connealy Posted March 30, 2004 Author Share Posted March 30, 2004 For those who can actually recall what the original posting in this thread was about...<br><br>I received this communication recently from a knowledegable friend:<br><br>"...her 100 year old camera is, I think, a large wooden camera with a brass lens - the kind without a shutter that makes exposures by removing the lens cap. She has been doing a number of different antique processes, including I think, daguerreotypes. I cannot remember whether she is using a portrait camera (i.e. one that is rigid and set on a rolling stand) or one of the old, large folding field-type cameras..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awahlster Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 By the way 15 minutes after I posted the Sally mann photo I emailed the moderators to have my post removed. I guess their busy. And to the person who posted the legal deffinitions to Kiddie Porn Thanks I now stand corrected beings I never had any interest in nude pictures of little girls I never thought to look up exactly how much I could get away with. So this is ART. Well I guess I'm just a dumbass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r s Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Mark Wahlster wrote:<br> <i> And to the person who posted the legal deffinitions to Kiddie Porn Thanks I now stand corrected beings I never had any interest in nude pictures of little girls I never thought to look up exactly how much I could get away with. </i> <br> Mark, I find that to be an interesting position to take considering that you had no problem stating <i>"...that this is no different then what is considered Kiddie porn except that this photographer calls it art."</i> just a few post up in this thread. Seems like you were pretty sure about what kiddie porn vs art was. <br> <br> <i> So this is ART. Well I guess I'm just a dumbass</i> <br> No comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_goldfarb Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 Getting back to the question. The camera she uses isn't really that significant. I believe it's a folding field camera like a Deardorff. If you shoot large format, you really get the sense that it's just a black box with a lens (or pinhole or zone plate) at one end and a sheet of film at the other. Large format cameras may offer a wide range of features in terms of movements and precise scales and interchangeable bellows and formats and such, but these are not really that important for portrait photography. Virtually any 8x10" camera with a little front rise/fall and no light leaks will do. She uses many lenses, often lenses that have been damaged in some way as mentioned above, or lenses that don't adequately cover the format, or lenses that have dramatic resolution falloff at the corners, or sometimes lenses with elements removed. Some of these lenses have shutters (Frank Marshman at CameraWiz in Harrisonburg, VA repairs them for her), and some don't. In the LF world, it's not so unusual to use the "black hat trick" for long exposures, or by now she may have a Packard shutter or some such behind the lens to make life a little easier. You can set up a Packard shutter on one lensboard with an adapter for another lensboard in front of it for use with shutterless lenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc1 Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 cool ! now we're back on track, interesting equipment ,powerful shots alright , also since i've never shot LF,i look at this thread as purely educational for me. on the pornographic side , i can't comment . cheers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connealy Posted March 31, 2004 Author Share Posted March 31, 2004 I'm sure I'll never get into LF myself, but I think it is really important to look at well-done LF prints on a regular basis. It gives you a sense of the ultimate potential of photo image making that is easy to forget about when you only do the smaller formats.<br> I went to an exhibit not long ago of LF prints that showed ancient ruins and petroglyphs in New Mexico. I didn't like quite a few because of some rather clumsy dodging, but some of the more straight-forward images were exquisite in their tonalities and detail. Since I often shoot the same subjects, viewing the show really gave me some useful things to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_goldfarb Posted March 31, 2004 Share Posted March 31, 2004 What's interesting, though, about Sally Mann's use of large format is that it doesn't aim to maximize "image quality" in the technical sense, but to achieve aesthetic affects only possible with the format and equipment she uses. It's not really that hard or that expensive to get into LF, and I've found that all my photography has improved since I made that move myself. Check out articles on getting started in LF on lfphoto.info and www.viewcamera.