29,000 Photos to Tell a Story

[Brian C. Miller]

Or, why National Geographic wasn't using large format cameras in 2000.

Because that's the average number of photographs for each article in NG. Over 800 rolls of 35mm film per article. For each photograph you saw in the magazine, there were over 1,900 that didn't make it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6bHl8YQSZIE

At least watch the first three minutes. Then Marcus Donner discusses how he did 600 captures to illustrate a story about swing dancing.

Now, how would you do that with large format?



"A velvet hand, a hawk's eye, these we all should have... If the shutter was released at the decisive moment, you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless."
Henri Cartier-Bresson

[jonreid]

Grafmatics

[biedron]

I only watched the first 5 minutes or so, but I was struck by the fact that as a "professional" photographer, it took him quite a few shots with the refinery structure in the background before he realized that made a pretty poor backdrop for the Lindy Hop dancers.

Bob

[bob carnie]

I could be corrected

But In The American West by Richard Avedon, he exposed 17000 8x10 negatives and then culled down to around 110 images for the show.

Having the experience of processing 8x10 film I can attest this is an incredible amount of film to document a story.
I can process 5 8 x10 sheets at a time maximum 10 runs a day.. this would mean 3400 runs of film = about 1 year of processing, not to mention contacts , edit printing and framing.

[Brian Ellis]

Wait a minute! I thought "spray and pray" was a practice that started with digital cameras.

[Jim Jones]

In the 1970s a Playboy photographer mentioned shooting a model 600 times on 8x10 Ektachrome at $6 a pop to get the coverage (or uncoverage) they wanted for a centerspread feature. The model also got a few thousand, and very good publicity (or pubicity?). Then a 36 exposure B&W roll cost about one dollar.

Not all of the NGS photographers were trigger happy. Cole Weston returned from an assignment of underwater photography with just a few rolls of film, much to the shock of the desk-bound experts at NGS.

William Henry Jackson worked all day to get three wet plate negatives in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The darkroom tent was erected at the top of the canyon. Each exposure involved descending to a good location, setting up the camera, returning to the darkroom, preparing the wet plate, descending to the camera, making the exposure, and climbing back to the darkroom to process the plate before it had a chance to dry. Then the process was repeated. It must have been a good life; he lived to be almost 100, although he did eventually use a Leica.

[Kirk Gittings]

Wait a minute! I thought "spray and pray" was a practice that started with digital cameras.

!!!!!!!No way. You mean Auto focus, Auto Exposure and Auto Film Advance actually existed before digital?

[C. D. Keth]

Having the experience of processing 8x10 film I can attest this is an incredible amount of film to document a story.
I can process 5 8 x10 sheets at a time maximum 10 runs a day.. this would mean 3400 runs of film = about 1 year of processing, not to mention contacts , edit printing and framing.

Keep in mind that nearly all of Avedon's processing and printing was done by assistants.

[bob carnie]

So the point being?? thats one hell of a lot of film assistant or no assistant, he still stood in front of the camera and made 17000 exposures, I would like assistants for that gig as well.

Keep in mind that nearly all of Avedon's processing and printing was done by assistants.

[C. D. Keth]

So the point being?? thats one hell of a lot of film assistant or no assistant, he still stood in front of the camera and made 17000 exposures, I would like assistants for that gig as well.

He had assistants for location, too. My point was just that he wasn't shooting 30 or 40 sheets in a day and then going home and developing for 4 hours. Avedon had a veritable factory going at that point.

[bob carnie]

I am very well aware of that aspect. I wonder if many are working this way today.
Personally I shoot about 50 8x10s or 4x5s a day and solarize them myself. I think I am getting into the thousands but it will take awhile to expose 17000 sheets and process. I will get there but probably take me about 5 years.


The dynamics of this type of shoot is mind boggling

He had assistants for location, too. My point was just that he wasn't shooting 30 or 40 sheets in a day and then going home and developing for 4 hours. Avedon had a veritable factory going at that point.

[Ari]

So the point being?? thats one hell of a lot of film assistant or no assistant, he still stood in front of the camera and made 17000 exposures, I would like assistants for that gig as well.

Well, it would take me significantly more time to process and proof 17,000 8x10 sheets than it did for his team of assistants.
You'd need a small team behind you just to make that many exposures of so many different people over so many different places in a limited amount of time; forget the processing, editing, or the rest of it.

Not to take away anything from Mr Avedon, because I am a huge admirer of his work, but I couldn't even conceive of embarking on such a project without a few ace assistants.

[Vaughn]

Someone told me many NG photographers are using high-end video capture these days -- lots of frames to choose from, I guess.

[Maris Rusis]

I suggest that high volume film usage in a professional context is mainly driven by client imperatives. My professional clients were all decisive, clear headed. perceptive people who knew exactly what they wanted from a photo shoot but only AFTER they saw it. I would photograph everything in every possible permutation and combination provided the budget allowed billing out all the film and processing costs. It's one way of getting a professional reputation of always delivering.

