Large Format Photographers in Canada?

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

Hi, I am originally from Ontario but have been living in Halifax for the last 4 years. I shoot 4X5 with an old and very heavy CC400. I would love to meet any LF photographers - first round is on me. I have already met Eric (fishfish) although I haven't seen him in a while. He is in New Brunswick now.

[Paul Kierstead]

Calling me a large format photography is generous, but I do have a LF camera and shoot with it

I am in Ottawa and it is nice to see quite a few canadians here. I was brought up in NF so I will be taking Mike's suggestion for a beer on my next visit. NF is a wonderful place for LF (wish I still lived there), particularly if you like mood (i.e. fog).

On Canadian suppliers, I very much like Harry's Pro Shop (web-only); he is good to deal with and carries a small changing supply of used LF gear and some new gear.

[Rory_3532]

I hear that there is a group of large format photographers in Ottawa who get together from time to time, which is good, but that they spend all their time talking about Ansel Adams, which depending on one's view may be good or less than good. I would fall into the latter camp. Anyone have info on this?

Paul, as for Newfoundland, I've spent a fair amount of time there, especially on the west coast, Gander and St. John's. I love it. Have a look at the current issue of the British magazine Outdoor Photography, which has some Newfoundland photos taken by Cornish and someone else whose name I don't recall.

[Rory_3532]

Let me add that having spent time in Yellowknife, I think that very few people who participate in this forum fully understand what is involved in Tim Atherton's use of an 8x10 camera, in the winter, in the NWT. It's something that I'd really like to see him talk about in detail, and what is involved when he goes to outlying communities.

[Bill_1856]

I tried to look up Canada on a map but couldn't find it. What state is it in?

[tim atherton]

Bill,

I'm up in the Northwest Territories - the territory split in two 4 or 5 years back - each half is still bigger than Texas... :-)

[Jonathan Lee]

I'm in Ottawa and I use 4x5 and am just about to start using a 5x7 for contact printing. I second Rory's opinion about getting Tim to share some Yellowknife LF stories. For me -15C is about my practical limit. I can keep my body warm but I haven't found a set of gloves that let me use my camera properly, so I go bare-handed.

[tim atherton]

I love these posts that start up again after two years...

Okay - cold weather stuff. But first, a bit of background.

I came to Canada almost 15 years ago and (for some strange reason...) have lived north of 60 the whole time - in Iqaluit, Tuktoyaktuk and Yellowknife. So over that time I have got used to working in the cold.

There was a time when I would travel a few hundred miles with a snowmobile and Komatik along the arctic coast each year photographing - all in 35mm then (wish I'd taken up LF again at that point, looking back). Or would head out in the dead of night onto the sea ice for three or four hours to photograph the Northern Lights, taking my trusty .303 Lee Enfield as well and hoping I would hear if there was a polar bear creeping up on me (looking back I can see why my ex used to be worried...). Over that time, I got used to working in the cold - snowmobiles always seemed to break down at the wrong time, so you were fiddling with the engines, or tying the load on the komatik etc etc. But most of the time I wasn't lugging the gear long distances on my back. So while the mountaineer types (of which I used to be one long ago) will always say - layers work best - if you are standing still photographing in the cold for ages, or travelling on a sled or on a skidoo, then huge down parkas do the trick!

Basically, for really cold weather, gear is as follows:

Long Johns, pants, padded zip up ski type pants

wool socks, Acton/Cdn Forces white snow boots (I have taken out the heavy duty wool inner, which is great, but wear either sealskin or caribou mukluks inside - lighter and warmer).

Polropyline polo shirts, fleece sweater and either a regular Mountain Equipment Down Jacket or their massive but very light) expedition down jacket with added wolverine fur on the hood (traps the air, but holds no moisture like most other stuff).

For gloves, I either have a thinnish pair of thinsulate/leather ranchers gloves - that I constantly take on an off, sometimes with thin polyrpo ones inside, and when it's really cold, a huge pair of Arctic Wolf mitts on idiot strings - the great thing about this is, you have a thinner pair of gloves on, pull your hands out and they drop away, fiddle with the camera, slip your hands right back in again.

