www.emmg.graphy.org.uk Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I�m interested to know why the majority of the correspondents to this site haven�t posted any of their photographic work to the gallery. I know it�s not mandatory to do so, just interested why most of us don�t share their work? Ideas anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troll Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Because it's the Large Format Forum, not the Digital Forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_atherton2 Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 hey - people pay me for mine - why should I let this bunch see em for free... ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I get the feeling that many of the LFers are reluctant to post photographs because they are worried that they might not show enough definition as JPEGs. Things are improving with the "No Words" threads, but I for one would still love to see more. So come on guys, photography is about images and what they convey, not how sharp they are.<p><a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">www.keithlaban.co.uk</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_ellis3 Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Many of the people here have web sites. I've just started mine but you can see what's up so far at www.ellisgalleries.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tedharris Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I post here, but with some reluctance. As has been mentioned above and in earlier threads on this subject you lose so much in a digital image that there sometimes is no way to reconcile what you see here with the 'real' thing. In fact sometimes I think of removing my images. For example, the images of mine that you see here frequently are a pale shadow of the prints that I produce for sale. For starters I seldom scan anything to put up on the web using anything other than my desktop flatbed scanner (a good one but still a flatbed) and then I usually dio it with the chromes sleeved so as not to risk any scratches and dust. OTOH when they are scanned for reproduction it is on a drum scanner with proper color matching, etc. The video monitor is jus tno substitute for a printed image. My two cents worth. Ted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wieslaw1 Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 My exhibition-quality pictures are �final prints� - results of much deliberation, etc. While I welcome critique by competent persons, I do not care what average, or casual viewers might suggest me to do to �improve� my picts in terms of composition, interpretation, exposure... Hence I do not submit any to this category. But there are few displayed in individual discussions, and of course you are welcome to view my www pages: http://users.nac.net/wieslaw/Patrialab/skyscrapers/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wally_hess Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I enjoy seeing the work of others mainly for inspiration- not to critique or disparage it. Seeing how others have approached a subject and tackled the technical aspects of shooting LF is helpful to me, a beginner. I dont care if the digital image quality is on par with the "real" final print - I know it cant be - so I say keep the pictures coming. I enjoy them. At the same time, I've really enjoyed the technical discussions on the gear: lenses, film, etc, so it seems that there is room on the forum for both discussion and pictures. Wally Hess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harleyman7 Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I also have second thoughts about posting because of image quality, but I do have some large format along with medium format posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenn_kroeger Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Numerical ratings are a childish way to toy with egos... it is an online equivalent of the stupid slide contests run by many local "photo" clubs. Get rid of numerical ratings and I might post a folder of images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_hawley Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I think the argument on image quality is a valid one, but there's also one to be made about fine art B&W as many LF people prefer to do. Fine art B&W prints seldom seem to garner much praise on these websites. They just don't catch the unappreciating eye with whiz-bang colors the way the digitals do. In my own experience, I found that sepia toning attracts far more attention than a straight B&W does. Personaly, I prefer straight B&W, but if you look at my posts, most are toned, just for attraction's sake. Although I love to view other LF work (especially since I just started), the main attraction to this forum for me is learning. I've found it to be extremely helpful with many accomplished professionals freely giving helpful advice to rank amateurs such as myself. I would also submit that the vast majority of regular contributors to this forum couldn't give two hoots about the point chase game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen hazelton Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I can't speak for others, but I come here mainly to read, not to look at pictures (though I do so occasionally). I don't know that there's that many people that would really appreciate my photography; it is more for myself than anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_kasaian1 Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 I don't have a scanner---yet. Its on my list though, right after the 19" f7.7 Dagor, the 159mm EWA Wolly, the 240mm Heliar, the 12x20 Korona, and a whole lot of other things I haven't thought of (yet!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j._o. Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 A) This forum didn't originate on photo.net, and many of its members are awaiting the completion of a new web forum to move the discussion to. The old forum was simple text and that was the tradition here. B) If one is willing to go to relatively extreme measures for image quality (astronomical per-frame transparency costs, contact-only processes, huge inconvenient cameras operated with allen wrenches) why would one want to present one's work as a 500 pixel wide JPEG? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_c._miller Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 "hey - people pay me for mine - why should I let this bunch see em for free..." What?? People pay you just to LOOK at your prints??? