d._kevin_gibson

"If it was just about "incredible detail" then we'd all be making 11x14 contact prints and being hailed as great artists. Sadly, it takes a little bit more than that......"

Thankfully the likes of John Szarkowski disagree

" you use very little of the negatives potential for contact printing (probably only need actual rez of less than 15 lpmm"

very incorrect

"there is more than enough in a decent 4X5 neg to make perfect 12X20 digital negatives - it's a question of scanning"

You are pushing it if you are makign digital negs via inkjet - possibly, just possibly if you are using an imagesetter. It also depends a lot on what process you are using.

It seems you don't quite seem to know what you are talking about here

some kodak data here:

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/kodakektar/kodakektar.html

you can see (the fairly limited) manual here

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/supergraphic/supergraphic.html

also info at cameraquest

http://www.cameraquest.com/supergrp.htm

"you make it sound so easy to make the facilities

to produce super

large prints with such easy to say statements like" simple-

build them". You

talk about the need for a $20k horizontal enlarger, and

giant equipment as

"just excuses". You forget that you also need a darkroom

large enough to

house such equipment."

Like Clyde Butcher - you make your own luck - he got a bargain on his first enlarger. Same here. I got a very nice horizontal enalrger from DeVere whose facility was just down the road in Barnstaple when they had a fire sale of the big enlargers they used to sell to the CIA when digital was coming in big time 15 or so years ago. It certainly didn't cost close to $20K. As for space - three colleagues got together for the lab and darkroom space - one of us was a boatbuilder and we made big big trays out of ply and fiberglass resin from his boat building shop (the third was an ex DeVere tech) - where there is a will there is always a way.

Yes, I work probably in colour now for 80% of my work now, but for big B&W work, which I still do at times I don't use the lab anymore (dissolved the partnership and gear a few years ago) I work from scanned B&W 4x5 and 5x7 negatives pritned onto fibre based paper digitally - does a great job and I get far more control over the print than was possible inthe darkroom. Prints can go up to 50" on the short side

"Please tell me a few of the "many more" that

you know for

a fact printed the super large B&W prints themselves."

Adams does for one, same for Burtynskys B&W work, Sally Mann (I think Salgado has a printer now)

"that's not the case. Painting on a larger canvas just requires a larger canvas, more paint and a bigger easel. Making really huge prints on the other hand requires the use of a large format camera,"

well - this is a Large Format list...

"as smaller formats have a serious degradation of image quality, (something that doesn't happen when you paint a bigger painting) , the use of a large format wall projection enlarger with a vacuum easel on the wall, these enlargers are usually mounted on tracks and cost upwards of $20k for a decent one. You also need giant trays, giant sinks, giant washers, etc. Also try handling a wet piece of paper five feet across and moving it from tray to tray without kinking it, just one kink or crack in the emulsion and the print goes into the trash. Then try storing them if they survive the development ,washing and drying process."

That's what I meant about excuses for not doing it

"Paintings can be left standing if they're still stretched, or unstretched and rolled, super large prints have to lay flat , please find me a flat file with 4x5' drawers."

Simple - build them

"The difficulty , failure rate and costs in producing very large prints increase greatly as compared to more standard sizes."

Clyde Butcher, for one, seems to do very well and have resolved all the above problems. Sugimoto is another - there are many more

"I won't address digital prints because it has been my experience with many galleries that most serious collectors prefer traditional prints over digital"

Again, excuses and bad information - all the major galleries are quite happy with collecting work which, for example started as a LF negative or transparency, was scanned and then printed digitally in some form (Lightjet, Chromira, Epson wide format) - often work that costs tens of thousands of dollars - Burtynksy, Gursky, Struth, Shore, Graham, Wall and plenty of others. Museums and serious collectors are mostly quite happy collecting such work. At least one major museum is actively collecting work produced via inkjet.

To say the above is simply incorrect. All your points do is re-confirm what I said - that there is in some areas apparently an inherent bias against large scale photographic prints, which is often justified by technical arguments that just don't apply any more.

Someone mentioned Kinkaid - which brings to mind the more popularist scenic photography of the Burkett and Fatali and Mangeleson type. I have seen quite a bit of this kind of work produced big on the "big is better and more expensive" approach. On the whole it just doesn't work - those saturated desert canyon photos or alpine meadows/sunny snow kissed peak shots often really don't seem to work well when made large - it really highlights their deficiencies as works as a whole and their lack of substantial content and they often come out looking more like that scenic wallpaper you used to be able to buy to put up in the den.

