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Thread: LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

  1. #1
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    One often reads that shooting landscape with the large format camera is a wonderfully contemplative activity, and that this style leads to images that one doesn't make with smaller formats. In fact, I've even written it myself in the past.

    I've changed my mind about that, and as far as I am concerned, I find that using LF for landscape is actually much more stressing that using smaller formats. Many of the great color landscape shots are made during the short "golden hours". The light changes are extremely fast and dramatic. I find myself rushing to set up the LF camera, focussing, metering, while with the small camera I would already have the picture in the box and could relax a bit and enjoy the moment. There is so much which can go wrong with LF that one needs the utmost concentration. Mistakes are very frustrating. If I discover a better composition with the small camera, it is just a quick matter to make another exposure, and then move on. With the LF camera, it's another 10-15 minutes, while the light is changing. In addition, being often greedy enough to want to shoot a certain "quota" of images during the day, I find that I really have to rush all the time and move fast between the shots, because each of them takes such a long time.

    I recognize that if you were just looking for patterns, especially in B&W, you could take all your time, but with pictures which involve interaction of landscape and light, that's just not the case, and I find using LF is certainly not contemplative. What do you think ?

  2. #2
    Whatever David A. Goldfarb's Avatar
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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    I see where you're coming from. When the light is moving fast and you're waiting for the wind to die down or the people to pass or the clouds to move, there really are decisive moments in landscape work and in architecture as well.

    On the other hand I often try to set up and compose before the light is there, and wait for the light. Sometimes I'll revisit a site and each successive photograph becomes a kind of a "draft" toward the final version. I don't impose quotas on myself. If I don't see an interesting shot, I don't shoot just for the sake of doing so. This part is more contemplative.

  3. #3
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    David, the problem is not the lack of interesting shots, but rather their abundance. I also don't shoot in LF if I don't see something which really interests me (I have a 35mm for the "stock" shots). But more often than not, I come across compositions that I like, even in mid-day light. While you are getting ready for this shot before the light gets there, there is most likely another shot that you could make for which the light is already good. The only exception to that is when it's dark a dawn, but then it is really difficult to focus or compose well on the ground glass, and often when the light comes you find that you can focus or compose better, so that you end up fiddling again with your controls while the light is changing.

  4. #4

    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    Excellent proposition and probably long overdue.

    Is LF landscape contemplative? It can be and for that matter so can smaller formats be contemplative. Admittedly being presented with a ground-glass like a roadside television does prove to be something of distraction but there is no real reason why a meditative and contemplative approach can't be taken with any format no matter what size the view finder.

    My fervent belief is that the greatest personal asset that a photographer can bring to any task is FLUENCY. To be fluent with the operation of one's kit, to be fluent with the characteristics of one's materials and, perhaps most importantly, to be fluent with one's own objectives, attitudes and responsibilities.

    The constraints of budget may prevent the LF worker from generating as many variations of a situation as a 35mm shooter. But consider also the limitations of something as elementary as exposure time. Shooting during the 'blink' is a demanding pursuit at the best of times. Here in Sydney the latitude dictates that the blink is very short and changes are rapid, if I were to be lucky enough to be shooting in the Orkney Islands at the top of Scotland the blink may last some hours. Being prepared and doing some of your contemplation BEFORE the event can be of considerable benefit I feel - irrespectiuve of format. Just lately I have been assigned to shoot streetscapes at dusk of a building under construction so that post production artists can montage CAD renderings of proposed retail facilities to generate lease agreements. The client wonders why I can only shoot ONE vantage point per night but understands that at f22 I must have the shutter open anything up to two minutes — it becomes a simply matter of how many times does two minutes fall into 20 minutes, particularly when large vehicles like buses are to be avoided. On 35mm shooting at say f5.6 those exposure times would be significently shorter but the huge bill-board and poster reproductions the client eventually requires might not be as adequately served.

    On another occasion I found a wonderful shot of a new office tower which was only achievable in pre-dawn glow. The client wanted two originals of the shot. The exposure was 20 minutes and at the end of that time the light had changed and was no longer appealing — so, a trip back to the site at 04:30 each day for 4 days. (I wanted copies for myself also!)

    At the end of the day it is generally the subject and the desired rendering or portrayal of it that dictates the terms, the format and the technique. Just as it is essential to become familiar with equipment and materials in the interest of hasty yet reliable function, so too is it necessary to develop the skils of prompt contemplation - to read and decypher what it is that a scene has to offer and react sympathetically to those stimulii with the greatest economy of time. Solitude, empathy and connection with the situation and the motif I find all improve my ability to respond and react to subtle and sublime elements of a desired scene and the capture aparatus simply becomes the conduit to make my idea into a tangible artefact.

    On another tangent I have seen all too often where the fruits of extended contemplation by both myself and others has, in effect, over-cooked the stew.

  5. #5
    Is that a Hassleblad? Brian Vuillemenot's Avatar
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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    Interesting post. I find that I am most productive when I arrive at a happy medium between contemplation and rushing. During the brief periods of great light, my mind races with numerous ideas for compositions. In my haste to get as many as possible, I sometimes find that I am working too fast, and am getting somewhat sloppy with my technique. I have to slow myself down, and just concentrate on a few compositions. If I get one decent transparency out of each session, I think I'm doing pretty well. Sure, you can get a lot more with a smaller camera, but I think a nice 4X5 is worth dozens of 35 mm slides. If you get too greedy, and try to get more large format images than you can in a short amount of time, it will probably backfire, and the quality will suffer. Just my 2 cents.
    Brian Vuillemenot

  6. #6

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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    You have hit the nail on the head Tuan.

