Irving Penn's 8x10?

[Mark Sawyer]

I ran across this image of Irving Penn with an 8x10 studio camera today and wondered, was this one of his working cameras? Or just something he posed with and never used? Anyone?

[smrtysusan]

Irving Penn was a technical master. He used a variety of cameras. It could be his one of his working cameras. But he most frequently used large format view cameras.

[Denny]

The photo looks like it was taken in the Cuzco photo studio that he rented for a few days in 1948 (info from Worlds in a Small Room). The camera was the original proprietor's. Maybe Penn used it, but I doubt it.

[Ray Van Nes]

I believe Irving used mostly a Rollei twin lens and occasionally for personal work, a 12 x20. The camera picture is indeed the proprietor's. I have the book about his platinum prints and it mentions the trip to Cuzco.

[Mark Sampson]

It's an interesting question. Penn may well have used a studio camera for his studio portraits (if not that one). They would have been well-suited to his portraiture style. I believe that he used Rolleis for location projects like 'Worlds in a Small Room' and perhaps 'Small Trades'.
Last year I saw a large retrospective of his work at the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian) in Washington DC; spectacular work and much of it was obviously LF.
Some research is in order...

[Pieter]

That photo is on the cover of "Irving Penn Centennial." It is a self-portrait, shot in the studio he rented in Cuzco, Peru in 1948. It doesn't look like he is holding a release in his hand, so I believe the camera we see is a prop and he used a camera with a timer to shoot it, not shot in a mirror. I'm guessing a Rolleiflex.
I ran across this image of Irving Penn with an 8x10 studio camera today and wondered, was this one of his working cameras? Or just something he posed with and never used? Anyone?

[Mark Sawyer]

With Denny's clue that the image was from Penn's assignment in Cuzco, I tracked down an image of him using what seems to be his usual TLR on a smaller tripod in the Cuzco studio. But there's a second tantalizing image of the 8x10 in a using position in the same studio, pointed at subjects of a known Penn image. So we can only speculate...

[dsphotog]

Yes, but its square, so my speculation is it's a tlr image.

What a great studio!

[Mark Sawyer]

Yes, but its square, so my speculation is it's a tlr image.

What a great studio!

I suspect you're right, though it's a shame not to indulge yourself with such a camera and lens. I would have, so maybe he did...

And yeah, a classic 19th century skylight studio in 1948 Cuzco, Peru. I suppose they use south light on that side of the equator...

[dasBlute]

What a great studio!

That looks like Martín Chambi's studio...

[Mark Sampson]

Wish I had a studio like that. Seriously, Penn had a 50-year career, so it's likely that he used many different cameras... certainly he used 8x10 quite a bit. Don't forget all those Clinique ads, not to mention his personal still life work. I'll find out who to ask... i think he set up a foundation at the end of his career.

[Lungeh]

I suppose they use south light on that side of the equator...

Cusco is so close to the equator it probably doesn't matter...

181719

The high altitude, low latitude light there is pretty spectacular, though!

[Serge S]

Wish I had a studio like that. Seriously, Penn had a 50-year career, so it's likely that he used many different cameras... certainly he used 8x10 quite a bit. Don't forget all those Clinique ads, not to mention his personal still life work. I'll find out who to ask... i think he set up a foundation at the end of his career.

I remember reading in the foundation literature a listing of his cameras. Pretty sure there was a Deardorff listed & I know he custom made that wide format LF camera he used in the 1980's? The skull pictures...
I think the Art Institute of Chicago and has some info on his cameras as well.
(they have an archive also)
Interesting how he kept experimenting until the end.

Have a great day!

Serge

[Thom Bennett]

from the Penn archives: http://archive.artic.edu/irvingpennarchives/cameras-techniques/

4x5 and 8x10 Deardorff's are mentioned as well as the 12x20 banquet camera. That could have been a Deardorff, a Korona, or a Folmer-Schwing as I think they were the only makers of banquet cameras in that size. Also says he and his assistants made their own view cameras for the street debris project.

If you get within 500 miles of a Penn show make the effort to see the prints in person. What a perfectionist!

[joselsgil]

Back in the early 80's one of the photo galleries in Los Angeles had an exibit of Penn's "Worlds In A Small Room". It listed the camera used by Penn as a TLR Rollei and film was Kodak Tri-X.

[faberryman]

His early work was with a Rolleiflex.