French Large Format Conference, Fontfroide Abbey, France, October 13-14-15 2006

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The second French Large Format Conference will be held at Fontfroide Abbey, France
three days including a week-end : 13-14-15 October 2006.

Fontfroide Abbey is a superb cistercian abbey located near Narbonne, France, close to Spain and the Eastern Pyrenees, on the Mediterranean side of the Pyrenees.

The program is available in French, as soon as I have some information in English I'll post it here.
http://www.galerie-photo.com/2eme-congres-photo-haute-resolution_contenu.html

Language of the conference will be French only ;-) but including : Swiss-French, Belgian-French, Canadian-French, etc... ;-)

Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis, the registration fees are modest, the number of attendants is strictly limited by seat capacity in the conference rooms, so if you plan to attend you should register by mail to the organiser Henri Gaud (see his e-mail in the conference web site)

You can also contact me by e-mail (see in my profile here), I'm fluent in English and I'll gladly help you to register if you plan to come.

[archivue]

Language of the conference will be French only ;-) but including : Swiss-French, Belgian-French, Canadian-French, etc... ;-)
.
will it be possible to speak french-marseillais as well ?

[Christopher Nisperos]

The second French Large Format Conference will be held at Fontfroide Abbey, France ... [for] three days including a week-end : 13-14-15 October 2006.

Emmanuel, Thanks for the news. It would be great to attend. I speak a little French (not as well as you!, of course) so if I happen to make it to the conference, I'll be glad to help English-only-speakers understand what's going on, if needed or wanted.

What's the nearest "big town" with a TGV station for those of us coming from Paris? ... or will there be car-pooling? ;o)

[Ted Harris]

Emanuel,

I just took a quick look and my French isn't great either but am I correct that it is all seminars ... my quick look either didn't understand or missed any references to any workshops, trade show, etc.

Please keep us posted. I bookmarked the page bu tdon't want to forget. I had to forgo a trip to Switzerland last Fall and to Sweden this month as well as Photokina in September so this would be a good opportunity to get away for me.

[Jose Amado]

Emmanuel,

I'd like going to the second French Large Format Conference , is it possible knowing hotels or BB where to stay during the event?
Kind regards,
Jose

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

I am happy that several readers of this form have expressed their interest.
The nearest town is Narbonne, and is located only 8 km / 5 miles from the abbey.
Car pooling to meet people at the train station does make sense.

Narbonne is connected to the train and therefore to the high speed train network (French high-speed trains, unlike the Japanese Shinkansen, can continue at standard speed on all standard tracks and reach almost any station in France) Narbonne has many connections by train to/from Lyons, Marseilles, etc...
For example, there is a direct TGV from Paris, travel time is 4h30
But there are now several low cost flights to the nearby city of Carcassonne, which in itself is a jewel of medieval architecture.

Narbonne has many hotels all kinds. B&B might exist... I do not know.
October is well off the peak tourist season so there should not be any proble to find a suitable accommodation.

As far as the program is concerned, there will be some informal workshosp "ateliers interactifs" on Saturday 18h/6pm and Sunday 14h/2pm
I say "informal" since all the conference activities are offered by volunteers for the pure pleasure of exchanging.
There will also be a small exhibition of equipment, not in the sense of a real trade show but again in the same spirit of showing equipement and sharing experience. There will be different examples of doi-it-yourself projects made by amateur MF and LF cameras builders.

[Jose Amado]

Thanks Emmanuel,
October will be nice for a short holidays,
I'm thinking going by car, it's not so faraway from the place I live, Portugal.
And I can visit some places I like a lot in Catalunya.
Kind regards,
Jose

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Dear LF Friends

Fresh News from the
2ND FRENCH LARGE FORMAT CONFERENCE

The list of attendants is filling up steadily but you can still register and attend.
For non-French residents we have arranged that the (modest) registration fees can be paid in cash in euros upon arrival at the conference.

But please, do register by sending an e-mail to Emmanuel Bigler

bigler (at) ens2m (dot) fr

Looking forward to meeting you in Fontfroide soon !!

Abbaye de Fontfroide - Fontfroide Abbey (close to Narbonne, France)

October 13-14-15, 2006

An exhibition : 12 MF/LF photographers, 80 photographs of Fontfroide by different techniques.
A book, 200 pages, wil be published to present this work.