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_c._miller Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Personally, I don't have a whole lot of LF prints. MF, on the other hand, is abundant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_chinn Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 I have the same problems with quality of reproduction as those listed. If I get a web site up someday and want to present a few examples I will probably have them professionaly scanned for optimum resolution. To share my work with a group of peers and see their work in return I participate in a traveling portfolio that allows members of the group to see a collection of the actual fine prints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_gangi2 Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 There are a few reasons for me. Not enough time and energy after work, a crappy scanner, and just a touch of laziness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_c._miller Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 OK, looks like six people claim quality is a valid reason for not scanning their pictures. Question: how much quality difference is there between a scanned image and a real print at ten feet? Let's say that I'm on a sidewalk, and your artwork is hanging 10 feet back in a gallery. The gallery is closed, so I can only look through the window. I can cup my hands over my eyes and press my nose against the glass, but that's it. How much of that vaunted quality and detail will I see? I think its the same with a web image. You can only get just so close to the picture. But the gallery is closed. Or its printed in a magazine without LensWork's quality. Or ... whatever. If you forever wait for the ultimate quality, then how will you ever share? I remember a while back that some of the people started a postcard ring. Everybody in the ring would send a postcard-size print through the mail to somebody else, with all of the attendant stamps, processing, scrapes, and scratches. They shared their work for pennies and subjected it to the depredations of the postal sorting machines. Wouldn't a scanned image present your work far better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_chinn Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 The nice thing about the postcards is that you have an actual physical print in your hands, usually contact printed and it displays the work of the photographer even with any blemishes caused by shipping. Besides the quality issue, I simply would rather control the context in which my work is seen. That might mean it is seen by someone in a restaurant where I have work hanging 20 ft away. But that image was selected for that space with a certain audience in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim_galli4 Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 <center>Ok Brian, let's talk about this. This morning I was going to upload this image....... <p><img src=http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/tonopix/snowscene.jpg><br> to the "no words: winter" post. Until I saw it on my CRT. The original is an 8X10 contact print on AZO. Those burnt trees up in the skyline have branches rendered by my 270 G-Claron that need a magnifying glass to see. Ultimately it is part of what makes the photo work. Then the snow in the print has hundreds of nuances of white. So I scan at 144 dpi so that I won't have too many reductions to get to 72. I resize so it's less than 500 pixels wide so it will open fast here, and I save it as a level 3 jpeg. What's left is a picture that I didn't consider worth adding to the thread.</center> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j._o. Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 <i>If you forever wait for the ultimate quality, then how will you ever share? ...Wouldn't a scanned image present your work far better?</i> <P> The weird assumption that this argument makes, aside from its Yoda-esque grammar, is that those who don't post somehow want to share. They presumably don't. <P> And the quality argument still makes sense to me. I'm obsessive enough to cart around an 8x10 and live with "lenses" like the aforementioned 6.25" Wollensak. If I was convinced that 4x5 or 6x7 or 645 were good enough them I'd gladly downsize. If I was convinced that my work would look just as good at 72 dpi I'd consider the web as a medium to publish in. <P> Unfortunately, to go to the trouble of posting my work, I have to A) deliberately make crappy prints on crappy paper which would scan well or B) spring for the $700 flatbed which scans 8x10 transparencies. Then I'd spend some time twiddling with it in my ancient PS 5.0 and upload it to a page I'd have to design. It sounds like a lot of wasted effort, in my opinion, when I could spend some time finishing the (2) 8-foot sinks I'm working on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 So it's true, there really is a fear amongst LFers of the JPEG. It would seem that for many users, the only purpose of the large format camera is to obtain the greatest resolution possible. Full stop, end of story. Forget concepts, perceptions, observation and above all *images* and communication. If it ain't sharp it ain't worth sh*t. I will probably at some point buy a large format camera as an addition to my Hasselblad, but worry that attitudes such as this may be catching. Enough to put anyone off LF for life. JPEGs *are* low resolution, they *will* loose detail, what does it matter!<p>Appologies to those LFers who use their cameras to make images, to communicate, rather than as a test bed for resolution.<p><a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">www.keithlaban.co.uk</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_kasaian1 Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Kieth, size matters in LF, probably more than resolution though resolution is a big part of the equation. I've got these aerials of mountain peaks that have been shot hundreds, if not thousands of times before by photographers with a lot more on the ball than I. What I am finding is that the subject, in my opinion, requires considerable enlargement to convey the vast, cold, wild beauty of the subject( did I say "awesum?" "Awesum!" There, I said it!") and that called for LF negatives for big honkin' blow-ups. 8x10 contacts don't do "it" and I seriously doubt a jpeg will either. Its not just a matter of resolution. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_gangi2 Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Some of the folks have a good point, which is that sometimes it just won't translate into a little 72 dpi jpeg. In my case, I submitted a few elsewhere for a while, and the "scores and critiques" there had mostly to do with the lack of sharpness from the crappy scanner (shrunken down 72dpi scans of 4x5, 5x7 and even 8x10 contact prints). You lose a lot in the process. I'd rather spend money on film than on new scanners for a higher score. But mostly, I am basically lazy :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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