Compared with something like a very large Sugimoto print and the difference is obvious - one is clearly meant to be very large and the result is sublime. The other shows that if you want to make it big, it better be good.

"4x5 FEET?!?! Never seen em that big, but I'm sure Chip has his reasons.... not to my taste though and I'd have to believe that it's not REAL collectable at that size."

Of course, small by the standards of a lot of paintings. Photography seems to have adopted a bias for miniature works even when the technical barriers for making larger work have long gone. It was, and is, a self limitation that is often detrimental imo. Everyone likes the old saw - "if you can't make it good make it big" - which may sometimes have an element of truth, but is far too much of a generalization to actually be meaningful. Indeed, the opposite is often true, there are many many not so good photographs out there that look okay when you keep them nice and small, but make them 2, 3 or 4 feet wide and everything that is wrong about them becomes obvious. Indeed, it is in some ways often much harder to make a good big photographs and for it to succeed.

On the purely practical side - it's a lot easier fo a gallery to sell one 50"x60" print to a corporate collection - bank, automobile company, investment house or whatever for $5,000/$10,000 or $20,000 etc. Than to sell five or ten 20x24 prints to individual private collectors

"Clearly the designers of lenses , when adding others to the line, do not start from an arbitrary point."

You think that is clearly the case?

"I think it would be quite reasonable to do a lens of X focal length and then 2X, 3X etc... and then start filling in the gaps."

Why?

In many cases there is often nothing at all logical to it (at least in an engineering or mathematical sense) - sometimes (actually, often) it comes down to fashion, marketing decisions or tradition or even what the designer just felt like doing that week...

So numerology is probably a pretty good description of trying to make sense of a series of numbers from different manufacturers in different parts of the globe over differeing time periods, especially when different formats were in and out of fashion in those different areas and time periods

For example - how did the lingering use of plate film sizes in Japan effect the focal length choices of Fuji or Nikon engineers and managers when those film formats and sizes were long out of use in N America?

How did different format popularities between US and Europe effect the decisions of German lens manufacturers?

How did the massive use of press cameras - especially in the US - effect choice of certain focal lengths in the range of say Kodak or Wollensak, with perhaps those focal lenthgs lingering on in a range when the initial rationalle for them has long since gone?

Just a few of the multitude of variable beyond an engineer deciding what would make a logical series of lenses for his manufacturer.

"the fact that she can sell her prints for $17,000 has nothing to do with

whether she's socially clueless or not"

what on earth do "socially clueless" mean? I thought that was someone who didn't know the difference between a fish fork and a desert fork?

"not to mention being totally clueless about the social ramifications of your work."

What insight do you have that she is totally clueless about the social ramifications of her work. I've always found she seems pretty well aware of the ramifactions

"hsksla did you really know that she is the main care giver in her family? Just because she is the mother doesn't mean she is the main care giver. I put off my career for 10 years and gave up major opportunities so that my wife could advance hers--there are plenty of guys out there who sacrifice too....."

I didn't notice ayone say she was the main caregiver to her children. Her husband Larry ran/runs a successful law practice if I remember correctly. Though what business it it of ours as to who was the main caregiver in their family is somewhat beyond me?

Gabriel, I'm not sure what your sex life has to do with it all, but as an analogy it just doesn't fit (neither does the lawyer analogy) - both suck.

The term "photographer" encompasses a huge range of practices from advertising photographer, Scenes of Crime photographers, documentarians (and those like Walker Evans who looked like documantarians but in fact only "worked in the documantary style), to medical photographers to wedding and portrait photographers, to government communications (propoganda/FSA) photographers, military photographers (also, at times propaganda photographers), Hollywood unit still photographers, fashion photographers, artists, pornographers ad infinitum

There is no "code of ethics" or set of standards you could usefully or reasonably apply. Yet all do the same thing - make photographs. And none of them are real - all of them are constructs to a greater or lesser degree. The only thing that is real about them is they are all "real" photographs

Far better to study what a photograph is, what it's language or rather half-language is), how it functions in society and so on - that is in fact much more universal, and not so value laden.

"Oh, even PhotoShop could not save all those dreary, washed out pictures! This is funny!"

