Is "the effort" really what makes LF photography great?

[stephen_vaughan3]

For me, the difference between my commercial/documentary work (on

35mm/6x7) and my personal work on 10x8, is two-fold.

 

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Firstly, it is an 'escape' from the pressures of working at speed,

covering all angles, meeting deadlines. It is a way of working which

allows me to draw breath, relax and really look at things.

 

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The 'effort' of carrying the equipment is part of the ritual too - and

yes, in a strange and sometimes painful way, part of the pleasure.

Apart from anything else, it keeps you fit!

 

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Secondly, and of course more importantly, the final print quality is

the main reason why we invest this effort. Because of the slow and,

dare I say, 'contemplative' nature of the work, the attitude of the

photographer to the subject matter can afford to be more subtle, or

understated than in other formats.

 

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The quality of the large-format print is such that delicate nuances

and subtleties of meaning emerge from the detail. With the

large-format image one can speak more quietly but with a depth and

richness of tone not acheivable in other formats.

 

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This is not to deny the other formats their own unique abil

[qtluong]

There is the objective quality of the image (what Strand meant

by "a picture" I guess), and then there is a personal quality,

what it means to the photographer. I think the effort which has

gone into making the image enhances greatly the second aspect,

although it is often not relevant to the first one. But since

most of us photograph for our enjoyment, the second aspect is

very important.

There are situations when LF does enhance the objective quality

of the image (for instance a large print of Misrach's sky series

has a beauty which is totally absent from smaller reproductions).

However, the circumstances which let the image speak for itself are

pretty rare. After all, how many prints have you seen in person,

rather than reproduced in a book or on a web page ? Maybe the

"LF speak" is meant to make up for this deficiency. I don't need

to tell people who view my prints (a modest 24x30 standard size)

that they were LF because they appreciate the detail, but for

someone who seems the work elsewhere, I'd like them to know it

as LF.

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A second thought is that this doesn't have anything to do with LF.

All photographers like to talk about the

effort involved into making the image. There are no credentials

required, no barriers to entry in photography. Everybody could

have made the same image by chance. But this wasn't chance in my

case, since it took me so much effort.

[dan_smith]

Anyone who thinks the importance of a fine image is due to the format

used is living in fantasyland.

While there are some who choose a format based on how they may look

using it there are more who choose based on the intended results. And

yes, there is certainly satisfaction in overcoming the inherent

unwieldy nature of the larger camera & ending up with a fine image.

Our photographs can stand on their own whether we shoot with a minox

or 20x24 camera if they are good images. Bigger cameras have more

control and that is why some of use them... for working with subject

matter where this control is useful.

The contact print is an excellent reason to use a big camera & the

flighty nature of a marsh wren an excellent reason to use 35mm. The

subject does dictate the gear in many cases. When we have to choose

we weigh the pros and cons before making our chosen compromise.

Everything from tonalities to grain to personal comfort factor into

the decision as to what we end up using. In the end it doesn't matter

at all if the photos are no good.

[nick_jones]

To answer Micah's original question, in my own case "effort" is

certainly not what makes LF photography attractive although use of a

big camera does provide some satisfaction to an exponent of an old

fashioned earn-your-own-way, DIY work ethic. After 30 years of

fairly serious 35mm, with some b/w processing and enlarging, the

exciting cause of my own turn to LF was simply a desire to produce a

better 5x7 or 8x10 b/w print. Some study suggested 4x5 as an

attractive format, but my initial plans ran aground on the

realization that I would need a new enlarger and lens that might

equal or exceed the cost of the camera itself. But a way out of this

dilemma opened up when I read in Charis Wilson's biography of Edward

Weston that at the time of their meeting in 1934 all of EW's 8x10's

for sale in his studio in Carmel were contact prints (Through Another

Lens, pp. 5-6). That was good enough for me. I upgraded the camera

and decided to do contact prints in the style of this great artist.

 

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But there is a more personal, autobiographical dimension to my

decision to take up this (as it must seem to many "outsiders")

arcane, even obsolescent artistic endeavor. It is this dimension

that to my surprise I have found absent in this and related

discussions in this forum, since most shooters stick to the technical

merits of LF or comment on more philosophical issues but hardly ever

explain what got them into LF in the first place. In my own case, my

father was a professional studio photographer and besides his routine

commercial shooting of portraits of children in a trailer back in LA,

he also did some nice darkroom work of his own. A 5x7 and tripod,

film holders, and evening loading of sheet film in a closet are among

the distant memories that finally after nearly 50 years prompted me

to try to figure out what he was doing. An additional motivation was

the prospect of returning at least in our minds, after many years in

a foreign country and now in Pennsylvania, to the West Coast of our

birth and early years--our homes, a university community, and the

landscape. Further reading revealed that among the more immediate

founders of American LF photography were Adams, the Westons,

Cunningham and others whose biographies and subjects so closely

coincided with our own experiences, even if a generation or so ahead

of our schedule. But it could have been Arizona or New Mexico, or

Pennsylvania, or New York City, or anywhere else that our art form

has been practiced.

 

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But I agree that much of the reason for going to such trouble,

expense, and, yes, effort in pursuit of our craft has to do with its

technical features. For me it's all hand work, and there is great

satisfaction in following the entire process from previsualization to

framed print. Photography is creative in contrast to many merely

passive hobbies or pastimes; it produces a tangible result that you

can display in home or office or make a gift of. Out of necessity

where large or heavy gear is involved, LF makes for companionship;

and during the short time we have been taking the rig out we have

enjoyed the frequent, sometimes well informed and usually well-

meaning questions posed by strangers--an excellent opportunity, I

might add, to spread the gospel of LF photography.

 

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So, my own reasons for doing LF photography are largely a function of

my own space-and-time circumstances, but above and beyond the

personal element, we have found shooting to be a satisfying and

rewarding activity. Process is a lot of it, but frankly I'd find

something else to do if I couldn't have produced a decent print after

a full year of peparation. Results do count, but at the same time

our goals our modest: a few well-crafted prints to hang of the wall

that give us--not critics, or a potential buyers, or web-browsers--

some personal satisfaction even if our whole Weltanschauung is

hopelessly dated. Because I don't have to shoot LF for a living, I

can enjoy the luxury of seeing photography as a hobby. Like oil

painting, pottery-making, or playing the oboe or banjo, LF doesn't

make a whole lot of sense in a technological world, but the big

camera still gets respect and it's not so eccentric as to isolate the

photographer from other human beings. All the best,

Nick.