pbradin Loc: Florida

The smartest post I have seen in a while. I will give myself assignments, using specific subject matter or themes. One of my favorites has been to shoot within a specific distance from my home (sometimes as little as a half mile) or a certain nature preserve or subject matter. It forces you to THINK. Thinking is what makes great photographs, not fancy equipment. Just look at the work of Clyde Butcher, who is still using an 8x10 view camera with a glass negative - and he carries that rig a couple of miles out into the Everglades, day after day, until the conditions are just right to get "the shot". He did resort to a full-frame digital camera for a while after his stroke, but I think he is back to the view camera again, and his shots are a whole, helluva a lot better than what any of us do. If you are not familiar with him, "Google" his name. If you are in southwest Florida, get to one of his galleries in Ochopee, Venice or St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota. If his work does not inspire you to do more with less and really get out there and look around you, then maybe you need to think of another hobby. I am lucky in that I live a short bus ride from 2 of his galleries and when I feel "flat" I go in one of them for inspiration. And, yes, I ride the bus to get to my favorite places and then walk a mile or so to where I want to shoot. Good photographers inspire me to do that, even in 90 degree heat. It took me over two weeks to get the "right shot" of a white hibiscus on Longboat Key, but God, it was worth it. That is what photography is about.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

I use an 8x10 because everything about it is old school and photography at its simplest. No batteries necessary. Okay I admit I do have a light meter that takes one AA, but I do have one that is solar powered too. Seriously I love every aspect of shooting with a LF camera except lugging it into the back country. It is contemplative and has forced me to see what I am looking at. I bought a box of 8x10 glass plates (ISO of about 5) from Freestyle a month ago to try my hand at really old school photography but my wife dropped the box! Glass shards! Oh well need to get another one of these days.

During a class field trip while taking Photo 2 we went down to the Center for Creative Photography at the UofA in Tucson. Ansel Adams donated all his negatives and many of his prints to the University. While looking at his print of the dogwood blossom and burnt wood I was in awe. Our instructor Ken told me it was a “contact print” and explained how Adams made it. I knew at that moment I needed more than my Canon F1N 35mm negatives could give me. A film shooters version of GAS I guess.

I too have sat in the heat of the desert or the cold waiting for the light to change and walked away without an image. Just being out photographing is a reward in itself. It is not always about the print since I don’t rely on selling them for a living. Going to meet some friends from around the country in Ridgway Colorado next week and I am as excited as being with them as I am about the photo ops that will be available. Some shoot LF some digital. Yet we all get along. Go figure.

I will check your guy out. We all need inspiration once in a while. I have a good friend who is a famous oil painter cowboy artist going through this.

It is nice to see that you have way less posts here than I do and you have been a member much longer. Sometimes I feel like a new comer because I don’t have 10,000 posts yet or it doesn’t say “regular here” after my name. Or I have only posted an image or two.

We are all into photography in some form or another here at UHH. I just don’t get the negative attitudes some have toward each other or the belittling words. I thought about posting an iPhone image of one the prints I took after sitting in a cold rain with my wife here but I don’t want to get chastised for posting it in the wrong place or something. (Like I have before). It would have been a great example of what you were talking about in your post. Anyway loved your comments.

Jerry

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

I checked out Clive Butcher’s work. Beautiful classic photography! That one camera he has is way bigger than an 8x10. Bet it weighs forty pounds alone without lens, tripod and film holders. Can’t even imagine!! Thanks for suggesting we look at his work.

I especially liked his prints of the sand dunes. I am going to Death Valley in November and will keep some his renditions in mind as I walk the dunes there. His work has added to the excitement of going. Not that Death Valley needs any help creating excitement. It is a photographers paradise from the mountains to the dunes.

mgoldfield

Hey folks, how come nobody here knows when their leg is being pulled?

gas496 is laughing all the way to his Ektachrome; everyone, please lighten up!

dreamon

Well said. The very definition of photography is an individual thing; it resides within each of us as a unique viewpoint. For you, it's all about large format and your development--to attain perfection. For some, it's about getting that great iPhone shot. And others may just want snapshots to record where and when they've been.

Most of us want to improve our results, but not necessarily all of us. However, even a snapshooter may want to improve their shots. Which is why we are all here.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to deride another's path. We're all in this together.

I've shot everything from an 11x14 Kodak studio view down to 35mm back in the film days. I'm forever in awe of a shooter who uses the big guns. That takes true perseverance.

dumbo

You folks have hit the proverbial nail on the head. Kudos to those who express that rare quality: Common Sense.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

Dreamon,

Absolutely agree. I have a fellow classmate, who has been taking the class longer than me if some of you can believe that, that is now making prints from his iPhone. They are amazing. He is printing 16x20 and larger. You would never know he shot them with his phone. They are clear, crisp with beautiful tones. Again amazing what he is doing with his phone. Of course he is a great photographer to begin with but the small size of his sensor is not an issue. Just makes the point of my original post about not “needing” a megapixel camera to produce beautiful work.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

I recently saw an exhibit at the gallery where I work part time of huge panos taken with a 80+ years old large format of towns and farms abandoned after the tsunami due to radiation. Some were over 15' wide, they were all razor sharp. Some were metal prints. The camera was displayed also, I can't find the pictures that I took.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

I found it.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

Beautiful old camera.

Here is the 21st Century version. Beautiful new camera, about 15 years old now. Still all the same controls or lack of them, depending on your point of view.

Ebony SV810E

Bipod

Photography, first and foremost, is about seeing.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

Could not agree more. Then it is just a matter of mastering the technique in which you use to capture the image.

MauiMoto Loc: Hawaii

Wow, is the tripod part of that camera also. That old one looked like one unit, the round base has a huge gear that rotates the camera. I can only imagine the kind of art you can produce with that kit. Turns out that the old camera belongs to Nagamine studios and I went to school with his grandchildren, they live a block away from me.

dumbo

That is phenomenal. Hope you set up a museum to view those superb cameras. My collection is a Nikkormat (Circa1968). Added a wardrobe of lenses. My dad's Kodak Bellows cameras.
Some of his glass negatives. He won a few prizes with those cameras. He did his own developing and printing. Back in the early 1900's. My favorite old camera is a Speed Graflex.

GAS496 Loc: Arizona

I have a saying about shooting with a large format camera. “Just because you have a large negative doesn’t mean you will have good results. But it is sure to show your mistakes that much larger.”

It is the entire process of using the big camera that I like from the anticipation of taking the image while setting it up to the excitement of watching the print appear in the developer.

I am leaving this morning to meet some friends in Colorado to do some photography for a week.

Cheers!