Music and the 8x10

[John Kasaian]

I took my brood to the Fresno State/Boise State game tonight, sat in the rain, drank beer and watched two good teams play a great football game. The marching band was very good too, and during the pregame show I had a thought I wanted to share with you.

Watching the sousaphone players (17 of them!) and the bass drum players (I lost count) strutting their stuff in the rain I thought to myself 'Why would anyone want to march around with such a big, heavy, and unwieldy instrument compared to the clarinets, trumpets, flutes, saxes and cymbals, trombones and field snares?

ThenI heard the music! Certainly the other instruments were sweet sounding, but the Sousaphones were powerhouses, and the bass drums were like thunder. Why would anyone want to mess with a big, heavy, unwieldy instrument? Because the results are worth it! The music was dynamic and agressive on account of those 'big guns' The musicians themselves practically danced across the gridiron (really) not staggering under the wieght of their instruments as one might expect. The burden was well worth the effort. The performance spoke with such energy it shook my fillings!

I kind of feel that way about 8x10s. I wonder how passionate other 8x10 shooters are about the format? I ask because I'm contemplating taking my 'dorff sking this year instead of the 5x7 Speed Graphic....why? Because the conveniece of a lighter hand held camera just dosen't seem to match the "sound" I'm looking for that the 8x10 delivers. I need a sousaphone or bass drum!

What are your opinions/ thoughts?

[David A. Goldfarb]

As a trombone player since the age of 10, I guess I'm in the habit of carrying a big, unwieldy thing around.

[Oren Grad]

My piano is an ULF instrument. I can't carry it anywhere. But the results are worth it!

[paulr]

if you play the big, heavy, unwieldy instrument that no one else wants to play, you can always get a gig.

makes a lot of sense for musicians. why was it again that photographers do it??

[Steve Feldman]

John,

Sometimes, size does matter. Small camera (35mm) - small print. Try to print too large - image breaks down. Medium camera (120) - medium print. Prints get larger and sharper. But leaves you wanting more. Large camera (4x5) - large print - sharper still. You're there. Then you think - I could be sharper. Larger camera (5x7) - smaller print. Contact print. That's the ticket. Now that's sharp. Can 8x10 be far away?

BTW - I played the bassoon in junior high. Not well, but I loved the sound. A tuned elephant fart. Ah, but what a fart it was!

[Steven Barall]

Try a Hasselblad with an iPod.

[Kevin M Bourque]

I'm a bass player and I own half a sound system and a pickup truck. Even if I couldn't play a lick I would always be able to get a gig.

[j.e.simmons]

I'm sure a Sousaphone, even an all- brass one, doesn't weigh as much as my C-1 and Zone VI standard tripod. Musicians (and I'm a bass trombone player) are pikers.

juan

[Bob Younger]

Ahhhhhh, can contact printing from a 20x24 be far behind for you?

But I digress....many years ago (1979) I went to a well known photographer's workshop in Yosemite. Though access to that well known photographer was limited by your willingness to crash through the phalanx of groupies surrounding him, there were other photographers there who were more than happy to spend even lengthy times with attendees. One of those was Morley Baer. He set up his old, reasonably beat-up 8x10 at a typical Yosemite scene and allowed several of us small format (4x5) photographers to gaze at the ground glass. It was at that moment that I decided I would someday make my photographs with an 8x10. I've been through a Calumet (the green machine); a Deardorff; and now I use an Ebony. My backpack weighs 60-80 pounds depending upon how much water and film I carry (and whether I take the 600mm). I did finally adopt a graphite tripod.

There is nothing that compares to either the act of making a photograph on an 8x10, or seeing a large print that is almost indistiguishable from a contact.

I've never looked back.

Bob Younger
Terra Nova Photography

[Jon Wilson]

Maybe that is the early beginnings of my LF bug...I played Alto Sax through High School, including the Marching Band. Now my project will be replacing my V8 bellows.
BTW, I hope at least you enjoyed the game...being a BSU fan from Boise...I was truly disappointed....kinda like when the light leak is discovered on the 8x10 negative or the Quik-Load failed and you learned of its short coming AFTER the trip and having saved soooooo much carry weight by using the quick loads. Yes, 8x10 or even LF in general is like music! I just hate it when I hit that "sour" note!

[Al Seyle]

I'm in it for the fine details, too. In fact I'm in it for the whole darn orchestra, pipe organ and chorus -- and I'm the composer and conductor to boot! (Delusions of grandeur notwithstanding.) ~:o)

[David Luttmann]

All of a sudden, it appears an 8x10 would be easier to carry than my drum set!

[David G. Gagnon]

So then, Minox users would be the piccolo players?

:-)

DG

[Ed K.]

The violin can be passionate and rich too, yet play on a roof top. A group of musicians with spoons and wine glasses can often make a marvelous mix. And most portable and direct, the human voice can travel virtually anywhere a person may be. The imagination, the mind is perhaps the greatest instrument of all; it is the more intimate conductor and often the secret obsessive slave driver or critic. In the hands of a great player, nearly any instrument can bring joy or sadness, or take us to deep feeling.

- confessions of a record player

[Brian Sims]

Maybe there is a similarity between a sousaphone player and us LF photographers. However, I've never seen a sousaphone player with his or her instrument stuffed into/onto a backpack, 20 miles and 5,000 feet of rocky elevation from the nearest road, not knowing whether to quickly set up the tent or shoot two exposures of those threatening storm clouds scaping the tops of yonder mountains. Obviously, musicians are more evolved with larger brains.

[David A. Goldfarb]

A good bass player can always get a gig, but somehow, most kinds of ensembles mysteriously seem to manage without a low brass section.

[Ed K.]

Brian,
Hannibal had his elephants, and St. Adams had a mule, no? Even today, one can take a mule or horse packing from Lake Sabrina into the John Muir wilderness. They said they would carefully pack an 8x10 and get it there safely this coming spring. Don't know about skiing with an 8x10 view camera, probably better to get an 8x10 point and shot from Peter Gowland...

David - just as there are digtial cameras, so too there are synthesizers for brass!

[Ed K.]

St. Adams packing it, with comments on his gear at PBS:
PBS American Experience - Ansel Adams (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ansel/sfeature/sf_packing.html)
OT:Has anyone seen that show?

[e]

I love the tonalities of 12x20/7x17. And finally in the last year or so I got my dream drum set...Gretsch, the set with the biggest most magical sound! After a lifetime as a professional musician I've tried them all but Gretsch is the top in force, speed and character of sound. It's good to use an instrument that totally resonates with your being. Even this week I just received a shipment of Tibetan singing bowls from Kathmandu, Nepal for meditation. There is one large bowl (has to be several hundred years old) in that batch that I have been negotiating for a year for, very rare with a phenomenal sound that I'm elated to have and play. There is really nothing that compares to a quality instrument that is way more than the sum of it's parts. There is nothing like quality for inspiration. Emile.

[Ralph Barker]

I tried attaching a Victrola to my 8x10, so I could hear the music, but I kept confusing its hand crank with the focusing knob. ;-)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Re: synthesized brass--well, if you bury it really deeply in the mix, sometimes it isn't absolutely dreadful.

[paulr]

"All of a sudden, it appears an 8x10 would be easier to carry than my drum set!"

and i've never known a drummer who was in less than three bands, with others begging.

singers and guitarists, on the other hand ....

[jonathan smith]

Among other things, I have a contra-alto clarinet that's about 6 feet tall. I don't play it all that much, but when I do, it's amazing. It makes your eyeballs vibrate and teeth shake. It's something I could easily build my life around. But I also build my life around an 8x10 camera, so, there you go.