TOP is interested in hearing from photographers who still do LF contact printing

[David Karp]

Hi Mike, You should hang around here more often!

[bob carnie]

I was pleased to see lots of people I recognize who is Monty McCutchen btw??

I do tons of Contact prints but mine are all from digital capture or scans then make larger film for printing.

[Sal Santamaura]

...
All best,
Mike J...

Hi Mike. As long as you're here, it's time to edit your profile so the location reads "Penn Yan, NY" or "By the shore of Keuka Lake, NY" instead of "Small town 'Sconsin."

Sal

[Sal Santamaura]

...who is Monty McCutchen btw??...

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...archid=7200382

[Corran]

What I'm going for is variety and maybe the "twist," what you might call "ancillary interest,"

Yeah I get it, I should've sent you the 8x20 contact print I made recently and a picture of me making it instead. Sorry, I've had entirely too many rejections in a row lately (with no feedback), most far more important than an online blog featurette, so I had a moment.

P.S. You think it was hard this time, I've already gotten several hundred submissions for the Smartphone Baker's Dozen.... :-\

I don't envy you.

[txind76121]

Hi Mike, You should hang around here more often!

Hi Dave,
I just found this thread entirely by accident--clicked on a "came from" URL in the TypePad stats.

Alas, I basically hang out nowhere. It's all I can do to keep TOP going. It's much more work than it looks like, and I'm beginning to slow down a bit as I age. (I was 48 when I started the site 12 years ago.) And while I do have a c. 1903 Rochester Optical Pony Premo No. 6 whole-plate camera in the living room / front hall, it's there for show--I've never taken a picture with it.

At this point in history I wouldn't want the Pony Premo used. It's in fantastic condition for its age--essentially perfect, although it's not a York Peppermint Pattie because like most things that are 115 years old it can't be said to pass for new. But it's such a remarkable "survivor" that it would be a shame to start adding wear to it at this late date. I bought an ostrich-plume featherduster just to dust it!

I learned in about 1987 that I'm not naturally a view camera photographer. I think it demands a certain temperament. You have to be able to "previsualize" as AA put it--know what your picture is in advance. It still boggles my mind that Joel Meyerowitz shot 400 sheets of film to get the 100 pictures in St. Louis and the Arch...a 25% hit rate. Amazing.

I have about the opposite temperament--I like exploring, experimenting, note-taking, trying different things, and I have to admit I'm better suited to grab-shooting, snap-shooting, looking at things this way and that, playing around. Howard Bond and I used to debate 8x10 vs. 35mm and he would say he just wished more people would use LF when it's appropriate. With me, it's not that I don't take pictures I *wish* I had taken with a view camera...it's just that I never know in advance which ones those will be! What I found out was that halfway through setting up for an LF picture I'm ready to move on to the next thing. Pretty consistently. We all have to go with our strengths. (Sigh.)

To say I have a great deal of admiration for LF photographers is putting it mildly, though.

M.

[txind76121]

Sorry, I've had entirely too many rejections in a row lately (with no feedback)

Again, just a question of time. I'm a one-man band, so everything has to get done by me. Just acknowledging receipt of 45 emails is probably 20 minutes, 20 minutes I don't have. Much less offering any kind of constructive feedback for the 32 I didn't pick, which would kill an hour and more like two. I'm supposed to be doing something else right this minute, for instance. But I'm procrastinating. :-)

I'm at the point where I could literally spend 40 hours a week just replying to my email. Nothing else would get done.

That's just me, BTW--I'm a slow worker and I like to cogitate on things. And I tend to get lazier as the day wears on. Thom Hogan, Michael Zhang, Scott Kelby, Chase Jarvis, Joe McNally, or Ming Thein could probably run TOP in two hours after dinner three nights a week, but then, each of them probably has something like ten times the energy I have. :-)

Mike

[jnantz]

I was pleased to see lots of people I recognize who is Monty McCutchen btw??

i know, huh, people recognized
great to see denise ross there too !

over on photrio monty goes by zebra ...
he does 20x24 wet plate stuff that is jaw dropping
and a wicked nice person to boot ..

[cowanw]

Bob was being sarcastically funny folks They are intimates.

[bob carnie]

Monty is much shorter than me and quite uglier by a county mile. He needs to sneak up on a mirror every morning to shave , just in case the visual shocks him so much that he cuts himself.