Is there a place to share LF photos online

[Ken Lee]

Is there a forum/site which lets people show Large Format photos - that is, only Large Format ?

[Juergen Sattler]

Yes, there is, it is called the f32 Large Format Photography Community at http://www.f32.net/ (http://www.f32.net/). They have different categories and one is called "Photography critique" where you can post your photo and have the members of the forum give you feedback. It is exclusively Large Format!

Juergen

[Philippe Gauthier]

It's not quite as specialized, but my own site (currently being upgraded) features a photo critique forum devoted only to LF pictures. Most of the critique activity has recently shifted to the newly implemented photo albums; I'd gladly set up a LF forum if a few members asked for it. Actually, I'd love it. I feel rather alone right now. My site is 100% free.


http://photopixel.tilttek.com (http://photopixel.tilttek.com)

[paulr]

I'm always skeptical of forums that exclusively show "large format photography," as opposed to Good photography.
They typically seem to have a cameral club/popular photography feel to them--lots of emphasis on cameras, f-stops, and photo 101 ideas, lots of generic and derivative imagery, and very little sense of connection to the history of the medium, the history of art, or anything going on in visual culture, good or bad.

I come to a forum like this one because it's about craft--how to do what needs to be done to make an image. So specificity to certain f0rmat makes sense. When I want to look at art, though, I'm not sure why I would want to select a group of images based solely on its creators using a similar tool to the one i use. I can learn a lot more about making a great image from looking at work by Andre Kertesz, Robert Frank, or William Eggleston than I can from looking at work by Ansel Adams, Jack Dykinga, or Fred Picker. My allegiance is to a depth of seeing and a level of visual sophistication, not to a minimum negative size.

[Jonathan Brewer]

Paul R...........................................Never has anyone said it better.

[Gem Singer]

Paul and Jonathan, after all, this is a forum that is devoted to large format photography. That's what attracts me to it. Digital, as well as small and medium format photographers, have their own forums. If I was interested in looking at images made with digital or smaller formats, I would participate at the appropriate forums.

[Jonathan Brewer]

Eugene

All he's stating is his philosophy about what he appreciates as art, and why he comes to this site, I happen to agree with him, that doesn't demean or diminish this forum, if he or I continue to participate in this forum or any other, then it is a given that it must be of value to us, which it is.

' When I want to look at art, though, I'm not sure why I would want to select a group of images based solely on its creators using a similar tool to the one i use.'............................there's nothing in this statement about putting images of a different format into this forum, it's a statement about what he looks at and why.

Whether or not what he said answers the original question, I think he put things in their proper perspective, whether anybody on this forum agrees with Paul or not, many folks on this forum have MF and 35mm gear that they use in addition to their LF gear, .............a while ago when one gentleman who used primarily 35mm passed away, homage was paid to him by the folks on this forum. Why? You can practice one thing and recognize the art of someone else.

[paulr]

Thank you Jonathan, well said.

I hoped to point out my appreciation of this forum when I said,
"I come to a forum like this one because it's about craft--how to do what needs to be done to make an image. So specificity to certain format makes sense. When I want to look at art, though, I'm not sure why I would want to select a group of images based solely on its creators using a similar tool to the one i use."

This isn't a call to start threads on Minox cameras, photograms, or digital point 'n' shoots. Just a hope that when it comes to looking at images, we can get past the idea of "large format photography" as a meaningful art genre. The museum of modern art has a Department of Paintings and Sculpture, not a Department of Paintings on Canvases Larger Than Sixty Inches. I know this sounds glib, but it's something to consider.

Large format cameras are wonderful tools, and do what nothing else will do. But the great work comes from people who use the tool to serve a VISION, not to serve a fetish. A forum like this is a great place to learn how to use the tools. If you want to look at work, though, which seems to me to serve the larger purpose of inspiring your vision (and maybe also your soul, but that's another topic), the emphasis should be on work that has more to offer than a shared tool. There's so much great work out there, in so many formats. And so many media. If you're a landscape photographer and you haven't taken a close look lately at Cezanne, Van Gogh, or Corrot, then maybe it's time to put down the camera for a while ...