Actually, having lived in the region for 5 or 6 years a few years back I think it's one of the better depictions of Tuscany.

It manages to avoid the B&W /Nostalgia/drone drone trap, as well as most of the super saturated romantic tourist Velveeta cliches (anyone else glad Fuji is finally going to dump Velvia 50? Maybe the days of hyper-saturated photographic unreality are finally over - if you can't make it good, at least make it bright and blow their eyeballs out with the color!)

Funny thing is, like most places, the light in Tuscany actually is often somewhat harsh and "washed out" but many photographers don't seem able to cope with that and instead let the "pretty" do their work for them

And mashed potato for vanilla ice cream etc etc. Setting up food and food substitutes for this kind of work is a whole highly specialised skill in itself. You would do well to hire someone to do this whole side of the shoot - the set dressing/food prep for shots and so on.

"These two substitutions are OK to use for a Cook Book but not for advertising shots. For advertising shots you must use the real food."

Where did you get that little gem from Peter? Doesn't stand for 90% of the advertising I've ever seen in production (or done) - it's all mostly fiction.

ecently a couple of us have come across posts from the list copied to

others weblogs and other sites. I know from discussions (my own posts

don't happen to be in this example) that there are some who are

unhappy

and uncomforatble with this, but don't want to make a fuss.

One example in case is the weblog of LF list member Frank Petronio -

example below:

http://www.frankpetronio.com/weblog/Pages/focus.html

or

http://66.102.7.104/search?

q=cache:2AhuRTvzFPIJ:www.frankpetronio.com/weblog/Pages/focus.html+fra

nkpetronio+weblog+Focusing+Issues&hl=en

Personally I have two problems with this

First, it is expressely against the List Rules :

""Prohibited Usage of the Site The content and materials available

through the Site are the property of photo.net or its licensors (the

users), and most of the materials are protected by copyright,

trademark and other intellectual property laws. Furthermore,

photo.net has expended its resources to gather these materials and to

publish them or to make them available to its users. You agree not to

reproduce or distribute, or cause to be reproduced or distributed,

any material that you retrieved from the Site, without the express

prior permission of both photo.net and, in the case of copyrighted

materials, the copyright owner, except for such reproduction as

occurs in the normal course of reading or viewing the materials using

a Web browser. Requests for permission to reproduce or distribute

materials retrieved from the the Site should be sent both to

photo.net and the original author of those materials. You acknowledge

that photo.net and the copyright holders will be significantly

damaged by Your violation of this section in a manner that would

require immediate injunctive relief. You are not relieved of your

duties under this section because material was posted anonymously or

under a pseudonym, because you cannot locate the copyright holder,

because the materials are in the public domain, because the materials

are available on any other web site or in some other form, or because

you have the permission of either the copyright holder or photo.net,

but not both. "

No permission seems to have been sought for such use.

Secondly, I note Petronio lists on the portfolio part of his site

that all

images are copyright 2003 Frank Petronio. Well, he and others

(especially

those who are photographers) should be well aware that a persons

written

words are also copyright protected. It matters not if they are

written in

a public forum, newspaper article or letter - they have the same

level of

portection as his photogorpahs do. As such, he and others, if they

wish to

quote someones post wholesale, need to seek permission to do so.

This is additionally laid out as the case in the terms and conditions

of

use of this LF list

BTW - Frank will claim one has to do some real digging to find his

weblog posts - several of us have been concerned about this copyright

violation - the reason being it happened to show up very easily doing

a google search looking for something else.

It's simply wrong and shouldn't be done.

" would ask permisssion so I could set my foot on the property if need be, and so I wouldn't get involved in confrontations or even long explanations with security staff. They might not know the law, they might not. They might THINK they know the law. What's the point in adding a level of discomfort if it can be avoided?

I suppose access could be denied; you always run that risk. During working hours there is a safety concern."

John, that's a whole different discussion and nothing to do with the issue at hand - which is to do with attempts to prevent or hinder people photographing such facilities which are in full view from public locations (highway etc) and "targeting/profiling them if they do - if the police come out and ask for your ID, that info, possibly along with your photograph may (probably will) be entered in a database of suspicious persons. I.E. we are talking about people being hindered, profiled or prevented from photographing in situations where they are entirely fee to photograph.