All communications will be in French. Please find here a translation of the
title and contents in English.

------------------------------------------------------------------

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Friday, octobre 13

16:00 (4pm)
informal welcome

17:00 (5ppm)

Informal gathering and conference start, delivery of conference material to the registered attendants, visit of the exhibition "12 regards - Fontfroide" located in one of the cellars, the 12 photographes will present their work.

18:30 (6:30 pm)
In the Monks' dormitory: presentation of the conference, welcome address by the host and owner of the abbey, Nicolas d'Andoque

19:30 (7pm) "Apéritif" (a typical French celebration), and dinner at the abbey's farm, served by Laure and Nicolas.

---------------------------------------------

Saturday, October 14
9:00 am

"La photographie numérique aujourd'hui" (digital photography today), how a photographer can approach an industrial process still being a craftsman, by Gérard Niemetzky, leader and founder of the "Color-Academy", former student at the French National Louis Lumière School of Photography.
http://www.gestiondescouleurs.com/

Questions - discussions

10:30

"Black as a color in photography" by Pierre Stringa, graphic designer and photographer, responsible for the exhibitions at Centre Culturel Maison Visinand, Montreux, Switzerland.
http://www.centreculturelmontreux.ch/homepage.html

Pierre Stringa is a specialist of home-made silver halide plates and carbon printing paper.

11:30
"Black as a color in heliogravure" by Atelier St Prex, Switzerland, a group of craftsmen ('and women ;-) specialists of the fine-art heliogravure process, they printed for Aperture some famous photographer's masterpieces including by Steichen.
http://www.museejenisch.ch/expositions/graverlalumiere/index.html

11:45
Questions - discussions : St Prex and Pierre Stringa.

12:30
informal lunch, probably at the abbey's farm, or picnic in the surroundings.

14:00 (2pm)
"Architects and photography", the meaning of photography today for an architect in charge and the preservation of the National Heritage, by Régis Martin, Architect of the French Historical Monuments, in charge of Fontfroide abbey.

14:45 (2:45 pm)
"Photographers and Architecture" what a photographer can bring to an architect, which language and which stakes, par Guillaume Péronne, architect and photographer.

15/30 (3:30 pm)
Questions and discussion : Régis Martin, Guillaume Péronne.

16:15 (4:15pm)
Break

16:45 (4:45 pm)
Commentaries and discussion about the exhibition «12 regards - Fontfroide » : presentation by Henri Peyre, webmaster of Galerie-Photo, of the team of photographers who worked at the abbey for one year to make the book. How the team was formed, his ambitions, personal notes and commentaries on the used techniques.
18:00 (6pm)
Presentation of the interactive worshops, demonstrations and tutorials in the abbey's kitchen and nearby rooms.

- Demonstration of various photographic equipment, : amateur and expert LF camera "home-made" builders, prototypes.
Demonstration of digital capture with the Hasselblad H2D and an Arca Swiss 6x9 view camera, demonstration of the Canham 11"x14" ULF camera, etc.

- Technical worshops and demonstrations: platinum prints, direct trichromatic process, carbon-gelatin prints, sliver-halide-gelatin home-brew prints, heliography/heliogravure by l'Atelier St Prex, dye transfert.

20:00 (8pm)
Apéritif and festive dinner, at the abbey's farm.

-----------------------

Sunday, October 15, 2006

9:00 am
"Historical notes on color photographic processes" additive/subtractive color processes from Lippmann to the Lumière Brothers, by Jean-Paul Gandolfo, professeur at Louis Lumière School of Photography, great specialist of the Autochrome process.

Questions - discussions

10:30 am
"About Bokeh" an essay on the nature of optical blur in silver-halide and digital photography in different film and sensor formats, by Emmanuel Bigler, professor at École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et des Microtechniques, Besançon, France, Henri Gaud, Photographer and Publisher of fine-art books, former student at Louis Lumière/Vaugirard School of Photography, and Marie-Laure Tombini, student at Louis Lumière School who will present the result of her end-of-studies project about bokeh.
Questions - discussions

12:00 - noon
Apéritif (again ;-), lunch served at the abbey's farm.

14:00 2pm
Continuation of the interactive worshops and demonstrations in the abbey's kitchen and nearby rooms.

