Is there any real utility to ULF?

[Drew Wiley]

Galleries show and sometimes actually sell all kinds of things. These days you might encounter inkjet renditions of cell phone shots as often as finely crafted contact prints. Novelty reigns. If you don't have the love for a particular form of craft to begin with, assuming its going to be your ticket into recognition is make-believe. And even that kind of thing- artistic recognition - is terribly evanescent and fragile, your hollow "15 minutes of fame". I happened to find my own sweet spot at 8x10 format. But even that is way too expensive these days for mere commercialistic motives. Ya gotta love what you're doing for its own sake.

[Michael Kadillak]

For me, I have been in photography for over 50 years and I went down the digital road and just didn't like it. I wasn't having fun. I came back to analog 3 years ago and I'm having fun again.

The beauty of the time we are living is that we have many different ways to photograh. You need to find the style that fits your life. For me it is ULF

Glad that you had the ability to come back to ULF and film Michael and the pure enjoyment it represents. I get that. Long live film.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Those are beautiful Jim - even on my computer monitor. I can only imaging how stunning the prints look like in real life!
Chris

Chris, thanks a lot. They look better in the flesh.

[Tin Can]

I never sell art

Show us yours

This is a really old thread. But I'd be curious to see how format size correlates to the quality of the photograph, and I'm not talking about technical quality, I'm talking about making memorable photographs that sell in high end galleries
I'm sure there are some ULF photographers who produce excellent work, but I suspect that most who delve into it are more into the tinkering aspect, or more into the "bigger is better" mentality similar to "my truck is bigger than yours" mindset.

[John Kasaian]

I can say that ULF size ground glass is an absolute joy to work with.

[Drew Wiley]

Axelwick - ULF is counterintuitive to a "bigger is better" mentality. Nearly all the output is contact print style, whereas giant prints from even tiny format originals are now as ubiquitous as corner Starbucks. In contact printing, one is obviously limited to the size of the original film itself. Anything bigger than 8x10 is classified as ULF, and an 11X14 print ain't all that big! Even a monster 20X24 camera produces a print only equal to a modest enlargement. So you need to identify other motives.

I technically don't even belong in this discussion because I top out at 8X10 format, and even then mainly enlarge it. But anyone who has stood in front of a row of Carleton Watkins mammoth plate albumen prints from well over a century ago covets the ability to do the same thing. There is a particular richness to it.

[Durst L184]

My interest in ULF is related to my interest in contact prints. I will never forget my response to my first contact print (8x10), which was the result of a progression of sorts.

I began photography well after people were already strangely embracing digital photography. But from the very beginning I found inkjet prints extremely unsatisfying, and therefore rejected that medium –and I continue to reject it today. Accordingly, I built a small darkroom and began enlarging 35mm negatives. I was deeply distressed by my early results because I could not understand why my prints did not look anything like my favorite Ansel Adams prints (my earliest influence after my father). I had no idea that Adams was using mostly medium and large format cameras (surely the only real difference between us). After I finished sweeping away the scales that fell from my eyes, I immediately purchased an 8x10 camera. At approximately the same time I discovered Edward Weston, amidol, and contact printing.

I was absolutely stunned by the elegance of a contact print --so stunned that I instantly concluded that the enlarger was just as guilty of crimes against photography as the digital camera and the inkjet print. My experience was so strong that I was convinced that if Edward Weston had not been making contact prints he might very well have died in obscurity. And I also concluded that if Ansel Adams had it within himself to make a masterpiece enlargement (which he obviously did), he also had it within himself to make an even greater contact print. This nearly forgotten view was fortified lately when I fairly recently had an opportunity to see a number of very early Adams contact prints –one of which brought tears to my eyes. I am very curious now why Ansel Adams did not make more contact prints –or even mostly contact prints.

My thinking about enlargers has softened lately to a certain degree, but I still hold that the most satisfying, elegant, and powerful way to make a large photograph is to simply (or perhaps not so simply) use a larger camera, and then make a contact print –hence my interest in cameras larger than 8x10. From my seat, ULF is most valuable as a way to make larger photographs without sacrificing the integrity of a contact print.

[Hugo Zhang]

Axelwick - ULF is counterintuitive to a "bigger is better" mentality. Nearly all the output is contact print style, whereas giant prints from even tiny format originals are now as ubiquitous as corner Starbucks. In contact printing, one is obviously limited to the size of the original film itself. Anything bigger than 8x10 is classified as ULF, and an 11X14 print ain't all that big! Even a monster 20X24 camera produces a print only equal to a modest enlargement. So you need to identify other motives.

I technically don't even belong in this discussion because I top out at 8X10 format, and even then mainly enlarge it. But anyone who has stood in front of a row of Carleton Watkins mammoth plate albumen prints from well over a century ago covets the ability to do the same thing. There is a particular richness to it.

I was in a juried local art exhibition a few weeks ago. About 30-40 photographers among 260 artists in drawings, paintings, 3-d art and photography. I walked around and found out my two 8x10 contact prints are the smallest work among them. Everything else is digital. They were all very beautiful and impressive. To pity me, they gave me a first prize and someone bought my work.

[Drew Wiley]

Don't jump the gun too fast, D184. Masking skills can bring enlargements well within the micro-textural qualities of contact prints. Or one could combine both if they wished. And it can be interesting to try different varieties of printing style using the same negative, which is possible in my case because the largest film I shoot is 8x10, and I have several 8x10 enlargers (including an L184), so can generate both enlargements as well as contact prints from the same image. My contact frame is even pin-registered, in case I decide to use a mask as well in contact. Each style has its own advantages. Bigger (enlarged) brings out more detectable detail, while contact prints have their own special look.

I think it's more about how one views things. A bigger ground glass tens to makes one compose more contemplatively, even when simply sizing up from 4X5 to 8X10. But then depth of field management often requires an adjustment in strategy, so you're really into playing a different ballgame. But alas, at my age I'll have to be content with merely watching the big-league games. If I'm still carrying around even my 8x10 in my 80's, that's good enough for me.

[Durst L184]

A note to Drew.

To be sure, I am very fond of the expression "never say never." And even outside the context of masking efforts aimed at bringing an enlargement closer to the integrity of a contact print, I am indeed interested in the value of enlargement even as enlargement, namely for exploring the value of opening-up a contact print (especially faces) to a small but very effective degree. Still, I think that it is easy to degrade a photograph one tiny compromise at a time, and the contact print is worthy of great respect --this consideration is the primary motivation of my interest in ULF. I mentioned my fairly recent experience with the early Adams contact prints because they are truly sublime. And it's hard for me to imagine enlargement of at least those images by Adams himself in any degree without losing some measure of their intense sublimity.