Portraits Underground

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It’s like walking in a squat the whole time, so there’s a pressure on your quads, and on your legs. And you’re also at 4,500 to 4,800 meters of altitude, and there’s not a lot of oxygen inside the mines as well, so by the time you manage that kind of sprint, hunched over with the gear, with no oxygen, breathing dust, you feel pretty dizzy at the end and need to take a break.

Steph: So in most of the photos, which you shot digitally, the only light source you had was the head lamps?

Jason: Right.

Steph: And yet, the images are surprisingly in focus and full of detail. How did you manage that?

Jason: I was basically, you know, maxing out the performance of my camera and my lenses, so I was shooting at ISO 3,200 in a lot of cases, and then also down at F1.4 or F2.4 on the lenses. In that case the challenge is actually getting enough depth of field that you’re not just focused on one particular point.

In some cases, you know, if there was enough light, I would stop down to 2.8 or 4.0 if I could to try to get some more depth of field.

Steph: Knowing that dust is a camera’s worst enemy, how did you deal with the atmosphere?

Jason: The main thing was not to change lenses in areas that it was dusty. It also depends on how much time you spend down there. I would tuck the camera under my fleece jacket or a raincoat in that case. Often what you can or can’t do depends on how much time you spend down there.

Steph: Sure. How much time total did you spend underground?

Jason: I think we spent about eight hours that first time, and then the day of compadres during Carnival, I don’t know if I actually calculated, I was probably down there another six hours again, quite possibly, and then another time for a few hours here and there. So, if you add all that up, you know, maybe 20, 25 hours altogether.

Steph: Were there things that came up that caught you totally by surprise?

Jason: There’s fear that you have to deal with, especially with regard to claustrophobia. There are a few wooden ladders that you have to use to get down to different levels and then squeeze between rocks and you don’t necessarily know what the safety standards are. So, you’re not sure what’s going to be around the next bend, or if somebody’s going to be setting off dynamite or what’s going to happen, so that was bit challenging, as well.

Also interesting, actually, was witnessing some of the emotional moments of the miners.

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