Poll: What caused you to stop or slow down on shooting large- format film?

[Otto Seaman]

Please try to keep your answers useful and not too snide-wise-smug-righteous. Thanks!

[gth]

Why do you start a poll with such a negative premise when this is a forum for promotion of and learning about Large Format Photography??

This is useless trolling and it will lead to the usual BS that goes nowhere.

WHAT IS THE POINT!!!!!

DELETE!!

[Otto Seaman]

Funny, how did you know I live under a bridge and subsist on roadkill and lost travelers?

Being a photographer you should know that negatives can be printed as positives ;-p The point is that this would be useful information that would help explain and understand the barriers confronting newcomers to large format. Just go through the Buy and Sell ads and of the first 20 posts, several are by people claiming to be leaving LF for good.

If, for instance, the poll shows cost is the largest barrier, perhaps you - gth - could do something positive by explaining how one could continue working in large format economically. Or show us how to simplify, save time, pack expediently, etc.

I know this is a unscientific survey but, given that this is the most active LF forum, even the casual results could be interesting to LF manufacturers, suppliers, inventors, educators... and maybe people other than yourself? Or perhaps you're right, it's a gloomy prospect having all these people quit and we should ignore it and maybe it will stop happening... in which case I am sure the wise Mods will step up and delete.

[David A. Goldfarb]

A heavier, more regimented work schedule for the past three years has cut into my time for personal projects in general, so most of my photography is work related and more suited to DSLR work. I do shoot the occasional large format portrait for work-related projects, when we're not on a tight schedule, but usually, everything has to be ready to go online or to press the same day, and photography isn't the main thing that I do.

[gth]

Funny, how did you know I live under a bridge and subsist on roadkill and lost travelers?

Being a photographer you should know that negatives can be printed as positives ;-p The point is that this would be useful information that would help explain and understand the barriers confronting newcomers to large format. Just go through the Buy and Sell ads and of the first 20 posts, several are by people claiming to be leaving LF for good.

If, for instance, the poll shows cost is the largest barrier, perhaps you - gth - could do something positive by explaining how one could continue working in large format economically. Or show us how to simplify, save time, pack expediently, etc.

I know this is a unscientific survey but, given that this is the most active LF forum, even the casual results could be interesting to LF manufacturers, suppliers, inventors, educators... and maybe people other than yourself? Or perhaps you're right, it's a gloomy prospect having all these people quit and we should ignore it and maybe it will stop happening... in which case I am sure the wise Mods will step up and delete.

Heh, heh.... I'll try to save you my next roadkill......

Don't take it personally, but for ME, I simply don't like the negativity.... I don't need to hear you stopped doing LF, that you dropped film etc. Obviously it's none of my business, but mainly because it invariably launches a heated discussion that leads nowhere.... it's not good PR for young photographers that might be interested in picking up LF and film.

The best this forum can produce is sound information from current practitioners..... and mainly that's what it does well. I'd like to see the emphasis on that.

For instance a more positive POLL would be one that asked WHY you become interested and why you decided to pick up LF and what was your first mistakes..... that brings the Art and craft of LF FORWARD.

[EOTS]

Hehe, I'm missing an option like:
(X) "Zilch! Nothing and nobody will ever stop me :-)"

[cowanw]

I am in a phase of my life where I am increasing the amount of 8x10 work in Canada and do almost no 35mm work; Medium format abroad.

[BrianShaw]

While the premise may be somewhat negative, it reflects reality for some of us. Shooting LF takes time and concentration - both of which have been scarce lately. I reverted from mostly LF to MF and, most lately, back to 35mm because that is what can be done. In a future phase of life I expect to be moving back again. I can see it... the light at the end of the tunnel!

[Jim Noel]

Being more than 80 years of age.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm not going to go into all the reasons for me but none had anything to do with the options in this poll. The very first thing that got me thinking about digital was seeing some prints by George deWolfe. I was in Bar Harbor with a friend who knew him. We happened to bump into him on the street and started talking. At one point George pulled out a couple b&w prints from his car that he had made from scanned negatives. This was probably late 1990s, when the conventional wisdom was that a good b&w print couldn't be made digitally. George's prints quickly dispelled that notion, they were gorgeous prints, as good or better than any b&w prints I had ever seen. So that piqued my interest and it kind of evolved from there.