of the cathedral really pop out in the
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  photo. I think there's such intricate architecture that you really want
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  to try and capture. And it's really interesting to see the disparity,
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  or not the disparity, but the difference between different buildings, different cathedrals.
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  Because they all sort of have the same, similar structure, right? There's always the sort
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  of the shape of the cross and you shoot down the middle and that's sort
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  of a formula you follow. But you do see a lot of differences. Maybe you
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  have some little small chapels and they can have really good, really pretty artwork
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  or really like stained glass. And I saw this in
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  France, I saw this in Italy. I think Italy is really, if you love taking
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  photos of churches, chapels, cathedrals, Italy is
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  your dream. I really enjoyed Rome when I went, and Bologna was
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  particularly fantastic too. So, yeah, I think that's probably one of the most interesting things
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  because you can sort of sit down and just take your time with everything.
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  And it's sort of, you follow this formula, but you also sort of tweak it
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  around and see what's interesting about the place. I think most recently I went to
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  Winchester and Winchester is a very, very pretty cathedral. They have a
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  lot of stained glass and it's sort of this mishmash of
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  this Norman cathedral and this more modern Gothic one. And they have lots
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  of intricate sort of stonework like faces and statues and
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  you can really be very creative with how you capture all of that by,
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  you know, picking longer focal lengths or making everything like really wide being
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  taking really wide shots or focusing onto tiny little details that
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  don't really get catch it normally. Wow. Well,
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  I wish you all the best with the next few months and yeah, beyond Cambridge
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  and I hope that you do manage to find some time to keep up your
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  photography in whichever way you like.
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  Keeping up with it is really quite a tricky thing. Well, I think I've
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  taken quite a few photos of the last year but hardly any of it has
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  gotten out on the socials unfortunately, because that's sort of
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  a whole nother job in itself. Yeah. Takes a lot of time behind the scenes,
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  I realise. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
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  All the best.
• 12:28
  This week in college. Tonight, tomorrow and Saturday,
• 12:32
  the Freshers play after Juliet is happening in the Howard Theatre.
• 12:35
  Details on where to get your tickets are in the Show Notes. On Saturday at
• 12:39
  5pm in the Assembly Room, Danny Driver, one of the finest pianists in the
• 12:43
  world, will be giving a recital alongside student pianists. Tickets are free
• 12:47
  for Downing members. Details in the Show Notes. On Sunday, the chapel
• 12:51
  choir sing a Eucharist service including Bird's beautiful four part Mass setting.
• 12:54
  They'll be singing it again on Tuesday at 6pm when we welcome
• 12:58
  members of the Catholic Chaplaincy to Downing. Also On Tuesday at 12:30,
• 13:02
  the curator of the current gallery exhibition, Tudor Contemporary
• 13:06
  will be giving a short tour in the gallery. Booking not required.
• 13:09
  Tuesday is a busy day for the gallery. There'll be a life drawing session from
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  5 till 7pm Booking essential. See the show Notes. Lots going on.
• 13:17
  As always, hope to see you at an event. Thanks for listening.