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 For some reason by simply participating in this thread, or perhaps because of my opinion, someone made a lame attempt to infect my computer with the WORM_NETSKY.C virus via an e-mail titled "child porn?". Even if I was stupid enough to open executable files from unknown sources, my e-mail account automatically scans and deletes such junk anyway. Has anyone else participating in this thread had this experience? Makes me wonder whether another cranky thread over whether certain Canonet and Yashica post-1971 model rangefinders should be discussed here would prompt some goofball to try to infect the computers of anyone who disagreed with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted April 2, 2004 Share Posted April 2, 2004 <i> Has anyone else participating in this thread had this experience? </i><p> Nope. Are you sure it was related to this thread, though? I get lots of junk mail with provocative subject-headings, some of which contains viruses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beepy Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 <blockquote> The camera she uses isn't really that significant. </blockquote> Er... <p> An 8x10 view camera is a slightly different experience than a Canon EOS 1D Mark II. <p> Landscape and architecture photographers use view cameras. :-) Sally Mann I thought has been accused of "posing" her subjects - and that they are not photographed "au naturel". But a view camera almost dictates this. It is not what one would call a camera for snapshotting. <p> I am new to (smallish) large format. It affects the way I view things and work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 Hmm... pretty sure it was related to this thread, for reasons I don't want to get into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_goldfarb Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 My point was that the format she uses is significant, but the particular choice of 8x10" cameras is not really that significant. Yes, obviously there is a difference between working with 35mm and 8x10", but for portraits, it doesn't particularly make a huge difference whether she uses a simple Korona, a Deardorff, a Wisner, or a Sinar, for instance. These cameras have different capabilities and features that might be important for specific uses, like tabletop still life or architecture or landscape photography in the field, but for portraits, and particularly the portraits that Sally Mann makes, they all do pretty much the same thing, and it really doesn't matter which one she uses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 She probably uses the camera for the same reason I use a squirrel mop brush rather than sable for watercolor - just because I like it. It doesn't make me a better painter. It just enhances my enjoyment of making mediocre paintings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_kinnan Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Under the current forum system here, it may be more than a little late to post this, but I only just found this thread, after all... An earlier poster said: "COMMENT: So Mann takes photos of naked kids on a 100 year old camera and is an ?artist? for it? expecting some kind of special adulation and, in a legal sense, consideration? but a grandmother in Kansas takes pictures of her kid in a bathtub with an Instamatic and gets locked up? Three words sum that up? "pretentious"? "artistic"? "affectation"...!" I think three words that may have been more appropriate in the aforementioned case would be: "hysterical" -- "reactionary" -- "puritanical" ...! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernadette_mizrahi Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 I just bumped into this thread. I am new to Sally Mann, in fact I googled her and got you in the mix. I see Sally's work and a window into a life most of us dream of. Where we can be free, where we can feel so comfortable as a child to enjoy our bodies and be proud of who we are. When I look at the picture posted above, I see a girl playing dress up, and who thinks her body is beautiful. I also see a mother who is proud of her daughters beauty. Sally does more than capture the reality, she captures the very moment when life for her and her children were beyond perfect. Her family seems to be happily fenced in, away from what media can do to a child, a family, a person. I remember taking a photo of my little girl when she was 3 and she was painting her toe nails in the buff, it was a beautiful moment. I remember her loving her body and parading around in her freedom. Now when my daughter looks at the picture she only sees her flaws, flaws that the world outside her home told her she had. Its the pedophilers that make this picture turn you out. You want to protect this child from the wrong eyes, and that's the moment that we become uncomfortable, but that in itself is another reality, one that could call itself art. http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i94/bernadettemizrahi/cutiecopy.jpg This photo for me was disturbing, but its also one of my favorite. I see a young girl who is becoming a woman, but a woman who is learning to cover up, disguise who she is, who has stopped believing that natural beauty is more powerful. But at the same time she is trying to see what her future will be. I know I went in a different direction, just hoping I offered some insight. Life is art. I came here to find out more about her camera, I read above that you can get the same results with Tri X. I'd love to hear other possibilities, I'm bored with the digital world and would like to go back to film. How does she get the vingetting and rich colors? Thanks for your ears and your help. Photo: My daughter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkantor Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 Pre-pubescent children by definition are not sexual. Therefore if you see sexuality when looking at them - it's coming from you. Pornography is in the mind of the beholder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c7huber Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 <p><br /> <strong>Might I share a quote with you "Where the pure see purity, the pig sees smut."</strong> <em>Albert Einstein</em></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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