This has nothing to do with "stepping on to their property". I have many colleagues (indeed have done so myself) who have photographed in such places - they are private property and obviously you need permission. It isn't just a matter of "writing a letter" - it can take many weeks of negotiation to gain access to some places (even when they are the client it can take quite a bit of work). They can give permission or deny it on a whim - that's their prerogative. The photographer has to persuade them as to why they should be allowed to come in an photograph. If you are the Bechers, it usually a lot easier than if you are Joe Schmo photographer.

BUT if all you are doing is photographing such a place from the highway, they cannot prevent you nor do you need their permission to do so. Now, in this day an age of "suspicious white vans" etc, a courtesy call saying you will be photographing their facility is another thing - telling them you will be doing it (whether they would like you to be doing it or not) rather than asking

Most LF photographers don't seem to give two hoots about who has a good snapshot up on photonet.

so first, they tend not to bother posting (a good number of them don't even have scanners) and secondly, it really isn't important to most of them. (so both reasons explian in part why you don't see much LF on the photonet galleries).

The photonet galleries are their own little self contatined world with their points systems and often highly cliched images. Lets say that's not where most LF photographers are (I can't imagine, say, a LF photographer from the LF list who might be a Guggenheim Fellow with exhibits all over the globe and numerous books taking the time or having the inclination to pop up a few images on the photonet galleries...?)

"If I had a large format camera, which I would love to have, and knew how to use it, which would please me no end, and I wanted to take pix of a BP or a Shell facility somewhere, I would arrange ahead of time and get written permission first."

But again, part of the problem here - why would you ask for permission to do something that

a) you don't need to ask for permission to do and

b) they can't give you permission for anyway?

Informing them you will be photographing is one thing - asking for permission when it isn't needed, nor is it theirs to give, is mistaken. In part, because it reinforces the often mistaken belief on the part of those refineries or the local sheriffs dept that they can give or withhold such permission.

What do you do when you seek permission and they say "no - sorry - tough luck - we don't like people photographing our incredibly environmentally damaging facility (but if you ask us, we are saying no becuse of security concerns)"

">$579 is cheap?!

You might want to reread the post so you know what is being discussed."

Originally Zone stickers - but possibly the "cheap on Calumet" poster was referring to the Zone VI meter? (who did recently have a "deal" on said meters) - which have always been something of a rip off - even at $579.00... you just don't need a "modified" meter. Especially not at that price!

"exactly. and the term "photo.net people" encompasses ALL of them. not really

that difficult a concept to understand."

So why would Beau "wonder" why a well made film about photography (in part) would captivate "photo.net" people?

Isn't it is rather obvious - photographers are interested on films about photogorpahy...? Especially good ones

">>"What are "photo.net" people?"<<

hmm, let's see. i am going to take a WILD guess here and say Beau is referring to people who use photo.net. don't ask me how i came up with that because i have no idea. it's just a hunch."

well there's a meaningless concept if ever I heard one.. - there are everything on here from world renowned photographers with books, shows at MoMA and Guggenheim Fellowships, to photographers who post kitschy photographs of sunflowers with sunglasses on, to gritty street photographers to police scenes-of-crimes photographers.

Pretty much the whole gamut.

My hunch is that Beau was thinking more of the kitschy sunflower, waterfalls, antelope canyon photographers? which is just one part of photo.net...

You mean that guy with the beard who really did nothing more than copy the style of a bunch of second rate painters... :-)

actually, form and line (= black and white) is the enemy of colour.

Colour is, after all, elemental and the essence of whatever we are photographing - line and form are merely the surface

you mean

http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/

and

http://largeformatphotography.info

?

Still going strong (much more LF discussion traffic than on here btw)

probably either your browser cache or your ISP's cache needs clearing

(PS - the LF.info site is much more reliable and faster loading than photo.net - whio=ch often seems to be either down or as slow as heck)

One thing I'd add about Parr that has always helped make more sense of his work is that he is basically a bit of an anorak. I'ts not something peopel, especially on the US side of the pond, understand or grasp. It's probably why the response across here to some of his work is often slight offence.

Instead of a trainspotter collecting train types and numbers or a manic birder collecting often obscure and boring species, he collects people. And makes no bones about it:

"Of course I am biased, of course I am voyeuristic, of course I exploit, but I believe this applies to all photographers and I am only unusual insofar as most photographers always deny these things, whereas I am happy to acknowledge that we are all voyeuristic and exploitative. How can you not be?