(Quite frankly, while the animal rights folks may balk at all the fur, in the dry arctic cold it is still the best - it just works better than almost any artificial stuff. I once borrowed someone's caribous fur parka - it was incredibly warm. The Canadian Forces clothing research dept once tested it in a cold chamber - while over time the subjects in the best modern down and synthetic gear slowly cooled off over time, he subject in the caribou suit actually warmed up)

As for gear. I have found stuff that works. Gitzo tripods with neoprene sleeves (although below about -30 the adjustment sleeves get too stiff to use easily). Arca ballhead - never had a problem. Phillips 8x10 and Toyo 45A have both worked without problems down to -42. And so have my lenses (which is more luck than anything I think...). Film can be a pain. I have got static streaks from the dark slide (bear in mind most people "spark" a fingertip static discharge several times a day here in winter - its so dry). I've also had 4x5 and 8x10 sheets shatter. Pull out the dark slide and the change in temperature causes the film to bow out slightly. Slide in the darkslide and it catches the film which shatters into little pieces... Lightmeter lives in a pocket, but can suffer from cold batteries. Focus without trying to breath under the dark cloth - I have scraped frost from breath off the gg with my visa card - works just about okay. And the new Blackjacket darkcloth seems to work really well in the cold. I have used the BTZS cloth in summer, but it falls to pieces in the cold. And there is nearly always a breeze, which makes playing with a horseblanket type cloth a pain - just one more thing to fiddle with in the cold.

But frankly, unless I have to (i.e. magazine assignment) I try not to have to go out below -32c or so or if it's more than a little windy - it's just too damn cold. But my 2 1/2 year old was playing outside at daycare today and it was -22c with a slight breeze - so it's not too cold for photography!

As for travelling to communities - that's mostly architecural work these days, shooting projects like schools etc for local architects. mostly fly in and fly out - possibly stay overnight,. And it's usually a charter, with the architects, clients, engineers etc doing a final inspection so I don't worry about weight and bags or x-rays. Though every now and than there is a news or magazine assignment in one as well.

In fact I got back into LF with 4x5 originally, after 35mm editorial work, to do the architectural projects. Then stared using it for my personal work, and then got into 8x10 for that. While I still do editorial work for magazines and newspapers from Canada and the US in 35mm I have been trying to do more of my own personal work in LF, especially 8x10 and use that for some of that work. Usually it's selling stuff I have already done as stock, but as a result of sending out recent promos of my LF work, I've started getting a few people coming to me to do projects using my approach and look. Most successful so far was a week photographing the northern diamond industry. The NWT has Canada's only diamond mines (so far_, which have pushed Canada to number three or four in world production (Canada may be number one or two in the next few years), with hundreds of millions of dollars of diamonds coming out of the Barren Lands. So we were photographing at the mine 250km north of here by air - a massive open pit mine on open tundra with 250 ppeople living up there, photographing at the diamond cutting facilities in Yellowknife which have imported Armenians and Mauritians etc (Tiffanys just opened a cutting works) out at the Dene (Indian) communities where people have gone from welfare to having $75,000 a year jobs at the mines, as well as photographing some of the main players - NWT Premier, RCMP Diamond Squad members + miners at the mine. The magazine wanted all this done with the (perhaps slightly quirky?) approach I use with 8x10 in colour. But as we couldn't get any Portra 400 8x10 in time and were limited to 160, and as some of the interior shots at the mine in the giant mill etc were going to be tight, we also used 4x5 with 400 as well as 160. This was the week the temp was -38c to -43c. I think if I hadn't known how well my gear would work in the cold, as well as how I can function in the cold, it could have been a disaster. But I am used to both, so the cold just became something annoying to deal with.

Now, as far as I know it all worked out. As usual, the magazine was on a deadline (having sent the writer up three months before...). Normally I send my film out to Calgary and get it back, with a chance to edit and check for mishaps. This time the Art Director took it back to Toronto with him to a good lab there. But the lab guy told me it all looks good (he thought some shots would look good printed up to 6' wide...) and the magazine seems very happy with what they got. So I'm looking forward to both getting my film back and seeing the final spread.

All that said - after 15 years, I think I feel the cold more... and while I mean to go out for a few evenings and try photographing the northern lights with the 8x10 this spring, and am also working on a series of landscapes (snowscapes) over Great Slave Lake in different conditions, I really enjoy the flip side of this, which is summer - it's light at 3am and still not dark until midnight in mid-summer. Evening light lasts for several hours and you can wander around with the camera over your shoulder all evening - which I have done for the last two years, working on a project photographing what could be called the "suburban state of mind".

But ask away with any cold weather questions

[Bill_1856]

I didn't realize that it got that cold in Texas.

[Ron Bose]

Southern Ontario, Linhof TK45S Sinar F2 Ansco 8x10

Still learning the 'art' ...