POLL: How many users shoot large format film professionally?

[Kimberly Anderson]

Delivering two packages to the client tonight.



From this shoot:

[Pfiltz]

Totally Jealous of you guys... in a good way.

[Sylvester Graham]

Wait. This isn't a poll, it's a thread.

[JBAphoto]

I do, exclusively - 5x4" and 10x8" neg', mainly Ilford D100 5x4 and HP5 in 10x8"

The images go out as fine large format silver jelly prints up to 32x40 inches from rolls of Foma fibre based paper

Cameras are Linhof STv and Sinar Norma 5x4 and Tacky-Hara and Sinar Norma 10x8" for landscape and portraiture respectively

I only make about one sale directly to a private collector in Australia per year - The rest are sold through an agent in Hong Kong, many to Australian collections - A sort of "If they come from overseas they must be better" mentality - Really phuqed, but I am earning my keep and developing two new websites to separate my landscape from my personal work and to promote my Australian landscape work internationally - Selling to the visually blind Australian public is a waste of time

John

[mandoman7]

This is an interesting thread but the original question needs clarification IMO. The distinction that's missing is whether some money is being made from film LF film usage, or whether that usage constitutes the bulk of an annual income. My guess would be that a small percentage of shooters draw their primary income from film generated images, but its hard to tell from what's being posted.

[Sylvester Graham]

This is an interesting thread but the original question needs clarification IMO. The distinction that's missing is whether some money is being made from film LF film usage, or whether that usage constitutes the bulk of an annual income. My guess would be that a small percentage of shooters draw their primary income from film generated images, but its hard to tell from what's being posted.

I'd like to know that too, but it's probably sensitive info for a lot of folks, understandably.

My guess is that an incredibly few people on this forum make anything above the poverty line on LF alone. Especially for commercial stuff. And that not one makes a living above average on LF alone. They may have other sources of income, but not from LF. You might say, oh, what about hiroshi sugimoto, or Clyde butcher, or Sally Mann? But they certainly are the exceptions.

That's the thing with artists in general. If you take a closer look at the successful ones, the ones who can live the life of the artist without other work, the layers start to peel back. You start to realize, oh, he was a lawyer for ten years before he started up the gallery. Or, oh, she has a trust fund that pays for the film. Or, quite often, X artist is married to Y investment banker or engineer or CEO (X could be male or female). Or, he's got an IQ of 160 and went to Yale, and he can rearrange the world around him to get where he needs to go.

Of course there are exceptions. But exceptions are what people like to concentrate on instead of the norm. I know I do.

[SpeedGraphicMan]

This is an interesting thread but the original question needs clarification IMO. The distinction that's missing is whether some money is being made from film LF film usage, or whether that usage constitutes the bulk of an annual income. My guess would be that a small percentage of shooters draw their primary income from film generated images, but its hard to tell from what's being posted.

My purpose in starting this thread was to see if any members of this forum actually shoot Large Format on assignment or for commercial project, etc.

It would appear that a few do, but sadly it seems to have taken a back seat to digital capture.
Many here shoot LF for producing private work or as a hobby etc.

[JBAphoto]

This is an interesting thread but the original question needs clarification IMO. The distinction that's missing is whether some money is being made from film LF film usage, or whether that usage constitutes the bulk of an annual income. My guess would be that a small percentage of shooters draw their primary income from film generated images, but its hard to tell from what's being posted.

No numbers, but to answer you question somewhat, I retired from professional photography in Perth about 18 years ago and moved to the forest to live on my pension and my mind, both hopelessly inadequate

I made a business decision to not go digital on the basis that silver jelly photography would find a similar niche to that of etching and lithography as graphic arts following the introduction of off-set lithography for commercial printing - This is finally happening and as the only photographer in Western Australia producing, and able to produce, large, fine, silver gelatine prints from large format negatives I am now earning an increasing amount of our income from this source - Business modeling shows this may be become our dominant income source in the future, but . . .

[schafphoto]

Dead architects vs. live architects: I do a fair amount of HABS HAER HALS photography which is all done 5x7 and 4x5 black and white. This, by definition, is documenting historic structures (dead architects) for the reasons that Kirk already stated. My HABS clients are architectural historians, developers demolishing or altering buildings, preservationists, DOT, and planning departments of cities, generally. My active architectural clients (live architects) are less interested in the 5x7 quality and archival superiority and more interested in the speed and economy of digital capture for getting photos of their latest building onto their website and off to award shows. A large format photographer would have a tough time competing for live-architect work without first creating a reputation and a niche-market in large format photo services, and finding a group of clients that are willing to spend a premium and wait extra-long for that niche product.

A related question might be: What kind of client or consumer would be interested or compelled to seek a large format photographer or want to purchase LF over digital prints?

The Historic American Buildings Survey must seek LF and cannot use born-digital capture yet because it does not meet their specifications (they are working on born-digital standards).
Art buyers, museums, galleries, etc., seek silver or platinum or analog-processes for their collections.
Some magazine editors seek a edgy-look and film can deliver that (usually leaving the film edge or sprocket holes in view to show how not-digital it is).
Other seekers of LF?