[ROL]

OK, so I sat through the whole video and now feel supremely qualified to comment. A couple of things are immediately clear:


I am now an expert at the Lindy Hop.
B&H needs to learn how to edit their videos.
:rolleyes:


That 800 rolls per National Geographic article rang a bell with me (okay, it might be the tinnitus). I seem to recall (as I'm sure a few here had) something like that apparently absurd number being used with Galen Rowell's frosh N.G. photo journalism essay on the Northwest face of Half Dome. At that time many familiar with the climb and Rowell thought the exorbitant use of film to be laughable, especially on a route that had been climbed hundreds of times previously with few new perspectives. I even seem to remember, perhaps erroneously, that Rowell came down during the climb to obtain even more film. But really, none of his detractors published in N.G., either.

[Bob Salomon]

So the point being?? thats one hell of a lot of film assistant or no assistant, he still stood in front of the camera and made 17000 exposures, I would like assistants for that gig as well.

His assistants also did a lot of shooting. Avedon did a lot of supervising.

[bob carnie]

When you say the assistants did the shooting on this project.. are we talking about loading the holders and focus..
If so this is standard practice.

His assistants also did a lot of shooting. Avedon did a lot of supervising.

[Mark Sampson]

Remember that Avedon was perhaps the highest-priced photographer of his generation... and so had the staff to support his large-volume production of 8x10 negs. More like a film-crew or TV commercial production budget than a 'typical' commercial/advertising photographer, much less the lone artist or dedicated amateur. He just took his studio working method on location. There's a good book about the making of Avedon's Western work, can't remember the title or author's name right now.

[Nathan Potter]

When I was doing industrial photography I gradually found that the clients often did not know exactly what they wanted so as Maris mentioned one drifts toward making a larger and larger number of images of essentially the same thing. But in the context of how I work now I can't help thinking that racking off "hundreds" of images of similar subjects just represent gross incompetence. :eek:

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[jnantz]

i heard that pretty soon NG
is going to rent a squadron of
honda assimos to do all their shooting ...
their odds have to be better than 1.000.000 monkeys.

[invisibleflash]

Got to use the right cam for the right job. Some photogs force things and only know one song.

[bob carnie]

Avedon At Work in the American West Laura Wilson Foreword by Larry McMurtry
excellent small book.


Remember that Avedon was perhaps the highest-priced photographer of his generation... and so had the staff to support his large-volume production of 8x10 negs. More like a film-crew or TV commercial production budget than a 'typical' commercial/advertising photographer, much less the lone artist or dedicated amateur. He just took his studio working method on location. There's a good book about the making of Avedon's Western work, can't remember the title or author's name right now.

[Thom Bennett]

Let's say that a NatGeo photographer spent about six months on a story. 29,000/6 months = 4833 frames a month/30 days = 161 images a day. In the old 35mm film days that would be about 4 to 5 rolls a day. Really not that much.

[Brian C. Miller]

Vimeo: 2,877 Frames of February (http://vimeo.com/61088373) by Jonathan DeNicholas. "There are exactly 2877 stills in this film hence the title." (Done with Canon DSLR)

So for LF, let's see, that's 2,877 frames for two minutes, 58 boxes of 50 sheets (or 29 boxes of 100 sheets), or could use x-ray film cut down to size.

Ever since I saw this, I've been thinking of doing something like that with my Fujinon 250 SF lens wide open. I have enough holders for two seconds at a time, maybe even three seconds. Hmmm.....

[Michael_4514]

Avedon spent 6 years on the American West project. That's 2190 days, or 7.7 exposures a day. Obviously he did not work on the project every day, but it wouldn't be that hard to do 30 exposures on any given day, especially with a few assistants to do all the grunt work.

[mandoman7]

Like others here I've had my jobs in the past where shooting a lot of film was advisable. To a large extent, that's about trying to cover the variations in the taste of the recipients down the line IMO, and doesn't necessarily produce stronger imagery. I'm thinking of "Moonrise" and other icons of my early years where there was often just a couple of shots taken. I would say the best approach is the one that gets you immersed in the subject and the resultant image. On the plus side, sometimes taking a lot of shots helps you see, but sometimes it can become of way of insulating yourself from taking responsibility for what you're doing which isn't so great.

[Bill Burk]

There are other good points made in the video, after all he is a professional photographer talking about taking pictures.

Zoom with your feet... I always knew this, that is how I make one lens/one camera work for me. But I do find myself commonly in front of a person at closest focus for my rangefinder because I want to get as much detail in the portrait as possible. I keep forgetting one of the reasons that attracted me to LF. You can place a person as 1 inch of size on a 4x5 frame and still beat a 90mm close-up shot on 35mm.

[Leszek Vogt]

This amount of photos seems excessive. I mean, it smells like inexperience. My HS yearbook editors worked similarly.

Les

[ImSoNegative]

Grafmatics

lol