- Demonstration of various photographic equipment, : amateur and expert LF camera "home-made"builders, prototypes. Demonstration of digital capture with the Hasselblad H2D and an Arca Swiss 6x9 view camera, demonstration of the Canham 11"x14" ULF camera, etc.

- Technical worshops and demonstrations: platinum prints, direct trichromatic process, carbon-gelatin prints, sliver-halide-gelatin home-brew prints, heliography/heliogravure by l'Atelier St Prex, dye transfert.


The workshops and demonstration will be offered by amateurs or professionals, all are convinced that images should be of the utmost quality, for a public sharing the same passion.

The goals are simple : to show equipment and techniques of the large format and high resolution photography in front of a selected audience. The audience is composed of actual and future LF practitioners, who are not afraid of anything as long as they look for the quality that meets their expectations.

The workshops and demonstrations will be organised in 2-hour sessions, i.e. 4 hours of exchanges between the instructors and the conference attendants, who can visit freely the different booths.
The surface reserved for all the demonstrations is about 300 m2 (about 3,000 sq feet). We are expecting 50 to 80 people, but there would de is enough room at the abbey to accommodate 200 people.


16:00 (4pm)

End of the conference in the monks' dormitory, announcement of the 2007 conference which will very probably be organized in Montreux, Switzerland by Pierre Stringa.

17:00 (5pm)
The End.


Contacts

Henri Gaud (project leader)
11, rue Brulard 77950 Moisenay, France
phone : 01 60 66 94 60 ; mobile/cell : 06 07 65 08 70 ; fax : 01 60 69 92 08
mails henrigaud (at) editionsgaud (dot) com
Henri Peyre (webmaster of Galerie-photo.com)
henri.peyre (at) phonem (dot) fr
Galerie-photo : http://www.galerie-photo.com
latest news on the forum : http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/list.php?f=3

[steve simmons]

If you send me your address I will send info on the new downloadable version of View Camera.

Thanks
steve simmons

[GPS]

Just curious - what's the reason for the registration fee of non-French residents?

[GPS]

Forget about it, I got it...

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

If you send me your address I will send info on the new downloadable version of View Camera.

Thanks, Steve for the announcement in your magazine.
The contacts for the conference have been posted above, here they are but you can contact me for any additional details :

Contacts

Henri Gaud (project leader)
11, rue Brulard 77950 Moisenay, France
phone : 01 60 66 94 60 ; mobile/cell : 06 07 65 08 70 ; fax : 01 60 69 92 08
e-mail to : henrigaud (at) editionsgaud (dot) com
Henri Peyre (webmaster of Galerie-photo.com)
henri.peyre (at) phonem (dot) fr
Galerie-photo : http://www.galerie-photo.com
latest news on the forum : http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/list.php?f=3

---

We have asked those who can send a cheque in Euros to confirm their intent to participate by sending a cheque. For those who cannot make a cheque in Euro who will contact us after reading the announcements here we'll gladly register them and ask them to pay cash upon arrival.

To date, September 4, 2006 there are still seats availlabe so welcome everybody !!

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The Fontfroide meeting is approaching.
A last update.
So far we have about 120 registered participants, we expect the final number to be around 140.
Most attendees come from Belgium, France and Switzerland plus a few other Europeans.

Unfortunately, our dates were set up a long time in advance and I realize that the same week-end, Ralph W. Lambrecht will organize another meeting in Eisenach, Germany, where I would have loved to be both for photographic reasons and of course as a must-do musical pilgrimage to Bach's birthplace.

The language barrier is still an issue for the formal sessions, but everybody knows that what happens outside the sessions is the most important in any conference : meeting people and sharing a common passion ! no language barrier for this !

The book which is the companion of the exhibition "12 regards sur Fontfroide" is fresh out of press and will be ready for the conference.

[Vincent Malaud]

Emmanuel will correct me If I am wrong, but the fee (promotional material) is not only for the non-french resident but for all the paticipants.

[steve simmons]

It is tentative but we think the new French distributor of View Camera will be Arca-Swiss. Their e-mail is

arca-swiss@swissonline.ch

Since they are now a French company have they been invited?

steve simmons

[archivue]

i'm shure the wine will be excellent !

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Just some feed-back about the Fontfroide conference.
About 140 registered participants. There were too many things to see and do, including taking pitures of the abbey itsef !

