Master of contradictionBeing a Haselblad Masters winner brings a big chunk of expectation, along with the accolade. The celebrated winners are expected to complete a Masters project that forms a chapter in that year’s Masters book. Bryn Griffiths bravely left his studio confines when his name was called

Overseen directly by the company’s senior executive committee, the Hasselblad Masters Award is granted to selected photographers each year across various

specialties in recognition of exceptional accomplishment through photography. If there is a hierarchy of award winning in the worldwide photographic industry, then the Hasselblad Masters is at the very top. Just being on the shortlist can be a career-changing moment, but to be a winner is really something else. Product and advertising specialist Bryn Griffiths has now experienced both sensations and attempts to describe the moment: ‘I had the absolute privilege of being a Masters finalist in 2012, which I was amazed at and then when I was shortlisted again for 2014 I was just over-whelmed. However, nothing beats the sheer exhilaration of being actually announced as a Hasselblad Masters Winner in 2014. I could not believe it; I was walking around in a daze for a few days after I heard the news; this has to be the greatest achievement so far in my 30-year career as a photographer and I’m very proud to have received the accolade.’ After Bryn settles down a little he continues: ‘The reason it’s so special is that the Hasselblad name is up there at the very pinnacle of our profession – the competition is truly global g

Winter 2015 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 7

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 6-7 28/01/2015 15:06

and to be recognised by my peers on the judging panel is extremely humbling.’ Indeed, this isn’t just any awards, it’s the ’blad Masters.

So what does this mean in practice? You only have to look at the jury to realise the gravitas: Tim Flach, Joe Felzman, Joe Windsor Williams, Milwoz Wozaczynski sit amongst no less than 24 international heavy weights of the current photographic world. Bryn wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was humbled. The winners are provided with the means and equipment to fulfil a project as a part of the Masters Book for the year, of which they are responsible for a chapter of images. The Hasselblad Masters Book is a large-format masterpiece in its own right from TeNeues. Then there’s an international touring exhibition, too. All in all you can excuse Bryn his couple of days’ daze…

Bryn’s product and advertising work has produced some really special images for top-end brands with cars and bicycles featur-ing heavily across his portfolio. He comments: ‘My intention is to reinforce inherent brand values by approaching them differently – adding the magic that turns the ordinary into something extraordi-nary, and creating stunning images that you don’t have to be an art director to want to hang on your wall.’ But for Bryn it could have all been so different. The man who is equally known for particularly stylish suits (or might that be just loud ?) couldn’t decide between accountancy and photography at the tender age of 15. The irony

g

g

Winter 2015 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 9

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 8-9 28/01/2015 15:06

10 the PHOTOGRAPHER / Autumn 2014 Autumn 2014 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 11

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

now is of course that plenty of finan-cial services companies turn to Bryn to produce their advertising campaigns – but to be honest the bean-counting world just wouldn’t have coped with Bryn. However their loss was the photography world’s gain and Bryn’s big personality works just fine in an arena such as advertising that is still very much powered by personal relationships. Bryn says: ‘It’s still about talking to people, going and having a chat face to face. When your client base knows you and all about you the link is so much stronger and the understanding is greater. In this sector it’s a must that my clients understand what I can do for their brand. Photography for me has always been personality driven, and that approach seems to work. A great photo-graph is one that truly engages with the viewer. In product and advertising work that may be to communicate the quality of design and engineering in a product, its form and beauty – and my role is to elevate those aspects and provide a context within which such values are clear and can be aspired to.’ Bryn was once given a key piece of career advice: ‘I once met Terence Dono-van on a train, going to a BIPP conference where he was speaking. I was a shy 18-year-old, and gingerly I showed him some of my work. “Keep going lad, you’ll get there in the end”, he said. So after all these years, I’m still going.’

But now, can Bryn finally decide he’s arrived? Indeed he can, but there was of course the small matter of the Masters Book project to tackle. What to do? Where to go? What would it all be about? Bryn explains: ‘My initial idea for the project was simply to showcase the usual type of work I do – that being well lit shiny, glossy product shots. As the deadline approached for the Masters Book, however, I had the

g

g

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 10-11 28/01/2015 15:06

12 the PHOTOGRAPHER / Winter 2015

g

g

opportunity to go to Chernobyl. I realised that this could be a fantastic way to challenge all my normal habits and conventions – to introduce to the chapter material that would be a contradiction of my normal working practices: only using available light and focus-ing on old, used, weathered and decayed objects.’

