Your cocktail host asks, "What is Large Format?" & your reply is...

[C_Remington]

4x5 or larger film.

[Tin Can]

Depends upon my location, where I live, I tell them it is like recording music with analog equipment, like Steve Albini, who is a very well known in these parts for only using 2 inch tape to record with. Then I ask them, do you know how to set the points on your cafe racer motorcycle? And they brightly say, sure it's easy. Then I go talk to the best looking woman in the place.

[MIke Sherck]

I'd say that it's photography with improbably large sheets of film and cameras which allow me to get the picture the way I want it.

This is probably why I don't get asked to parties where Miles Davis is played.

Mike

[StoneNYC]

"One of those old cameras you see in Western movies where the photographer puts his head under a dark cloth."

If they ask "Why do you use it?" then it becomes a longer discussion.

Exactly that, what I always say.

[ImSoNegative]

"One of those old cameras you see in Western movies where the photographer puts his head under a dark cloth."

If they ask "Why do you use it?" then it becomes a longer discussion.

LMAO, this is what I say all the time haha

[cowanw]

At a cocktail party, the answer is anything bigger than 6.41 inches

Further explanation in the form of (4 squared +5 squared = answer squared) should not be given.

[Cletus]

Mark, this is definitely the most eloquent and erudite explanation to this interesting question. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to quote you word for word (including the vomiting on the shoes part!) should I ever find myself in the situation Heroique describes. Very nicely put!

Philosophically, I'd explain it as a gourmet approach to photography in a fast-food world. The large format photographer tends to spend more time, money, and effort making fewer photographs, and often enjoys the history, process, equipment, and of course, the outcome. It is, simply, a different approach.

Technically, I suppose I could explain a little about the "format size that defines this photography, but that seems simplistic.

And if they proffered that large format seemed a useless anachronism in the digital world, I'd have a few more of those excellent cocktails and vomit on their shoes.

[Jody_S]

I have started explaining that I use pre- WWI cameras and methods, and as to 'why', that it is because I collect & restore antique cameras and lenses. It's getting harder to make the argument along the lines of image quality, especially if they have seen my images.

[Bruce Watson]

What would you say? And how long would it take you to say it?

This actually happened to me once. I could tell that the question was just polite, not real interest. So I dumbed it way down and kept it way short. Something along the lines of:

"You remember back in school when your class covered the US westward expansion? There's always this picture of a photographer up on a ledge overlooking a huge valley. All you can remember of the camera is that accordion-looking bellows and the tripod. Sometimes the photographer has his head and part of the camera covered by a dark cloth while he's working. Remember that? That's me."

[Mark Sawyer]

Mark, this is definitely the most eloquent and erudite explanation to this interesting question. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to quote you word for word...

Go ahead, Cletus! And it sounds even more eloquent if you have a few highballs first and slur your words.