We had our private photokina show with French distributors for Bron, Mamiya, Hasselblad, Leaf backs and HP. Plus the FLM people from Germany, manufacturers of fine ballheads.
I'll not speak about off-topic medium format systems but as far as LF is concerned, Martin Vogt from Arca Swiss was there with the new R-line 6x9 and 4x5 camera prototypes ; plus the 4x5" and 8x10" misura camera, a few F-classic, a monolith 6x9 for digital capture and the new P and Z ballhead series.

People had brought a comprehensive range of LF cameras from the baby Linhof 6x9cm to the 11"x14" format.
Several amateur camera builders also from 6x9cm to 11"14" mostly for hand-held photography.

And many, many prints of all kinds and processes to see and touch.
Plus an apo-germinar 750mm brought by Mr. Krusche, delivering an incredible image sharpness.

The presentation by Jean-Paul Gandolfo about the autochrome process and history was fascinating but he left us little hope that the potatoe-starch-based process can be economically feasible nowadays. However there were many additive colour processes patented and developped at the end of the XIX-st century up to about Wortd-War-II, this opens a wide field of investigation for revisited alternative colour processes for the large format, for example processes where a detachable coloured pixel mask is used for recording and displaying the information stored in a black and white analog transparency. The Lumière Autochrome plates being a process where a self-aligned, non detachable colour mask made of RVB coloured starch grains is built-in and serves both for recording and display. J.P. Gandolfo mentioned a British process where two different detachable coloured masks were used, one for recording, one for displaying with optimized ranges of wavelengths.


--

The wine we had was the local Fontfroide wine. Not really monastic but excellent. (the cistercian abbey is a private property since the beginning of the XX-st century, so no actual monastic product there)

Check here to get an idea of the place and the event inculding some digital snapshots :
http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/read.php?f=3&i=4855&t=4855

--

The next "French" LF conference will be... Swiss and organised in Montreux, Switzerland at the end of July, 2007 and in due time information will be posted here.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Some comments (in French) plus images (no need to be translated ;) ) of what happened in Fontftoide, see this on-going discussion on galerie-photo
http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/read.php?f=3&i=4855&t=4855

Plus a report by MIchel Guigue on hand-held photography in Fontfroide with a Crown Graphic and genuine magnesium bulbs !
http://photo.guigue.free.fr/fontfroide/index.htm

Another non-volatile link by Pascal Moraitz :
http://perso.orange.fr/diagonalestudio/galerie_fontfroide/
http://perso.orange.fr/diagonalestudio/galerie_fontfroide/source/fontfroide_1.htm Home-made 6x17 camera by François Croizet (left). The R....flex guy (we cannot mention the name of this non-large-format camera) is Emmanuel Bigler.

http://perso.orange.fr/diagonalestudio/galerie_fontfroide/source/fontfroide_2.htm Thierry Rebours chatting with François Besson in front of the 8x10" and 4x5" Arca Swiss misuras.


http://perso.orange.fr/diagonalestudio/galerie_fontfroide/source/fontfroide_3.htm Mr. and Mrs. Krusche present the 750 Apo Germinar, Compur 5FS on their 18x24cm Plaubel Profia

http://perso.orange.fr/diagonalestudio/galerie_fontfroide/source/fontfroide_4.htm
Henri Gaud (3-rd from left) present his first shots with the 11"x14" Canham.


The attendants did not think of taking a group picture with a banquet camera !
So next time in Montreux in 2007, we'll need a large format group picture !

[John Kasaian]

Emmanuel,

Thank you so much for the links---I really enjoyed looking at them. it looks like the conference was a great success!

[Terence McDonagh]

That homemade 6x17 looks like a monster.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The first conference was organized in 2004 ; 70 people registered.
This year we had 140 registered people, we are expecting more than 200 next year in Switzerland.
The 2008 conference is not yet scheduled but very probably will be located in Bourges, France, an old city with superb historical buildings surrounding a famous cathedral.

[Kirk Gittings]

Man, you have no idea how I would like to be there. Sounds great.

[sanking]

The first conference was organized in 2004 ; 70 people registered.
This year we had 140 registered people, we are expecting more than 200 next year in Switzerland.
The 2008 conference is not yet scheduled but very probably will be located in Bourges, France, an old city with superb historical buildings surrounding a famous cathedral.

Please put me on your mailing list.

Also, do you have the website of Pierre Stringa. I have visited it before but just did a search and can not find it.

Sandy King