Berlinale : Tilda

“The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognize the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet-wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.”
Tilda Swinton, Berlinale 2025

Tilda Swinton on stage at the Opening Night Ceremony during Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival) at Berlinale Palast, Berlin, , Germany on 13 February 2025. Tilda was presented with the Golden Bear by Edward Berger.
X-H2 XF35mm ISO 640 1/250 sec at f – 1.4

I have mentioned before how I feel privileged to attend the events I do, to be paid to visit the places I visit, to witness moments in time that most people only get to see on the telly-box.

The opening night to Berlinale and the acceptance speech by Tilda Swinton for her Honorary Golden Bear was one of those moments.

My job is to take photographs of whatever happens in front of me, what I see, I record. I can only recall a few times where the overriding compulsion was to put down the camera, watch and listen. This speech was one of those moments. (Luckily there are only so many images you can make of a person giving a speech).

Tilda Swinton seen arriving at the Opening Night Ceremony during Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival) at Berlinale Palast, Berlin, , Germany on 13 February 2025.

X-H2S XF90mm ISO1000 1/250 sec at F2.0

You will see from the gallery below, I made plenty of images .

If you have 10 minutes to spare – google the speech (it’s on You Tube)

For the Berlinale, as my last post stated, I tried to work with minimal kit on this trip, so all of these images were shot with either the XH-2 with the 35/1.4 or X100VI.

As for the processing, this is where things have all changed. Towards the end of last year, following getting to grips with how fast my Mac M2 Studio is, I invested in an M3 MacBook Pro to replace my aging M1 iPadPro.

This does not signal the end of my use on the iPad (which I will continue to use for small highly mobile jobs); it’s me changing my workflow to reflect the needs of my work.

A number of other photographers, having seen me with the MacBook, have suggested I will need to finish up this blog. I won’t (obviously). Like everything, things change, things evolve, the photography market evolves, hardware evolves. We need to bend and evolve with it because, if we don’t, we will be left behind .

I would really like to hear from you, how are you evolving in this ever changing industry?

More soon.

J x