I'm certainly not telling anyone to NOT look at large format pictures. Most of my favorite photographers used large format, at least some of the time. I'd be lost without Strand, Weston, Atget, and a half dozen others. For some reason, though, I don't see work of their caliber on websites labelled "Large Format Photography." In those places I tend to see camera club level work that at its best seems to aspire to what I see in stockhouse catalogs. I can only guess why this would be; my suspicion is that it's because the photographers and curators alike put the emphasis on the nature of the tool and not the depth of the vision.

[Gem Singer]

Jonathan and Paul,

Both of you seem to have misunderstood my response. I was merely concerned because Paul's response did not address Ken's inquiry. I got the impression that Paul was putting Ken down for limiting his quest to photos taken exclusively with large format equipment. I own and use smaller format equipment as well as LF equipment. I'm certain that Ken also does.

I still do not see why Ken's request would evoke such a response and all of the ensuing discussion on the subject of art appreciation.

[Jonathan Brewer]

Actually the first paragraph of his response answered the relevance of Ken's question for him, doesn't that consititute a relevant answer?

[paulr]

I hope I don't come off as putting Ken down. I just wanted to offer some perspective (in my case, one of skepticism) on the value of these sites, since, for whatever reason, they tend to be repositories of pretty uninspired work.

[Graeme Hird]

PaulR,

Ouch, that hurts .....

Time to reassess my work. :)

(From the moderator of the critiques and galleries forums, f32.net)

I partly agree with you though .....

[Ken Lee]

I think Paul makes several excellent points, and take no offence in them.

Although this is a generalization, I suggest that the use of Large Format equipment lends itself towards images of greater emotional depth and stillness. Just as a listener, in a mood of contemplation, might reach for a symphony, an admirer of photographs might gravitate towards the Large Format section.

As Paul has suggested, depth is not solely the posession of Large Format photographers, and there are a lot of people reaching for that depth - some more sucessfully than others. However, I have found that more often it is the Large Format photographer, in search of something substantial and enduring.

[paulr]

Graeme, no attack intended on your site. I've only glanced at it so I can't make any meaningful commentary. What I've seen in similar sites, though, is not an absence of good work, but rather a spattering of good work. And the common denominator that ties the work on the sites together is one of technical origin, not quality. This would seem to have as much to do with who the sites attract as with who curates them (it's hard to make a site better than the work that's submitted). Photographers I know who are excellent landscape photographers might be compelled to submit to a curated site about landscape photography, or contemporary photograpy, or contemporary art, but probably not one about a photography of a particular format.

Ken, I wonder if your generalization is really about the work that comes out of the format, or about your personal tastes. I can say for myself that my preference for large format work comes largely from my own tastes. Part of it is simple esthetic preference; I like the illusion of real surfaces and infinite detail. And part of it has to do with tradition; artists working in certain styles tend to be drawn to some formats over others, and I'm drawn to the traditions that have attracted a lot of large format users. But looking at things objectively, I can't honestly say that large format work, for any fundamental reason, has more substance or depth. I'm not talking about the incidental reasons ... namely that it's more work and money to use a big camera, so you're more likely to use one only if you really mean it. If we just look at work done by people who are serious about what they're doing, I see plenty of depth, and plenty of vacuousness, on both sides. Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, and William Eggleston have done work as deep as any that I've seen, all using small cameras. And conversely, the web is littered with large format work that's about as engaging as wallpaper. I won't name names!

But to tie this to something positive that relates to your original question ...
As a photographer who mostly uses large format cameras, and mostly photographs landscapes and urban landscapes, I can say I've gotten the most pleasure, inspiration, and understanding from looking at sites (or exhibits, or books) that are commited to a vision, not a tool. A site dedicated to excellent landscape photography is bound to include a lot of large format work. But that fact won't be its emphasis. I'd much rather go see a show of contemporary landscape painting at the Modern than check out a large format website, or god forbid, a show at the Leica gallery or at a Holga convention.

[Juergen Sattler]

Paulr and others,

as a relative newby to LF (about 18 months now) I have to disagree with your statement about f32. For me (and many others) f32 provides an extremely valuable platform to learn more about LF and to get people like Graeme to give you advice. Wherelse can people go to get help? Yes, there are workshops, but they are once a year. Everything I have learned about LF is from reading books and websites like the LF forum here and f32. I don't view f32 as a medium for people to display how wonderfully they manage LF, but rather as a tool to learn and get input from others. I don't have the luxury of having other like-minded photographers live closely by, so the web is it for me.

Juergen

[Graeme Hird]

Paul,

You make some quite valid points.

