HANDS-ON PHOTOGRAPHY WITH THE BURATINO LARGE-FORMAT DIGITAL CAMERA

The Astigmatism Research Institute offers the opportunity to work with Buratino, Russia’s first and only astigmatic large-format chrono-camera: an experimental artistic instrument combining classical photography traditions with modern digital technology.

This is more than a photo session or a conventional workshop. It is a practice of slow seeing and working with the image as a physical and temporal phenomenon.

Buratino is an experimental large-format digital view camera that I created as part of the Astigmatism Research Institute project. It brings together the Soviet tradition of optical and mechanical engineering with modern digital technology, becoming an instrument that records not only an image but the passage of time itself.

The camera’s defining feature is a moving chrono-sensor measuring 210 × 290 mm with a resolution of over 400 megapixels. During an exposure, the sensor moves continuously, recording shifts, displacements and overlaps in space and time. Each frame becomes a visualisation of the environment’s dynamics rather than a photograph in the conventional sense: drifting clouds, pulsating light, and the interplay of architecture and nature.

During the session, you can discover how a large-format camera works, how images were made in early photography, why large format remains unmatched in its depth of perception, and how the legacy of Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky is evolving in the digital age.

I will explain:

— how the camera works
— why large format matters today
— how rare optics change our perception of space
— how tilt, shift and astigmatic distortions work
— how to create images with a sense of physical presence
— how contemporary photography becomes an art object

Sessions take place on location or in a studio. You will be able to take your first photographs with this camera yourself, work with rare optics and try experimental digital backs developed at the Astigmatism Research Institute, including our latest development based on the Fujifilm GFX 100, one of today’s most technologically advanced medium-format cameras.

All equipment is provided.

If you wish, the resulting work can be produced using museum-quality acrylic face-mounting: the image is mounted on Dibond and sealed beneath acrylic glass, becoming a collectable art object.

The Astigmatism Research Institute is currently running a special experimental programme where you can test the laboratory’s latest developments and take part in research into contemporary photography as an artistic act.

Your participation supports our research, the development of new optical instruments and the institute’s ongoing work.

From RUB 5,555 per hour