Non traditional photographs

[ageorge]

The standard that using a large format camera forces you to consider your subject more carefully than just snapping away with a dslr, and that you need to know HOW to use a view camera to make your shot more powerful.

For example, your shot of the Biggs cranes. You have the makings of a very powerful shot there, but since you just snapped away with a dslr you missed some wonderful opportunities. You have a very interesting foreground, if I had been with you using my VC I would have set the camera low to the ground, used a bit of a wide angle and tilted the back of the camera towards the back, to give the fore ground more prominence and counterpoint the organic nature of the run off with the hard lines of the cranes and the buidling.

I would also have used a polarizer so that the dark earth at the bottom of the building would have been darker, this giving the shot more drama.

SO you see, there is more to using a LF camera than just getting everything sharp and one big file. It allows you..no, it forces you to THINK about why you are taking the picture, what elements would make the photograph more interesting and to adjust the camera in many different ways to obtain the results you visualize BEFORE you press the shutter.

Using a view camera is much different than using a dslr and the stitching the results...and that is the standard Kirk is talking about.

I idea that using a LF camera is the only way one can have standards is ridiculous. I have and I use a 4x5. The tool I choose does not change my approach to image making. If I had been using my 4x5 for the "Bigge" shot, my approach and resulting image (and standards) would have been exactly the same. Actually, if I would have been using the 4x5, I would not have gotten the "Bigge" image. As it was I was standing on my tip toes on a rock just barely able to see through the viewfinder over a chain link fence as you can see from the image below taken the same time. With the 4x5 I would have passed. The 1DsII(I) and stitching allowed me to get a LF quality image from a situation where I probably wouldn't have with my 4x5. Stitching is not lowering my standards it is increasing them.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Whatever, just because a shot was difficult to take does not make it good....but if these are your standards so be it. Nevertheless, contrary to what you and the owner of this site think, sitiching images does not a LF quality photograph make nor is it an example of a non traditional LARGE FORMAT image. I guess to you large format = big file...and this is truly ridiculous.

[Greg Lockrey]

Is it my imagination but is that building in the "Bigge" photo leaning to the left?

[ageorge]

Is it my imagination but is that building in the "Bigge" photo leaning to the left?

I image with the big red arrow is not a finished image. It has a multitude of technical issues that would need taking care of. It was simply for illustration purposes.

[Gordon Moat]

The floors and some building edges seem to curve in the stitched shots, and not just the last one posted. Perhaps this is lens introduced distortion, or from spherical panning.

Without the explanation of technique used, nor gear used, how should we consider these images? I don't see anything that different in approach that could be found in colour images of the last thirty years, using any size camera. Taking away the stitching with D-SLR technique, how can you claim these are non-traditional?

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

[ageorge]

Without the explanation of technique used, nor gear used, how should we consider these images? I don't see anything that different in approach that could be found in colour images of the last thirty years, using any size camera. Taking away the stitching with D-SLR technique, how can you claim these are non-traditional?

I was considering traditional versus non-traditional in the context of this forum, which in my experience, the usual images posted here are of the idealized, natural, modernist, reductionist, landscape stripe. Outside of this forum, these images definitely fall into a well worn but still relevant tradition. Where as modernism has now achieved a historic status.

[Struan Gray]

ho hum.

[Donald Miller]

Here's a gold toned lith print

Matthew, I like your image. I don't recall seeing lith gold toned before. It is a nice departure.

[Donald Miller]

So I was close with the mylar guess. You're saying it's like a fancy kaleidoscopes then.

Very nice images.

Do you get migraines a lot?

Kirk, I guess that you could say that it is like a super calibrated mylar...mulititudes of possibilities all controllable. Nope, never had a migraine in my life, thanks for that.

[Donald Miller]

Why these are cool if you are indeed using film, they are not out of the ordinary, They are abstract form with emphasis on form and movement. Just like what Brett Weston did with his work, or Minor White for that matter. Yours are more about form and shape but not unusual. Abstract, yes.

They are photographs and interesting ones..

You know, if these were paintings, they would be pretty awesome for sure

Just my opinion.

Thanks Kevin