    It doesn't have to be that way, of course. We could all recce all of our locations prior to carrying a camera there. We could check the sunrise time and be there with a headtorch and half an hour to spare. But it never quite works out like that, does it?

    However organised I try to be, I always end up putting myself under pressure to get set up, nail the exposure and get the shot.

    I think that tranny film is partly to blame. When I used to use FP4 in my old Hasselblad it didn't matter what the exposure was as long as it was 0-2 stops overexposed, so there was a fairly big target to aim at. Now that I use Velvia, I am painfully aware that I need to hit the bullseye within 1/3 of a stop or it's curtains.

    I took a Fuji S2 digital SLR out on a recce of a new location the other day. I visualised some great shots and planned an early morning return when the light was just right. Blow me, though, if the digi didn't come back with some stunners, readily photoshoppable into dawn-alikes.

    The thing that struck me, though, was that I had gained absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever in producing those digital images.

    The killer thing about LF photography is that I, as the photgrapher, gain an immense amount of pride in arriving at the final image. There is a far greater sense of involvement in producing the image and there is far more "me" in it than is ever the case with a small format camera, particularly an automated one.

    Stick with it Tuan. The National Park project shots are stunning! :-)

  7. #7

    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    I find I make better compositions with a groundglass than a viewfinder. In addition, as far as success rates go (negatives I print as a percentage of total exposed), mine are the same whether I shoot 35mm or 8x10, colour or b&w. The difference for me is that with the 8x10 I feel like I am experiencing the scene as opposed to just being a passerby with a motor drive.

    As regards light conditions (in Sweden), I find myself exposing more during mid-afternoon than right after sunrise or just around sunset.

  8. #8

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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    I'm so glad to see another qualified photographer make these statements that I've forwarded them on to my wife. She's had to endure my frustrations as I chase extraordinary light around only to have the best image disappear right before I relase the shutter. Funny, you don't read about this much in any of the master's writings, but it has to have happened to them. I think David's approach is the best solution, but that means you have to have an image pre-visualized prior to the light getting sweet, and you have to remain committed to that image's composition, etc. throughout the sweet light. This is tough to do, a lot of times the best light pops up in a different direction and the composition I have on my ground glass goes pathetically flat lightwise. If I'm by my car or I've convinced my wife that it's in her best interest to carry my 35mm gear, I'll have that set up along with the LF equipment and ready to fire off really quick changing scenes while I wait for the one scene composed with my LF equipment to emerge. Then I go drink to calm my nerves (wife drives!).
    The only trouble with doin' nothing is you can't tell when you get caught up

  9. #9

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    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    Isn't "great color landscape shots" an oximoron? There are a lot of good ones, but I can't think of a single "great" one. Not even from Ernst Haas or David Muench.
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

  10. #10

    LF landscape photography NOT a contemplative activity

    I dont know Tuan, perhaps you are suffering from the "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome. Sure at times I have had the same conundrum, should I wait for the light or move on? In my home town, being semi desertic and the sierra not overpopulated and with little industry I get azure blue skies, in rainy season I get the same deep blue skies with very dramataic cluds, I have a choice to visit only one of about 5 or 6 favorite places, and sometimes making the desicion where to go is a crap shoot.

    I think you are stressing about the "what ifs" and "maybe if". WHat if I wait, what if I move on, maybe I should take this other pic, etc, etc...

    If I am at a place I can revisit at a later date, and I find myself in the "fast" light situation, by all means I try to take the shot, but I write down the settings and go back earlier the next time.

    Many a time I have waited for the light for hours (dont worry I wont be putting "waiting for the light" in my phtographs) , in fact I have made it a point to bring a book with me and pack a nice lunch. SOme of the best times I have had was doing this and still the shot was awful.

    Another thing is the perceived notion that we have to get "the shot" every time we go out, specially if we are under time constraints due to work pressures.

    I used to feel like you do, every time I went out it was anything but relaxing, until I realized that all those presures were created by me. Now I have changed my entire outlook, I dont stress any more by the what ifs, I dont second guess mayself anymore or wonder if I was at a different place ro time if the phtograph would be better. I dont feel anymore I have to get "the" shot anylinger, if I do, great! if I dont...well it was good practice..

    The result has been that I now photograph a lot more, I enjoy it a hole lot more and funnily enough my photography has improved. I now concentrate on the moment and the photograph at hand, I no longer worry about what or where else I could be photographing, and most importantly I no longer worry about making a mistake. I dont know if you are old enough to remember the popular "zen" books written in the late 70's and early 80's, like "zen in motorcycle repair" or "zen in the martial arts" etc, but I have found a similar situation with photography, the more you worry about the mistakes, the more mistakes you make, the more you worry about msising the light, the more you do miss it...the more you worry about dust in your holders, you get what looks like dust storms in your negatives....:-)

    I am not saying I have become careless, I am still compulsive about cleaning my holders, or taking the best photograph, I am only saying I have learned not to stress about the things I have no power to change......

    COMMING SOON..."Zen in photography" at your nearest B&N....lol..just kidding..

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