I used LF cameras in my university photography program. The cameras were the worst cameras in the known universe. The really old MPPs and Cambos. I kept on reading photography books and magazines. I realize a lot of photographers I love use LF. I love Andreas Gursky and Sally Mann for example. I purchased a beautiful Arca Swiss Discovery (one of the best cameras ever made). I realize now its the best camera for me. I still use 35mm but thats for event photography or candid/casual people photography. Medium format is too much in between a fast camera and a big picture camera therefore I dislike it. Its also too expensive.
I love the ritual of the big camera. When I make a picture with a kit that weighs thirty pounds, I know I am going to make a good picture.
I can't remember anything and I use photography as a memory trigger. I want to have the biggest negative or transparency to help me tell the story of my life.
My story isn't as exciting as all yours, and shows that I am a catfish in the photoworld, aiming to move up to a sturgon or a halibut. I was using my spotmatic and loving it, but it was mostly clamped to a tripod anyhow. I was getting bored. I went into a junk store and found an old Coronet Ambasador, which is a classy Brownie- type box camera. Can you still get film for thoese things?. For a piece of junk the contact prints were amazing, but the procesing was expencive. This lead to the bathroom darkroom. Once you've jumped that barier, well... Anyhow, after a string of box cameras (all of which take up cubic footage) and reading a few issues of View Camera I went to my local used camera store in the worst part of town, walked past all the skateboarders begging for food for their dogs and the countles adult stores and bought my old Brand17 with a tele lens that had an immage circle the size of a tuna can. This lead to a Crown Graphic, and then an 8x10 Eastman. In closing, the biggest difference between Box cameras and view cameras, is cubic meters. Have a good Christmas. Dean
I got into large format because I was looking to reproduce details I couldn't get near enough to with 35mm or medium format. I am shooting in both large format and 35mm now. I have to admit however, that sometimes I shoot something in 35mm with grainy 400 film that has a graphic impact that is equally powerful, but totally different than large format. My sense is that 35mm black and white resonates with our fleeting consciousness of things as we quickly move through our everyday world. Large format on the other hand reflects our more contemplative moments with things and people that we have a much longer experience with. The difference between the two formats is something like the difference between a quick, exciting impression of a new place versus a revisit to a place of great meaning. Both have the capacity to form a lasting and meaningful place in memory and both have their limitations. To me, 35mm falters when you are are trying to reproduce a certain depth information in a scene, while large format can become victim to a deathly stillness that can occur when an intricate scene is photographed over a long period of time. I saw some photographs in a fancy gallery in New York. They were massively enlarged 8x10 prints of modern warehouse buildings in clipped lawns. To me the extra information was unwanted like being forced to spend 10 hours hours in a featureless room. But if you photograph someone you know in large format the depth of information captured can be extremely powerful.
when i was in college i was doing habs/haer-esque type work without knowing it. i was using a 35mm and 6x6cm camera. after i graduated i worked as a "lab-guy" for a portrait photographer in providence (rhode island) who was the last of her generation to still take portraits. she shot only 5x7. after processing, retouching with leads on the negative and printing all of her big negatives it was hard for me to go back to smaller formats, so i sold the yashica mat124 and saved my cash to give to ep levine in boston and got a speed graphic. i still shot the same sort of stuff - portraits of buildings sites and people, and eventually went to historic preservation finishing school. i started using 5x7 over the past 5 years, and will probably be making a 7x17 or 8x20 in the next few months to do pinhole work with. if i could, i would like to turn a room into a big large format pinhole camera, but i have a feeling that i would want to go even bigger than that next, and i have a feeling my wife would kind of be bummed if i paint the walls with liquid emulsion, and then photo chemistry. i kind of use the speed all the time with the focal plane shutter because i like experimenting with 19th century lenses, and using junque-glass as lens material, to see what happens to the film. kind of an addiction / obsession you might say .. john
Over twenty five years ago, I bought a used Rollei for $75 and said "Wow" after seeing the difference between 35 mm and 2 1/4. About 8 years ago when I got into LF, I said "WOW" after seeing the difference between 2 1/4 and 4x5. I figured that I didn't want to trip out with Timothy Leary and LF is another way to see everything upside down and backwards. Happy shooting. Pat.
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