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Thread: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

  1. #41
    Maris Rusis's Avatar
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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    The only LF lesson I ever got was the care, cultivation, and operation of the 4x5 Grafmatic 6 shot magazine. I didn't have a clue how to work it so I made an appointment with an old photographer still operating out of his upstairs studio on the main street. He grabbed the Grafmatic, opened it, checked all six septums for straightness, reloaded it, and cycled through all six in under a minute. It was a wonderful blur of hands that took me a half hour of careful instruction to repeat...very slowly.
    Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".

  2. #42
    Les
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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    Way back in 1974 I received some LF instructions, but not much stuck to me. Our instructor was more interested in working with an adv. agency and pretty much left us to our own devices....I think I saw him twice during the semester at the univ. Well, that was pretty much previous life. I continued to use and have the passion for 35mm and sometimes MF, but on many occasions worked and helped several Brooks students - yes, I did live in Santa Barbara or the adjacent towns. Anyway, the tech stuff was pretty much transferable from the smaller gauge to LF, but there are many nuances to this and most of that I acquired from periodicals, pamphlets, books and plenty info here on these forums. Yet, we all know (am I presuming ?) that the artistic portion is also huge part of LF.

    Les

  3. #43

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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    Might as well chime in. When I was about 4 years old (in 1944) I would stay up late watching my father develop and print on our kitchen table - it was fascinating - neat red light, shades pulled down, small 6 x 4.5 sized enlarger clamped to the corner of the table (which I still have - not bad for a table my parents found in a 2nd hand shop for $1 in 1937.) I still have his camera too, a nice 1937 folding Zeiss Super Ikonta, which I still use quite a bit. But I digress. The process was fascinating and it wasn't long before I had my own camera, a 620 box Brownie. I must have been a major annoyance to the neighborhood - even the dogs and cats were probably tired of having their daily routines recorded for posterity.

    Kind of fast forward 20 years or so and I moved up, photographically speaking and bought a pair of Nikon F's (which i also still have and use) and somehow wound up in an evening class taught by Minor White at MIT. That's where the LF bug bit, and around 1970 I bought a new 5 x 7 Linhof Kardan Bi. A couple of years later I dragged it to Yosemite for one of the AA workshops. At the time he'd make a 16 x 20 print of anything for as I recall $325. I didn't buy any of course, although I did buy a bunch of the small signed "special edition" prints for $15. And I bought several nice 11 x 14 prints from Brett Weston who was with us at the workshop for a day or two. What really stuck in my mind though were some of the simple "Notan" exercises taught by Dorr Bothwell in which we'd play around arranging various cut out shapes of black paper on a white background.

    I remember taking a couple of courses in street photography at Mass College of Art, and a workshop in photo composites with Jerry Uelsmann, as well as several courses in photographic silk screen printing. Took a few other workshops in large format as well here and there. And just last year I took a workshop with Mark Nelson on his Precision Digital Negative system.

    These days I'm still into 5 x 7 and even digital, And I've been doing quite a bit of Computer Generated Imaging in which I've been combining photos and videos with generated images and animations using a suite of the same software packages that the folks in Hollywood use for fluid simulations and special effects. No formal training in the CGI stuff, but having been a computer nerd since 1959 I've been able to pick up on most of it on my own.

    One of these days I'll retire and have more time to waste film!!! I dragged a Technika and the Mamiya 645 (and a Minox B) to Japan last year where my wife and I rented a car and explored some of the rural areas along the Sea of Japan, and I'm trying to put together a 5 x 7 kit compact enough to take to Sicily and Japan next year. Also thinking of attending a workshop on alt process.

  4. #44
    village idiot BennehBoy's Avatar
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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    No formal tuition at all, everything done by reading and trying.

    For all things technical, this book is brilliant -> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Photography...091/ref=sr_1_3 Although I dare say there are now much newer editions.

    And for the more subjective side of things (which follows on nicely from Jim's Notan comments) I found this book to be superb -> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perception-.../dp/024080466X

    Amzon links for speed, I'm sure these can be had from elsewhere.
    Last edited by BennehBoy; 3-Oct-2017 at 03:58. Reason: typo

  5. #45

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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    Looked at "Perception and Imaging" on Amazon. There's a new edition coming in a couple of weeks and I pre-ordered it.

    Another book that is really outstanding is Albers' Interaction of Color https://www.amazon.com/Interaction-C...tion+of+colors

    It was reissued a few years ago in a complete edition by Yale University Press. Expensive (well, not as expensive as 50 sheets of 5 x 7 Ektar 100) and worth it. Some would say it's more relevant to "conventional" art, but I think it helps understand what we're seeing and feeling when we photograph and what we communicate to the viewers of the print.

  6. #46
    village idiot BennehBoy's Avatar
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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    I'll check that out, thanks.

  7. #47

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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    I've never had a formal photography lesson, started with a box brownie aged about five and a lot of 35mm and 645; I then picked up a taste for more vintage stuff and had folding 120 6x9 cameras and a reflex 6x6 (still got that one in the attic, but it's bust )

    I was a BBC cameraman off and on for a few years; studio and outside news broadcasts, but that's largely a matter of pointing and focussing. I spent a bit more time as the camera controller engineer - contrast and black level - which was probably a bit more helpful but which leaves me with a rather, um, eclectic way of looking at the imaging process.

    Bought the 4x5 on a whim in a junk shop maybe thirty years ago; read everything I could find from 1920s Amateur Photographer to Adam's classic series and the BJP manuals.

    My wife of thirty years ago gave up her job in the bank to study photography, but other things came up in the darkroom and we separated. I took great delight in providing the cover images for a CD, while she went back to the bank.

    Neil

  8. #48
    Kevin Kolosky
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    Re: How many of you were taught (in LF) ?

    I attended Brooks Institute for a year back in 1974. Second semester stressed learning to use the view camera as well as learning an exposure system. I remember I bought a Cambo and a Kodak Ektar lens. Alas, the cost of living in Santa Barbara coupled with the cost of tuition at Brooks caused me to withdraw and join the Navy. I hoped to go to the Navy's photography school in Memphis, but when I got there the class was full. So they offered that I would only have to stay in for 3 years instead of 4 because I didn't get the school I was promised. Ended up on an Aircraft Carrier for about 2 1/2 years. Got the G.I. Bill when I finished my tour of duty, and was able to finish College. So some good came out of going to Brooks, including learning how to use a view camera. Today I have a Sinar P2 and a Hasselblad system, but don't use them as much as I would like to.

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