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Heroique
29-Jun-2019, 11:43
Just for fun, a matter of word association.

I'm curious what first occurs to you when you hear the word "purity" in the context of LF photography.

Careful! Before you reply, be aware that you may reveal more about yourself than you wish. ;^)

Not sure why, but for me, it's the purity of the water I'm using to mix darkroom chemicals.

What came to your mind?

Tin Can
29-Jun-2019, 11:44
Here the only rule is 4X5 and above...

Heroique
29-Jun-2019, 12:23
Also the pure air (so far) of Washington state's Olympic and Cascade mountains, in advance of this season's inevitable forest fires. Come mid and late summer, I can count on far subjects disappearing in the smoke and haze.

Larry Gebhardt
29-Jun-2019, 12:36
Repressive people dictating how we should do large format.

LabRat
29-Jun-2019, 13:36
Purity of essence, essence of purity, purity + essence, ytirup fo ecnesse, etc etc etc etc...

What film was that from??? ;-)

Steve K

Tin Can
29-Jun-2019, 14:16
Dr. Strangelove

paulbarden
29-Jun-2019, 14:49
I have never associated the word "purity" with large format photography - no idea why I would.

Jac@stafford.net
29-Jun-2019, 14:57
Izaak Walton Hotel, Glacier Park, pre-season, sleeping with a window open. Heaven on earth.

Picture here. (https://scontent-msp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56448936_1025350670993795_3241883697758076928_o.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_oc=AQkcpBdGT_NOZZDCb7ly3-722fXRvLfeqbud3azBJdtnYWjGxpLfwMFESDEY5AjXLK8&_nc_ht=scontent-msp1-1.xx&oh=8e4e8a06b616b79e682fe63bc00ae5a2&oe=5DBD4D14)

BrianShaw
29-Jun-2019, 15:40
Virginity. The loss of which happens when the camera exposes its first image. Beyond that event... no purity.

Vaughn
29-Jun-2019, 15:58
The quality of light.

Ted R
29-Jun-2019, 16:43
???????????? Saint Ansel ??????????????

John Layton
30-Jun-2019, 04:39
For me LF purity means that I utilize visible light and/or (when lights are off) liquid chemistry for the entire process. Helps keep me honest.

Willie
30-Jun-2019, 05:59
Edward Weston.

bob carnie
30-Jun-2019, 06:23
The purity of knowing that when going into the darkroom something is being created.

Bernice Loui
30-Jun-2019, 06:50
Myopic Orthodoxy

paulbarden
30-Jun-2019, 08:21
Myopic Orthodoxy

+1

Bernice Loui
30-Jun-2019, 08:23
Priesthood... and it's cult-tribe-group followers.


Bernice

jp
30-Jun-2019, 08:51
Dr. Strangelove

Same here.. You talk about purity of LF and I think you are a crazy Dr. Strangelove character.

Pere Casals
30-Jun-2019, 08:52
IMHO LF Purity can be seen from several points of view, and it's also something very personal.

...but an artist comes to my mind when thinking in LF purity, Sally Mann. Departing from raw chem and glass sheets and ending in the most impressive silver prints many have seen on a wall.

Fortunately we have many masters of the past that were also masters of their tools and reached impressive artistic levels. Purity is something we can have inside, and it can be learned from masters.


IMHO this not about printing in the darkroom or hybrid, to me it's more a mental state. A full optic workflow with no digitalization is not better or worse, but I find that image handcrafting helps reaching that mental state, just a personal opinion.

faberryman
30-Jun-2019, 08:53
For me LF purity means that I utilize visible light and/or (when lights are off) liquid chemistry for the entire process. Helps keep me honest.Honest?

Tin Can
30-Jun-2019, 09:05
Google that set of letters and all kinds of science pops up

Including my eye problem, causation with possible prescription

i.e. too much reading when young

Guilty!

Religion has nothing to do with it





Myopic Orthodoxy

William Whitaker
30-Jun-2019, 09:25
Makes me wonder why I'm still a member of this forum.

Tin Can
30-Jun-2019, 09:27
Please don't quit.

We cannot let the Dark Slide win!


Makes me wonder why I'm still a member of this forum.

BrianShaw
30-Jun-2019, 10:15
Oh my...

Bob Sawin
30-Jun-2019, 10:57
Nuns with LF cameras...

Heroique
30-Jun-2019, 11:14
... IMHO this not about printing in the darkroom or hybrid, to me it's more a mental state ... I find that image handcrafting helps reaching that mental state, just a personal opinion.