When the Chernobyl catastrophe took place on 26 April 1986, the nearby city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated. The population went about their usual business, completely oblivious to what had just happened. However, within a few hours of the explo-sion, dozens of people fell ill. Later, they reported severe headaches and metallic tastes in their mouths, along with uncontrollable fits of coughing and vomiting. The general population of the Soviet Union was first informed of the disaster on 28 April, two days after the explosion, with a 20-second announcement in the TV news. Only after radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 1,000km away from the Chernobyl Plant, did the Soviet Union admit that an accident had occurred.

Fast-forward 28 years to Bryn’s visit to Chernobyl. Bryn takes over the story: ‘I was with my photo-assistant and a Russian chap-erone – a former KGB officer – taking pictures in what had been a secret robot testing facility. We had Geiger counters with us because even now there are still ‘hot spot’ areas. It could be an acceptable 50 RADS (radiation absorbed dose) where you’re standing but just a few feet away it might be ten times that and a very real danger.

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 12-13 28/01/2015 15:06

g

g

We were just exiting the facility and I was lugging my tripod with my H5D still at-tached. I wasn’t looking where I was going and I contrived to fall down a well – for real – I was still holding on to the tripod as I fell and mercifully the camera contrived to get jammed on the ledge as I dropped and it broke the fall. I was left dangling but in one piece.’

Bryn (as you do) had neglected to explain to his wife exactly where he would be going to shoot his pictures for the Masters project – and considering his career to date, she had no reason to think he might be down a well in Russia. Bryn says ‘no, I hadn’t gone into any specifics whatsoever…’.

He continues: ‘I do take photographs across a number of disciplines but my first love is product photography. I love a studio setting; just me and my ’blad and bron’ gear and whatever the product happens to be. I am intrigued by textures and the tiny nu-ances that can make the difference between “ok” photography and really great photogra-phy. Right now I am shooting extensively in a graphical style – as with the Condor cycle saddle and the Morgan steering wheel – but this was all about going out on location, using natural light and a wide-angle lens and photographing dereliction and decay – and indeed not manipulating it, photo-graphing what I found in place – the exact opposite of my commercial shoots.’

In his chapter Bryn contrasts a £12,000 state-of-the-art Condor road bicycle with a rusted, bent wheel he came across in Cher-nobyl, complete with a gas mask still hang-ing on its rim; a classic Morgan steering wheel against another corroded specimen; a Condor saddle and frame against an old bike carcass shot in a gradually decompos-ing room; a pristine, clinical studio image of

14 the PHOTOGRAPHER / Winter 2015

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

Winter 2015 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 15

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 14-15 28/01/2015 15:06

g

16 the PHOTOGRAPHER / Winter 2015

fresh paint pouring from a shiny tin – against a shot of a dilapidated stairway and a wall with decades old paint curling and falling away in its moribund final nod to an irradiated city and a shocking, dev-astating piece of history.

What’s unmistakeable in Bryn’s Chernobyl work, however, is the stamp of an experienced commercial advertising photographer. It’s not unusual for photographers break out of their usual stamping grounds heading for pastures new, but the results aren’t always so enticing. Bryn’s work succeeds because he didn’t go there and try to produce reportage – he let his inner creative advertising photogra-pher lead the way and find the subtleties of shape and light for him. Some time ago in an interview Bryn commented: ‘It is my eye for form, colour, lighting and an instinct for styling that I think sets my work apart. Stringent production values are a given – and my range of major clients expect nothing less.’ For the Masters book, Bryn went on a mission to find contrasts or contradictions to set his commercial work against, and captured them without the normal trappings of studio control. That the resulting images have a distinct commercial edge and refinement can only mean that to some extent at least, advertising photographers are born and not made. tP

See more at:www.bryngriffithsphotography.comwww.hasselblad.co.uk/masters-2014-

Imag

e © B

ryn G

riffit

hs

TP-2015-WIN BG (12).indd 16-17 28/01/2015 15:06