Hedrich Blesing in Chicago has been at the leading edge of commercial architectural photography for 80 years. They are a great bell weather of real changes in the genre as they are conservative technically and don't follow fads. Every year I take my arch. photo class from the Art Institute on a fields trip to Hedrich Blesssing and use the trip to see how they are responding to the digital developements. This year an extraordinary young photographer, Jeff Millies, gave us the tour and showed us his work. This is where they are at:
Overwhelmingly they are shooting 4x5 trans. film, primarily Kodak EPN and Velvia and swear that as long as film is being made they will shoot it.
But everything is being scanned on Imacons and delivered as film or with scans and digital contact prints. The traditional printing darkrooms and C print processors are idle. Most of their clients don't know what to do with film anymore. They need digital files. The magazines and book publishers still want original film usually. Film is sent out to a lab. Their famous retouching is being done on original trans. when needed but primarily on scans via photoshop.
A very few down and dirty or low budjet jobs are being shot with digital capture, exclusively on the high end Canons with PC lenses. These use these for scouting shots too.
They are building a new facility out of the Loop where they will have better access which and will eliminate the traditional darkrooms in favour of computer work stations.
They are always very gracious and sharing. They have the confidence of artists who are at the top of their game and not worried about competition. We will try and get them to present at the View Camera Conference in Chicago next year.
Their digital evolution is about what I expected. Two years ago they started scanning film for particular clients who requested it and now everything is scanned.
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