I should have appended an easy poll – a choice between a physical or abstract association.

For me, purity is more physical, like darkroom water or the air I'm shooting through.

More interesting, it seems that those with mental (ideal, spiritual, abstract) associations are either repelled or attracted by them. Bernice seems repelled by them ("Priesthood," "Myopic orthodoxy") and Pere reaches for them as an ideal.

I feel each reaction at times.

Leigh
30-Jun-2019, 11:21
I'm curious what first occurs to you when you hear the word "purity" in the context of LF photography.
I've never heard the word "purity" in that context before.

- Leigh

Pere Casals
30-Jun-2019, 16:10
More interesting, it seems that those with mental (ideal, spiritual, abstract) associations.

This is difficult to explain, but imagine you are making La Pietà today... You can make a digital model, then using 5-Axis machining, if the sculpture is not sound you can modify the digital file and "print" it again with a click.

Michelangelo Buonarroti did it in a different way, the sculpture was inside the boulder and he only had to remove the stone on it. Quite easy, just hitting the boulder with a hammer. This is a kind of purity.

Rainymac
30-Jun-2019, 20:28
Purity - that split second when you see your negative for the first time and it makes your heart sing. As a newbie it doesn't happen often but it's a joy when it does. There are so many factors that contribute to that moment.

John Kasaian
1-Jul-2019, 09:09
Making a beautiful photo using severely limited (by modern standards) materials/ technology.

John Kasaian
1-Jul-2019, 09:10
This is difficult to explain, but imagine you are making La Pietà today... You can make a digital model, then using 5-Axis machining, if the sculpture is not sound you can modify the digital file and "print" it again with a click.

Michelangelo Buonarroti did it in a different way, the sculpture was inside the boulder and he only had to remove the stone on it. Quite easy, just hitting the boulder with a hammer. This is a kind of purity.

I like this!

faberryman
1-Jul-2019, 09:22
Religion has nothing to do with it.
Religion has everything to do about it.

Pere Casals
1-Jul-2019, 11:11
Religion has everything to do about it.

Frank, this is not about religion, but about some poetry.

The image is in the light, it leaves a footprint in the medium. We can be respectful with that light and enjoy that authenticity.

Other people may prefer filling an SD card with many raw files, and be pushing buttons in the back of a camera, navigating in the menus to get a very good image.

YMMV.

faberryman
1-Jul-2019, 11:19
Frank, this is not about religion, but about some poetry.

The image is in the light, it leaves a footprint in the medium. We can be respectful with that light and enjoy that authenticity.

Other people may prefer filling an SD card with many raw files, and be pushing buttons in the back of a camera, navigating in the menus to get a very good image.

YMMV.

Like I said, it has everything to do with religion. Notice the mocking button pushing references.

Heroique
1-Jul-2019, 12:18
…This is not about religion, but about some poetry … YMMV.

A thoughtful post, plus I enjoyed your earlier comparison between Michelangelo's imagined figure inside the un-chiseled stone, and the LFer's visualized image before shutter snap. A purity of sorts in each case.

You've mentioned poetry – below is another take on the association between LF purity and poets…


???????????? Saint Ansel ??????????????

If AA were reading this thread, perhaps he'd reply with a variation of the following remark to a friend about purity:


"The significance of the objects of nature, the significance which concerns poets, dreamers, conservationists and citizens-at-large, relates to the 'presence of nature.' This is mood, the magic of personal experience, the awareness of a certain purity of condition." (Source: Letter to William Colby, the conservationist, 1952 – not William Colby, the 1970's Director of Central Intellgence!)

AA's role as LF photographer falls, I think, under each of the general groups he names.

Michael Graves
1-Jul-2019, 12:21
Royal Pan film in DK50.

Pere Casals
1-Jul-2019, 12:32
Like I said, it has everything to do with religion. Notice the mocking button pushing references.

Frank, that potential "moking" is because of my personal preferences, not because of a religion. Some may prefer the amazing power of digital technology, other simply don't need/want that at all, and other may like both ways. Not that difficult...

Pere Casals
1-Jul-2019, 12:42
the un-chiseled stone...

Please, let me post it:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Michelangelo%27s_Pieta_5450_cropncleaned_edit.jpg/1024px-Michelangelo%27s_Pieta_5450_cropncleaned_edit.jpg

Mark Sawyer
1-Jul-2019, 12:54
I take Large Format Purity very seriously. I only use distilled water for the developer...

