Horrible photographs and self-esteem

[Harold_4074]

You mentioned that your friend had used a consumer-grade C-41 process film, but not how the printing was done. My last (and probably last-ever) roll of Kodak color negative was processed by the local drop-off service, and I was amazed at the luminosity, sharpness, and tonal smoothness of the prints. That is, until I realized that these were not exactly the images that I had made--they were prints made from digital scans of the negatives, and had clearly had some post-scan processing to make them consumer-friendly. (I'm amazed that it was cost-effective for the shop to do this, but that is another matter entirely.)

If this is what you are dealing with, rest assured that a modest amount of digital processing would undoubtedly improve the tonality, sharpness, and grain of your 4x5s. You might be comparing home-grown apples to injection-molded, airbrush-painted wax oranges.

[Darin Cozine]

Thanks for the advice so far.

The first suggestion I am going to follow is to go back over my work and objectively find what works. The key point here is to aknowlege the good traits of a print, rather than letting one defect ruin the image.

I will have to follow-up in a few days. Perhaps I will start posting a few images here.

[Jonathan Brewer]

If you still have your health, and eat fairly regurlar(I'm assuming you do, since you can afford camera gear), and your images not coming out like you want them to, is your worst problem, then you should be somewhere celebrating, there are plenty of folks in the cemetery that would change places w/you in a second.

The best thing about this, is that you're honest, so I know you're going to be alright, you're your own worst critic, so one day your pictures WILL BE GOOD, I would've said there was no hope, if you were like some of these folks who upload a horrible looking picture and then hope no one w/notice by calling it a tribute to Diane Arbus.

So believe me, if you're honest enough to not blind yourself to the flaws in your pictures, there's hope.

[Jonathan Brewer]

I do shitty images all the time, they go from my hand straight to the trash bin, I feel no pain, I go straight the ice box and grab/drink a couple of beers, then I chase my wife around the bedroom, on the days I don't happen to catch her, I sit down and celebrate the fact that I'm still young enough to remember why I was chasing her.

[Mark_3632]

Here is what I was told when I went through what you are.

"How many sheets of 5x7 have you shot?"

"2 boxes of 50"

"So you have shot less than 4 rolls of 36 frame film in a new process. How many rolls did it take to begin getting good results and what was your rate of keepers? 1-3 on a roll? You got a long way to go and a lot more practice to do. Slow down enjoy the journey."

I slowed down and realized I was not nearly as bad as I thought I was. I have a ways to go but I must say I have made a few keepers.

[Ron Marshall]

Don't despair it takes time and dedication, I know because I still am not there yet. I started LF a few months ago and initially the progress was fairly slow, but that is what I expected so I wasn't discouraged. Finally I am getting the occasional image that I am completely satisfied with. And usually I know it before it is developed. Hang in there, look at the work of photographers that you admire and study their technique, get a good book such as Bruce Barnbaum's.

Good Luck

[robert_4927]

You will always learn more from your failures than you'll ever learn from your successes

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Darin, while everybody has been nice and given you encouragement, I am going to be the one to whup you upside the head.

You have identified your problems, now is the time to search for solutions.

Muddy prints: You need to get a hold of some way to standardize and consistently expose and develop your negatives. Even so, if you choose to use Tri X 4x5 in Rodinal well then you will have grain, no two way about it. My first suggestion is to get a hold of a reliable common developer and start experimenting. Muddy prints most of the time mean underdevelopment and/or underexposure as well. Start testing. Although I am an advocate of methodological testing I am not telling you to do so. Read some books, Picker's VI, Adams, Davis, etc....find the method that you feel is best for you and follow it. Stick to one film and one developer, dont go looking for the magic elixir that is going to make all your negatives and prints look like your favorite photographer on the first try.

Grainy prints: See above... :-)

Poor composition: Cant help you bubba, you need to practice, practice, practice, nobody can teach you composition, it is something personal and it is a particular way of looking that only you can develop to your taste......at the same time you need to visit galleries, look at photography monographs of your favorite photographers, check out what people are doing by visiting web sites, etc, etc. Do not expect the holy ghost to come down and bless you with perfect composition, like Mozart it can happen, but if you dont got it by now, it aint going to happen with you without investing some effort (and money) into it..... :-)

[Paul Coppin]

Going to large format from 35mm is a huge jump, in my opinion, not just in film size. In my own experience what I discovered, was that over 30 odd years I had been badly seduced by the modern technology of 35mm (don't even want to talk about digital). My epiphany was that I had almost forgotten all of the first principles of photography. I literally had forgotten how to see in a photographic sense. I was used to banging off a bunch of pics and pulling the good ones out and discarding the rest. Sometimes that only meant 1 or 2 shots out of a roll of 36, but then, I might have shot 4 or 5 rolls that day...

I couldn't do that with LF - way too expensive... Ultimately, the key for me, once I got past the relearning about aperture, DofF, schieimpflug (or whatever , remembering to pull the slide, remembering to put it back, etc, was to develop a love affair with my SPOTMETER, and spend a lot of time looking at the real world in terms of tone values. Initially, I couldn't "see" that in the ground glass. Eventually I got a lot more comfortable about the scene as a photographic image, so that when I looked in the GG, mostly all I had to do was focus on ...focus and comp.

Learn what you need to learn about how to physically use your camera and lenses, but go back to basics on what your think you might want to take a picture of. The LF camera is primitive. It won't compensate for what you didn't think of, so you have to learn to think about the picture before you even touch the camera. If you don't have one, go get a decent spotmeter - they're worth the money. Make up a 4x5 visualization card - a piece of black card with a 4x5 hole cut in it, and spend some time looking at your subjects as "virtual" pictures - analyse the composition, look at the tonal values (and/or colours), graphical elements, etc. With practice with your spotmeter, you'll be able to frame your compositions, not only on subject, but on tone relationships as well. Ultimately, if you stick with it you'll learn to be able see why a good picture is a good picture, and why yours are not, if thats the case. That's more than half the battle. Once you cross that fence, the rest starts to fall in place.

[Ellen Stoune Duralia]

Man, there are days when I think I need to get over this "photography thing" and sell all my gear because I think everything I produce is utter crap! Making the move to LF hasn't helped in the least little bit as I'm still on the up-hill side of the learning curve.

But every great once in a while, I manage to produce an image that I'm not embarrassed to call my own. And sometimes, some random kind soul will tell me that they really like such-n-such. My husband thinks everything I do is brilliant which is total BS but nice to hear.

Plus, there is nothing I enjoy more than making images. I can't imagine doing anything else and if I didn't have photography as a creative outlet, I'd surely go more insane than I already am.

So, all I can tell you is that I understand. I know where you're coming from. Keep your critical eye and more importantly, keep photographing. You will get there. And if you never do "get there" and you're on your deathbed but you've never given up, then my friend, you're ahead of a lot of folks because once they threw in the towel, all that remained was "what if?".

Hang in there