What subjects do we NOT shoot (and why)?

[nicholas_f._jones]

A poster recently asked what subjects do we (LF photographers) shoot, and it seems to me that the answers give a pretty good profile of LF subject matter, at least for outdoor folding field camera shooters. But it�s obvious from several of the posts, and from innumerable posts in the past, that we shoot what we shoot partly as a consequence of what we simply can�t shoot�the subjects we would shoot with a hand-held camera that can�t be shot with an LF field with tripod, dark cloth, etc.

 

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When we go out with the 8x10, well-meaning passersby often comment on our �old� camera. Apparently, they don�t realize that, except for movements, our �old� camera is fundamentally identical with any other film camera--however recent in design or manufacture�were it not for its fixed lens and film planes. Bellows, dark cloth, wooden box�all seem to take them back to the 19th c. and to give them the impression that what we�re doing is something like a Civil War battle re-enactment. I can�t think of a single time when the observer revealed any awareness of the optical advantages of our big field over 35mm point-and-shoot.

 

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When this impression is put together with decaying barns or a Nat�l Park lodge building or an idyllic farm scene (all among my very favorites, but for reasons unconnected with my practice of LF photography), the result is photographer as antiquarian re-enactor. Actually, for myself (and I certainly hope I speak for many others) modernism is an equally, even more, attractive orientation than anything that went before, since form, line, texture, and so on are rendered so appropriately and convincingly by the monochrome two-dimensionality of the b&w printed image. I�d rather shoot a still functioning steel barn (in fact, I already have) than its ruinous wooden counterpart built according to Sears & Roebuck (or was it Montgomery Ward?) standardized blueprints from milled lumber (the really fine hand-made barns I�ve seen have been in private ownership and still in use). But that�s merely a personal preference I mention just to establish the point that at least one of us has something going on in his mind when he shoots LF other than Matthew Brady, collodion emulsion glass plates, and Wm. Henry Jackson�s horse-drawn wagon.

 

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It�s easy to think of things that we can�t photograph at all (e.g. military installations, certain religious services, the Amish), but I�m interested in things that are normally photographed with small cameras but not with LF gear with the result that LF field camera photography may have acquired distinctive characteristics, if any, at least in the minds of the public.

 

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So, my question is: What subjects do we NOT shoot (and why)?

[eugene_singer]

Nicholas, the first thing that came to mind was underwater

photography. Difficult to do with a camera that has a bellows.

Second, would probably be shooting in outer space, although a hand

held Speed Graphic could be used to photograph through the window in

the space shuttle. Probably would feel quite light to hold in a

weightless environment.

[john_kasaian2]

Snakes with big sharp teeth. I hate snakes with big sharp teeth.

[edward_kimball]

I don't shoot nudes. My wife would beat me with a Cast Iron frying pan if I did.

[photojoe]

What subjects do we NOT shoot (and why)?

 

 

Motorsports (it's hard to get the swing, tilt, shift, focus, and close and cock the shutter before those speedemons go motoring away.)

[colin carron]

Joseph,

 

So what did they use to take pictures of motorsports back in 1900 ? The 'lean' forward you sometimes see in really old photos of motor sports is the effect of the roller blind shutter as the slit illuminated the glass plate from top to bottom.

 

My brother has a book by some turn of the century nature photographers with pictures of the photographer suspended from a rope cradle halfway down a cliff taking pictures of seabirds with his half plate field camera.

 

And what about those pics from the Crimean war and the American civil war when you had a choice of daguerrotype or wet plate.

 

Can't think of any underwater shots though but i expect it has been tried.

 

Colin

[brian_c._miller]

We don't photograph much in outerspace because the ticket price is $20M, and we keep spending the money on film and stuff. (after all, they did take that huge movie camera up there)

 

We don't do much extreme macro or microphotography with large format. Those bugs look really nasty that large!

 

David Letterman's "monkey cam" wouldn't work well, not even with a Graflex six negative back.

 

I tried doing nude photography, but I kept getting arrested. Oh, you mean the model was supposed to be nude??

[triblett_lungre_thurd]

i do NOT shoot infants dressed up as ladybugs, butterflies etc.

 

and i don't know why.

[david_goldfarb]

Heh. I'm allergic to dogs, so I don't shoot Weimaraners dressed up as people.