Doremus Scudder
1-Jul-2019, 13:15
This is difficult to explain, but imagine you are making La Pietà today... You can make a digital model, then using 5-Axis machining, if the sculpture is not sound you can modify the digital file and "print" it again with a click.

Michelangelo Buonarroti did it in a different way, the sculpture was inside the boulder and he only had to remove the stone on it. Quite easy, just hitting the boulder with a hammer. This is a kind of purity.

The simplest tools require the greatest skill. But is that purity?

Purity implies a thing uncontaminated, undiluted, without extra ingredients. Pure steel is a contradiction in terms; it is an alloy.

Pure can also mean simple, reduced to only essential elements (in the Aristotelian sense).

One could, I suppose, think of a process reduced to its bare essentials as "pure." In this sense, Michelangelo's and Edward Weston's methods could be considered close to this ideal, but then, it's only the process that ends up being "pure," not necessarily the images themselves, since the subject matter can't be so easily reconciled with this concept of purity.

I wonder whether the word can even accurately be applied to image-making. Are there a lot of impure images out there with which we can contrast a pure one?

Expressing a concept or idea succinctly and with the greatest economy of means might be considered pure. But then, is that necessarily better? I don't think we can make that value judgment easily either.

I don't think much about "purity" when I photograph, rather expressiveness. I like economy of means and try to be direct and unmanipulative when image-making, but I don't think that makes me or my images pure in any sense I'm familiar with.

Best,

Doremus

Heroique
1-Jul-2019, 13:24
Please, let me post The Pieta.

Very nice example, and to develop the point, one might compare this youthful work to his very different visualization of these same two people, in his Rondanini Pieta (below), from the last years of his life.

The two works are much like my separate LF visualizations of an eternal red oak I've been watching and shooting for decades, struggling to capture the purity I feel in each case, trying to express it differently each time, but always coming-up a bit short of the aspiration. They're impure.

Yet when I hear "purity," my first reaction remains water for darkroom chemicals and the mountain air before our seasonal fires arrive. Must be the materialist side of me.

192953

Pere Casals
1-Jul-2019, 13:41
I wonder whether the word can even accurately be applied to image-making. Are there a lot of impure images out there with which we can contrast a pure one?

Doremus, IMHO this word can be used to express a lot of different things.

To me, applied to image-making, it's about the way we approach to the subject, and about the connection between photographer and subject. Recently I watched this interview to Paula Chamlee : https://vimeo.com/61781929

In this sense, "purity" is not at all about the tools we use, but I don't no why... to me it looks that crafting images with the optic workflow help approaching the subject in that way, of course this is a completely personal opinion, and I've complete respect for those doing that with an smartphone, for example.

Peter Collins
2-Jul-2019, 09:14
Bernice's "Myopic Orthodoxy," +1^^2! (Yes!)

Cor
3-Jul-2019, 07:49
First thing which poped up in my mind, guess some images were shot on LF....

https://tinyurl.com/yy3zrqgu

Oh well..

Best,

Cor

jnantz
3-Jul-2019, 14:09
What a weird thread.

Vaughn
3-Jul-2019, 14:16
What a weird thread.
Weird questions lead to weird threads. :cool:

BrianShaw
3-Jul-2019, 15:38
Weird questions lead to weird threads. :cool:

But the wouldn’t be quite as weird if we didn’t participate!

Vaughn
3-Jul-2019, 17:02
But the wouldn’t be quite as weird if we didn’t participate!
Weird is good and entertaining, aint it?! Always amazes me (but really shouldn't) to read complaints about how silly or unneccesary a thread is by people participating in the same thread -- people do not have to participate! :cool:

Bernice Loui
3-Jul-2019, 17:05
Define Weird?

Bernice

Vaughn
3-Jul-2019, 17:08
Define Weird? Bernice

Strange, uncanny, would be the ones I'd use.

Bernice Loui
3-Jul-2019, 17:10
Both words are relative to ?


Bernice



Strange, uncanny, would be the ones I'd use.

Mark Sawyer
3-Jul-2019, 17:31
Weird? Us? :rolleyes:

BrianShaw
3-Jul-2019, 17:35
Both words are relative to ?


Bernice

Not weird. :)

Vaughn
3-Jul-2019, 18:42
Both words are relative to ?Bernice
To the concept that the word 'purity' has any significant association with the words 'Large Format'. As the OP wrote:
Just for fun, a matter of word association.

I believe this thread came into existence because of the use of the word 'purity' in the thread about cropping. It appears that a few people cannot comprehend peoples' decision not to crop and assume it must be due some sort of idea of purity of formats or some such silly thing.

