Burtynsky / china / 8x10 or 4x5 ? slides or color

[giancatarina]

i've just bought the Burtynsky's book called China...
i have few questions..
is it made in 8x10 or 4x5 ?
is it slides or color neg ? Which film ?

i'm using an arca F line, 80xl, 110 Xl, 150 apo sironar S... they are consider to be the best current lens, but i found that my pictures are not as precise as the burtynsky one's... so i want to understand why.... Thanks

www.giancatarina.com

[Frank Petronio]

His website shows him with a Technika.

By precise do you mean detail and sharpness? It may be his printing method - he does own a large professional color lab in Toronto.

Or maybe Fuji gives him their special "pro-stock" film that is specially made for world-class photographers?

[Michael Gudzinowicz]

http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/showcases/meet/artist_e.jsp?artistid=815

He's been using an 8x10 Phillips and 4x5 Linhof. Your equipment is good enough.

And he also owns: http://www.torontoimageworks.com

Good luck.

[tim atherton]

If I recall correctly - he uses a Technika (actually, Technika's - plural - I think)

Film - he uses colour neg, but I'm not sure which - I'm guessing one of the 160 films - he does a test to make sure everything is sharp by shooting Polaroid type 55 and then checking the neg with his 10x loupe - that gives him a close idea of how it will look enlarged to 50"

He used to use 8x10, but as travel got more complicated and he could afford the best new optics he went to 4x5 for much of his work. I think his lens roundup sounded pretty much like the sort of lenses you have

He also prints at his own (pro) lab either traditional darkroom or now also some scanning and digital output to C type paper I think. I'd say his colour enlargers are also probably state of the art in terms of lenses.

[Frank Petronio]

His C-prints at the Eastman House look good but nothing different than what you would expect from a 4x5 color neg handled well, good lenses, etc.

[David K.]

I did see his China exhibition in Toronto last year, and the prints were large (typically 40 x 50) and although he shoots colour neg. I would have assumed they were 8 x 10.

Some of his previous work was definitely shot 8 x 10, so never really gave it much thought. If it was shot 4 x 5, I would have to say the prints were as good as anyone could expect from that size neg.

Overall the exhibit's most effective images were of the ones of great scale , so the large prints helped to convey that message.

[John Brownlow]

I heard an interview with him on CBS a few weeks ago. He seems like a very pleasant guy although his pictures mostly leave me cold. His personal history is very interesting (industrial background). He's shooting a bunch of extended time-lapse stuff right now with digital cameras remotely sending time lapse pictures, trying to prototype something for use in China. The results will be movies, not photographs.

[tim atherton]

I agree his work is cold, but art isn't necessarily (or even) about beauty. And despite what we may think of iut, his work seems to be highly regared in the art world

[Paul Kierstead]

Or, perhaps, beauty has a larger scope. I find tornado's (the funnel) to be an immense thing of beauty, or the mushroom cloud from a nuke rising majestically into the sky. Or perhaps one might see beauty in the science as Feynman did (http://www.fieldstudy.com/Classes/Announcements/feynmanquote.htm is a great story). Most things in the world have some sort of beauty. To restrict fine art to the beauty associated with pretty landscapes and women (ok, etc.) would be a terrible, terrible thing and make the world a poorer, boring place.

[John Brownlow]

a tire junkyard is not beautiful to look at, even if technically of high quality

maybe not for you, but my photography is all about the beauty of these kinds of places

www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=58667955&context=set-1167892&size=l