Ten Questions // Adam Bronkhorst

by | Nov 13, 2015 | Interviews, Ten Questions, The Blog

In the run up to Farm Week 16, we will be asking all of our mentors these Ten Questions, to get to know them a little, to discover some new facts about them and because we just want to know more about what makes them tick. 

 

This week we are talking to our Grandmaster Flash Adam Bronkhorst. Adam is a UK wedding and commercial photographer. You all know him as our lighting guru, expert on all things technical who is on a mission to find the perfect pair of shoes and statement watch.. but what might we not know about Adam? We asked him these ten questions in a quest to find out what Adam is all about ...

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Can you remember the first camera that you ever owned and if so tell us about it?

I can remember playing with my mum’s Olympus OM-10 SLR camera and being fascinated with the focus on it. I’d spend ages getting the two lines to match up. I still love the photos she took from that camera and wish she’d used it more. However the first camera that I owned was a disc camera. The negatives were about the size of a postage stamp, but it was my camera. I still have the shots from a school trip to Paris in 1988.

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I sometimes think about how amazing the Instagram accounts would have been of people who are not around anymore, like Andy Warhol… His feed would have been incredible. Who do you think would have had a great Instagram?

Nice idea. I think it would be really interesting to see an Instagram account from an early pioneer of photography. I like seeing how they documented a totally different time and were just experimenting all the time. So one of the earliest photographers who I really admire is Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He was a child from a wealthy french family who just shot his life of privilege in the early 20th Century. He was born in 1894 and shot one of my favourite shots of his cousin jumping down a flight of stairs at the age of 11 with one of those massive box cameras. He was doing jumping shots back in 1905. It would be amazing to see how people lived back then though the eyes of a child.

 

What’s the one piece of advice that you have been given that proved to have had the most influence on you?

‘It’s not about the camera.’

 

What function do you wish your camera could have that it doesn’t already?


Time travel. Only by a few seconds, so that I didn’t miss that decisive moment. 

 

If you were not a photographer what job would you be doing?

I have no idea. I’d still be working for myself. I just can’t imagine working for someone else and being told what to do. Or not doing what I like when I like. I’d love to say something cool like an international playboy. But it would in reality probably be a property surveyor or something.

 

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far?

My wife and kids. No contest.

 

Name one book that you think we should go out and buy.

I really think you should all go out and by Lo-Fi Photo Fun by Adam Bronkhorst. It’s just such a good book and everyone needs it in their life. Other than that I suppose I’d say the Genius of Photography….actually I’m gonna change that and say that all photographers should watch the fantastic BBC documentary The Genius of Photography, which is all about the history of photography. You really need to know where we’ve come from to know where we’re going.
 

What’s the strangest thing you have ever been asked to photograph and did you do it?

A dominatrix in her sex dungeon. Of course.
 
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If you could go back and say one thing to yourself aged 20, what would it be?

Don’t worry.

 

What question do you wish we’d asked you?

 

Can you wiggle your ears? And yes I can. It’s a talent that not enough people know I can do.

 

Adam is teaching his ever popular On and Off Camera Flash workshops at Farm Week in February, as well as his Advanced Flash class and a half day on Commercial Photography. Apart from Farm Week, you can catch Adam at all our Elements workshops in 2016, starting with Belfast on March 2nd and 3rd.