Some of us are weird -- some of us are way too normal.:cool:

Bernice Loui
3-Jul-2019, 18:53
1 = -1

;)
Bernice


Not weird. :)

ic-racer
3-Jul-2019, 18:54
For some reason when every I read the word "purity" I can't help but think of this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyj_D2ivwS4

Heroique
3-Jul-2019, 20:03
…I believe this thread came into existence because of the use of the word 'purity' in the thread about cropping. It appears that a few people cannot comprehend peoples' decision not to crop and assume it must be due some sort of idea of purity of formats or some such silly thing. Some of us are weird -- some of us are way too normal.:cool:

Vaughn's guess might not be the reason I started this thread, but it's just as good, maybe better! (And some of the replies are "weird" indeed, quite entertaining, even instructive.)

The real reason? I'd been musing on AA's LF-related remark about purity. You can find it in post #35, but no need to travel backwards – I'll re-post it here:


"The significance of the objects of nature, the significance which concerns poets, dreamers, conservationists and citizens-at-large, relates to the 'presence of nature.' This is mood, the magic of personal experience, the awareness of a certain purity of condition." (Source: Letter to William Colby, the conservationist, 1952 – not William Colby, the 1970's Director of Central Intellgence!)

So, for those reading this thread who remain shy about replying:

"LF Purity."

Quick – what occurs to you? First thought, best thought! ;)

Bernice Loui
3-Jul-2019, 20:30
What memories were created by a strong emotional response, then what has triggered the recall of that emotionally created memory?

Part of what makes Fotography and all related forms of 2D images is often tied to an emotional response created memory.

And yes, I'm taking the "Feelings and Emotions" out this for very specific reasons.


Bernice





The real reason? I'd been musing on AA's LF-related remark about purity. You can find it in post #35, but no need to travel backwards – I'll re-post it here:


"The significance of the objects of nature, the significance which concerns poets, dreamers, conservationists and citizens-at-large, relates to the 'presence of nature.' This is mood, the magic of personal experience, the awareness of a certain purity of condition." (Source: Letter to William Colby, the conservationist, 1952 – not William Colby, the 1970's Director of Central Intellgence!)

So, for those reading this thread who remain shy about replying:

"LF Purity."

Quick – what occurs to you? First thought, best thought! ;)

John Kasaian
3-Jul-2019, 21:52
So, for those reading this thread who remain shy about replying:

"LF Purity."

Quick – what occurs to you? First thought, best thought! ;)

Julie London.
I don't know why, but
definitely Julie London comes to mind.
And Ringers Solution.

DDrake
3-Jul-2019, 22:00
William Eggleston, from the afterword to The Democratic Forest (1989):

"...It was one of those occasions when there was no picture there. It seemed like nothing... . I started forcing myself to take pictures of the earth, where it had eroded thirty or forty feet from the road. There were a few weeds. I began to realize that soon I was taking some pretty good pictures, so I went further into the woods and up a little hill, and got well into an entire roll of film. ...

"... [S]omeone said, 'What have you been photographing today, Eggleston?'

"'Well, I've been photographing democratically,' I replied.

"'But what have you been taking pictures of?' ...

"'Well, just woods and dirt, a little asphalt here and there.'

"I was treating thing democratically, which of course didn't mean a thing to the people I was talking to. ...

"I am afraid there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the center... They want something obvious. The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot.' The word has never had any meaning."

***
Of course, Eggleston is not a LF photographer. But others working similar territory are (Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld, for example, but there are many others). They use the deep focus and resolution inherent in LF to 'interfere' with the supposed object (or subject) as much or more than Eggleston.

If large format 'purity' is exemplified by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, presumably these post-1965 photographers are the dirty heretics.

Vaidotas
4-Jul-2019, 00:20
Unproductivity of LF medium leads to very personal approach. Countless possibilities are distilled in to very few frames in comparison with mobile or digital medium. And these few are definitely ultimately personal.

Pere Casals
4-Jul-2019, 01:47
Unproductivity of LF medium leads to very personal approach. Countless possibilities are distilled in to very few frames in comparison with mobile or digital medium. And these few are definitely ultimately personal.

But beyond LF "unproductivity advantage" LF has other unique features, and also other drawbacks. Anyway IMHO it is true that "Unproductivity of LF" many times imposes a more personal approach, but of course a good photographer may sport that "very personal approach" even when he shots with an smartphone.