While f32.net is not specifically devoted to landscape work (to use the example you have cited), the very fact that it is restricted to LF photography means that most of the images posted are landscapes. This happens because LF cameras are particularly well suited to that type of subject.

It's a case where the choice of tool drives the subject matter in a particular direction.

So, while we're not devoted to landscape photography, in effect, f32.net is a landscape photographers site.

[Ken Lee]

Paul -

"But looking at things objectively, I can't honestly say that large format work, for any fundamental reason, has more substance or depth. I'm not talking about the incidental reasons ... namely that it's more work and money to use a big camera, so you're more likely to use one only if you really mean it</b>. "



We are in perfect agreement. That is was trying to express when I wrote "As Paul has suggested, depth is not solely the posession of Large Format photographers... However, I have found that more often it is the Large Format photographer, in search of something substantial and enduring."

[Jonathan Brewer]

If I could, I'd shoot everything in LF, simply becasue of the increased clarity of the big negative. I've almost been robbed photographing Carnaval in Brasil I'd say 2 1/2 times, the first time folks surrounded me, 4 other Brasilians got me and my camera out of it, the second time I was in line for a ferry back to Bahia from one of the Islands in the Bay of all Saints when I turned around to see a guy with one hand on my camera strap, getting reading to cut the other strap with scissors, the third time I sensed myself being surrounded and just took off. If I'd been photographing with a LF, I would've lost it.

I love the images I get with my LF gear, but shooting LF is an ordeal for me, constantly checking to see if I've closed down the lens before taking out a darkslide, loading film in the dark which I hate, the seemling endless details, but I deal with it for the payoff. Some folks never get used to LF, so they don't use it.

The vision of an artist could almost always be better realized with a bigger negative, it's not always the wisest choice to use LF depending on where you shoot, you may not be comfortable with LF, you may not think using LF is necessary, but you can still take your art as seriously as anybody using LF if you happen to use another format for whatever reason.

The bigger negative always helps, the reverse isn't true when it comes to the power of an Andre Kertez and quite a few other powerhouses who happen to realize their vision in another format.

[paulr]

"The vision of an artist could almost always be better realized with a bigger negative ..."

Do you really think this is true? What about artists who have a different kind of vision ... one that is less about real or hyper-real description than about gesture and spontaneity? One that owes less to the tradition of academic painting and more to the traditions of cave painting, grafiti, caricature, journalism, film, or dance?

You mentioned Kertezs as a powerhouse who is some kind of exception, but I'd suggest he's one example of many whose vision is better served by a small camera. Think also of Winogrand, Cartier-Bresson, Eggleston, and Frank. And if you open it up to people who used hand cameras before there was such thing as true small format, the list gets more conspicuous: Lartigue, Alvarez-Bravo, Weegee, Brassai, and whole bodies of work by Strand, Walker Evans, Stieglitz. I could go on if I knew more!

I happen to love the Large Format esthetic, but I steer far away from thinking it's innately superior to any other (a prejudice which reminds me of painters in the 19th and much of the 20th centuries clinging to the belief that their medium was somehow superior to photography as a whole).

On another note, I think a lot of large format photographers would benefit from grabbing a hand camera once in a while and shooting from the hip. Not even worrying about making good pictures--just going out to have fun and get loose. The thought required to make a picture with a big camera is one of its strengths, and also one of its weaknesses: thinking too much can lead you to making pictures you already know how to make, and nothing more. The process of working with the view camera can act as a meditation that helps get your mind out of the way, but it can also do the opposite, and encourage stiff, derivative, unimaginative work.

[Jonathan Brewer]

'Do you really think this is true?'..........................in terms of seeking clarity, yes, but I didn't mean this as absolute. My own thing is portrait photography, where I will strive at times to make a portrait look like a painting.

One of my ongoing projects is 'Bahia in 1/15 of a second', where I've been to Bahia several times, photographing quite a bit at 1/15 of a second for movement and excitement. The smaller fromats seem to accentuate what I'm trying to do, and considering where and what I'm doing, a LF would be hindrance, and I'm sure would eventually suffer a disappearance.

The irony of all this and what I've been thinking about considering this thread is folks like Weegie and W. Eugene Smith and the folks with their 4x5 gear at ringside who would be trying to catch a 'moment' as opposed to what a lot of folks now tout about LF, the 'contemplative' approach.

