.svg)
The French from “PCR Gravier” film and photograph with 16mm and 35mm on their bikepacking trips. The fact that the equipment is not only bulky but also damn heavy doesn't seem to interest them. What counts for them in the end is the experience - and the analog memory of their trip.
Photos & Film: Renaud Skyronka
The “PCR Gravier” collective consists of nine riders from Paris who are fully committed to bikepacking. But they don't just ride at home; over the past five years, the friends have been drawn to adventures in Spain, Italy, Belgium and Slovenia. Because almost all of the riders are involved in photography and film in their free time and professionally, the collective is known in France for taking more photos on their travels than pedaling. For filmmaker Renaud Skyronka, however, this has a nice side effect of slowing things down: “Filming on our trips has something quite therapeutic about it,” says Renaud. "We usually forget the photos we take with our cell phones very quickly. They disappear into the galleries of our smartphones. Analog photos have a completely different value. For us city dwellers, these trips are so special, so important, that we want to have tangible traces of them as memories.“
For Renaud, analog photos and films are also so important because they allow him to “experience his travels a second time”. Even if post-production is a lot more time-consuming than with images from conventional digital cameras. All the material has to be laboriously developed, viewed and scanned in the laboratory. This is followed by the digitization process. The fact that the equipment is heavier and more unwieldy than modern equipment doesn't matter to him. "It's a form of minimalism that prioritizes quality over quantity. You no longer care about the weight of your bike or your equipment when your medium-format camera already weighs 1.5 kilos," says Renaud, whose fully packed bike weighs just under 25 kilos. "Today, everyone is frantically trying to set the bar as high as possible in terms of speed and weight reduction. It's a shame that performance is now more important to many than the experience itself."
During their trip from Turin to Nice in 2016, Renaud filmed with an 8mm camera. When he viewed the material in the lab, he was disappointed with the output. “The camera simply couldn't withstand the many vibrations during the trip, which is why the results were totally unsatisfactory.” With the 16mm camera, he found an ideal companion for future projects. "16mm is an almost mythical format that is still often used today. It's easy to develop, the resolution is almost HD quality, minus the image noise of course." The camera he uses is a Russian Krasnogork-3, which can be wound up manually. “The thing is virtually indestructible,” says Renaud.
However, because the film material is expensive, every shot has to be perfect. "With 30 meters of film, you get 12 minutes of footage. Nevertheless, you have to organize it well. Because both the film rolls and the development cost a fortune."
But every trip is different and expectations vary. That's why the filming aspect is just as important to Renaud as the time he spends on his bike. One quote in particular from French artist Robert Filiou sums it up perfectly for him: “Art is what makes life more interesting than art”