Also "Definitely ultimately personal", I feel happy when approaching a subject with a view camera.

jnantz
4-Jul-2019, 05:05
Weird is good and entertaining, aint it?! Always amazes me (but really shouldn't) to read complaints about how silly or unneccesary a thread is by people participating in the same thread -- people do not have to participate! :cool:

Naaaah, I wasn't complainin' and have been entertained by the 8pages of weird. Frank Zappa in the background is a good background music to this thread :)
I'd say purity >> clearheadedness, cause its easy to forget to do something really simple and then the exposure will be FUBAR.


Unproductivity of LF medium leads to very personal approach. Countless possibilities are distilled in to very few frames in comparison with mobile or digital medium. And these few are definitely ultimately personal.

IDK Vaidotas
I think any artform leads to personal approaches whether it is organic based or electronics based or a combination of the two. Its hard to be free of baggage when one is expressing oneself, and that baggage makes things complicated or .. not.

Vaughn
4-Jul-2019, 08:05
I'll stick with the purity of light...especially filtered through centuries of redwood growth.

BrianShaw
4-Jul-2019, 08:41
That’s a nice example of purity of light, Vaughn.

Vaughn
4-Jul-2019, 09:17
That’s a nice example of purity of light, Vaughn.
Thanks -- uncompressed and wild!

Merg Ross
4-Jul-2019, 09:52
That’s a nice example of purity of light, Vaughn.

Yes, almost like being there. Well done!

Heroique
4-Jul-2019, 11:25
I'll stick with the purity of light...especially filtered through centuries of redwood growth.

The redwood filter is a key part of my kit too, up here in Wash. state. ;^)

I love the details throughout the grove's wide contrast range.

Is your "purity of light," when you find it, easier or more difficult to manage?

faberryman
4-Jul-2019, 11:34
Is your "purity of light," when you find it, easier or more difficult to manage?
Difficult. There is so little of it to manage in a redwood grove.

Vaughn
4-Jul-2019, 12:04
The redwood filter is a key part of my kit too, up here in Wash. state. ;^)

I love the details throughout the wide contrast range.

Is your "purity of light," when you find it, easier or more difficult to manage?
The hardest part can be to stop just marveling at the light and actually setting up the camera. I have been enjoying the 'redwood filter' photographically for over 40 years. First making silver gelatin prints, I began looking for a way to best express the light I was experiencing. I found that carbon printing comes the closest so far.

In this image, the light falling behind the redwood is coming directly onto the background trees (no clouds). There is a drop-off behind the redwood 20 or so feet down to Bull Creek, so the sky is open behind the redwood before the giants begin again, and behind me is an incredible grove of more ancients. The 8x10 film was given what others might consider to be N+2 or N+3 development or something like that, but what I consider normal. I let the light expand as it wanted (thus my 'no compression' post earlier).

The carbon printing process will reproduce whatever one has on the negative -- of course, one has to be careful that the light doesn't throw too big of a party and block themselves up. What does not show on the screen is the raised relief of the image and the redwood being physically separated from the backlight by rising above the paper surface.

PS -- for scale the center redwood is probably 20 feet in diameter...give of take a few feet.

Vaughn
4-Jul-2019, 12:08
Difficult. There is so little of it to manage in a redwood grove.
But tons of contrast...even on overcast days. When I was silver printing, I would only photograph on overcast (high fog) days. One of the driving forces behind teaching myself carbon printing was to be able to photograph the light I was experiencing on sunny days under the redwoods.

Heroique
4-Jul-2019, 12:58
But tons of contrast...even on overcast days.

Yes, this rain forest of big trees was on a deeply overcast day.

Yet the scene contrast makes it look sunny.

A situation where an uncoated lens can be useful. Alas, my Schneider 110mm and Type 55 film didn't help the situation.

193046

Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
Polaroid Type 55
Epson 4990/Epson Scan

Vaughn
4-Jul-2019, 13:44
Yes, this rain forest of big trees was on a deeply overcast day.

Yet the scene contrast makes it look sunny.

A situation where an uncoated lens can be useful. Alas, my Schneider 110mm and Type 55 film didn't help the situation.

All it needs is the wet smell of the rainforest!

Tin Can
4-Jul-2019, 13:47
Now that's practical advise.

Thank you




But tons of contrast...even on overcast days. When I was silver printing, I would only photograph on overcast (high fog) days. One of the driving forces behind teaching myself carbon printing was to be able to photograph the light I was experiencing on sunny days under the redwoods.