I meant exception in the sense of the very point you're bringing up, that where lack of grain, and super clarity, aren't important to the vision, don't diminish the vision, it issue becomes a moot point.

For years I blew every cent I had on sharper and sharper lenses in every format, and then when I would do a portrait, I'd slap on everything except the lens cap to degrade it performance, I no longer buy these lenses and haven't for years, except a specialized portrait lens which I love.

We're in complete agreement with what you said in your last paragraph, I spent a lot of time in McArthur park when I started out photographing people, after a while you will surprise yourself regarding what you can come up with depending on instinct where you don't have time to react or think about things, I would shoot all day, look at what I shot later, and not remember taking a shot that I thought was a good shot. Vision isn't achieved by the number of hours it takes to do a shot.

Some LF photographers refer to 35mm and the 'shotgun' approach, anathema to this was the technique of Andre Kertez who would put the camera up to his eye ONCE, fire his shutter, and come up with a classic shot, and walk on to something else, now that's awesome.

Weston and a shot of his I admire to no end 'Summer Sunshine', prove that you can shoot w/LF and give your work the aura of freshness and improvisation, those folks in all those family portraits of a 150 years ago were happier looking than what they looked like in those photographs, because they were mad that they had to sit there in spite of the fact that they needed to take a piss.

What I should've said originally is that when I'm seeking clarity as a part of my vision, then the biggest negative can only improve that vision, when it's something else that your after, then choice of format is a moot point.

[paulr]

Sounds like we're on the exact same page, although I'd like to comment on your very last sentence ... that when it's something else you're after (besides clarity) then the choice of format is a moot point.

I don't think it's quite a moot point, because the lack of clarity of smaller formats is something that people look for specifically in a certain cases. In the 1950s and 60s, for example, there was an esthetic of street photography that was antithetical to large format photography. It wasn't that clarity and precision were unimportant--rather, LACK of clarity and precision were specifially called for. If a print wasn't grainy, scratched, gray as concrete, and blurred (presumeably from the photographer dodging gunfire), then it wasn't REAL. Now, I don't share this esthetic, and In retrospect it's especially easy to see it as little more than a cycle in that part of the fashion industry we call the art world. But it WAS (and probably still is) an esthetic, and some good, and in many cases very important, work came out of it.

I think this has to do with more than certain esthetics (like the one we tend to associate with large format cameras) going in and out of style. I think it's about different tools describing the world in ways that can get very different kinds of responses from people. I remember Robert Adams pointing out that sometimes he gets sick of looking at photographs, and finds he prefers the softer lines and warmer description of drawing. Clearly one medium feeds different needs than the other. 35mm isn't large format with a napoleon complex. It's a different vision, a different esthetic, and in the end it's likely to uncover a different set of metaphors. It will do so not in spite of the grain, imprecission, and blurred details, but in part because of them.

[Jonathan Brewer]

'If a print wasn't grainy, scratched, gray as concrete, and blurred (presumeably from the photographer dodging gunfire), then it wasn't REAL'....................somebody comes up with something that becomes hot(for some reason) ..............then everybody does it, to the point of nausea, it dies, something else springs to life.

I remember when everything on the front of magazines was ringlights, nothing else, just ringlights, the fad part of it isn't the art of it. Something that improves upon the 'old rules' and conventions becomes a better technique and inspires me, some things are just different or startling just for the sake of being different, and get old quickly if you look at them long enough.

I don't want all of my photographs to look like pictures, so I couldn't agree with you more on this, which goes back to the clarity thing.

There's a bigger difference in what you can see in an Andre Kertez photograph in spite of the format he used, as opposed to the differences between the images of other folks who shoot with different formats. There are some artists out there whose vision is so magical, that their use of any particular format almost becomes incidental to what they realized.

I'm always curious when I see some 'legends' camera on exhibit, after all it's nothing but a camera, then again, a magic wand in the hand of an alchemist.

I in complete agreement with you, any differences are probably the result of my getting older and how that effects how I'm typing this.

[Jonathan Brewer]

When I look at somebodies photograph, I immediately start looking at/picking apart the technique as opposed to being able to 'drift' and enjoy the image on a viceral level.

There a few folks like Kertez and Weston who can still pull me through the windows of reality into their vision, ............and while there, there's no notice of the walls, only the content within the room.