The Square Format

[Kerik Kouklis]

I've come to love the square in the last couple years now that Hasselblads are affordable. Check out David Fokos' work for someone who shoots 8x10 and crops to square (although I see he's doing some panos now, too).

http://www.davidfokos.net/latest.htm

[johnmsanderson]

I wonder if he likes Michael Kenna?

[Vaughn]

A couple of MF images, but one has to be careful of generalizations about format proportions!

Scanned prints (platinum print and a RA4 print)

[paulr]

I'd recommend spending time with the square format for anyone who hasn't. At the very least it's educational. The dynamics of the frame are completely different. Specifically, there are none; you're dealing with a completely neutral, tension-free aspect, so the interplay between the edges and what you put between them is radically different. Any formal tension needs to come from you.

I had a great time changing it up and shooting my last project with a borrowed hasselblad. The unfamiliarity of it made me think and see in new ways, and forced me out of some old habits. Conversely I'd urge anyone who shoots only with a square to try a rectangle sometime.

[Jim Burk]

Right now I find myself shooting more with my Hasselblad and a borrowed Fuji 6X9 than I am with my LFs. The square shots do require a different way of thinking. I use the 6x9 when a rectangle is dictated by the subject. Square shots outnumber rectangular about 3 to 1 for most of my photo trips.

[Ken Lee]

What are you using to scan your MF film - or are you making darkroom prints ?

[Brian C. Miller]

(Pssst ... small roll film formats go in the lounge, right?)
(Or does this let the 6x17 cat out of the bag?)

[William Whitaker]

The square format lends itself to one type of composition: center-the-subject. Nothing wrong with that strategy, but it does make static pictures. While I've seen plenty of 6x6 shooters push and stretch that frame, it always wants to come back to the center.

I don't think that's necessarily true.

http://wfwhitaker.com/gallery/misttrail.htm

[Vaughn]

(Pssst ... small roll film formats go in the lounge, right?)
(Or does this let the 6x17 cat out of the bag?)

The images are being used to demo the compositional quality of the square format, but yes we are skirting the line. Not many people compose LF for the square format and the MF images hopefully will open up peoples' eyes to the possibility.

[wclavey]

I shot square images almost exclusively (Mamiya TLRs) for almost 40 years and when I first started shooting 4x5, had very little success with the non-square frame... I agree with paulr and others - - it is different. A friend of mine, who also shoots multiple formats, but not as much square, was examining a stack of 4x5 prints I had and showed me how there was almost always a better square composition contained in each of my 4x5 images. It seems to me that 4x5 is not rectangular enough... I have recently started shooting the 4x5 with a 6x9 roll film back and I feel like I am having much better compositional success - - it is sufficiently different from square to give me something to work with.