Alec Soth on 8x10

[tim atherton]

especially the third video:

http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/06/alec-soth-on-video.html

He gets one of the major points I use 8x10 and much prefer it to 4x5 - how the picture looks on the ground glass - that it's like looking at a small, perfect painting and that in a way, actually taking the picture is secondary.

[claudiocambon]

I agree and don't agree.

I do love the "movie" feeling of the large ground glass; I feel like I'm in my own camera obscura, my own world, as Soth says. (BTW you can occasionally get the feeling with a 4x5; I had it with my 1913 Graflex RB, my face comfortable nuzzled against the velvet lined hood, everything else fully blacked out but the almost ghostly image moving on the glass.) I also agree that a lot of the time portaits with smaller cameras are hard because the person doesn't know who to interact with more, you or the camera. Larger cameras definitely create a remove that allows a person to confess directly to the lens; in many situations minimizing one's own presence can really help.

I also agree that the photographs measure the distance between photographer and subject perhaps more than the subject itself, but ultimately I find many contemporary photographers too complacent about this distance. I feel it becomes a way to be safe, not to engage; it's too comfortable.

I should emphasize that I don't mind distance per se. I think, for example, that Walker Evans was a master at photographing both the social and class distance he felt from his subjects, which was huge, and at the same time the very personal sense of shock he felt at how they lived, which was overwhelming. That is why pictures such as the series for "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" are at once almost icy in their gaze (Kirstein called it a "puritanical stare"), and at the same time so immediate and piercing for me. For being so far away and close at the same time, they are very honest pictures.

On the other hand much contemporary work that holds this distance doesn't elaborate on what that distance means for them. I feel like asking, "OK, so you feel removed, but what do feel about being removed?" I don't sense anything particular about it, be it dismay or nostalgia or desire or whatever; I'm not hearing the photographer's voice. There is little contact, or transgression, or crossing boundaries. The pictures are good, but somehow often not dynamic enough for me. Distance as a kind of objectivity doesn't bother me, but distance as neutrality does.

[adrian tyler]

that camera dosen't look to cumbersome, what is it?

[tim atherton]

Phillips Compact II

[adrian tyler]

still, it's the hoders that are gonna kill you i suppose...

[tim atherton]

not if you have managed to doggedly track down (in Spain funnily enough...) plenty of the - admitedly rather fussy - Mido holders :)

(even better if they really do start getting made again...)

With the Compact II I can easily carry 12 or so holders and three or four lenses + bits and pieces in a bike courier shoulder bag or small backpack and the camera sits on the tripod over the other shoulder

[PViapiano]

Tim,

Thanks for the video links...great!

[adrian tyler]

so... the only thing left is to import film and pay for processing!

still... maybe one day... even managed to sell a few pictures this year!

[Gordon Moat]

Reminds me a little of Craig McDean, who also shoots lots of 8x10, except mostly for fashion and lifestyle photography. One comment of his in Picture magazine was that he liked shooting 8x10 because it gave him the best preview of magazine full page size. He also shoots 4x5 and sometimes an RZ67.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[Vaughn]

He gets one of the major points I use 8x10 and much prefer it to 4x5 - how the picture looks on the ground glass - that it's like looking at a small, perfect painting and that in a way, actually taking the picture is secondary.


Using a 4x5 or 5x7 is like reading a paperback. An 8x10 is reading the first edition hardcover edition. An 11x14+ is the coffeetable book.

Vaughn

PS...that said, since I am so near-sighted, that a 4x5 without my glasses and a 6" focusing distance to the GG is pretty nice.

Also, I have hung out under the darkcloth in busy areas of Yosemite Valley just enjoying the off-the-wall comments of the tourists passing by!

[paulr]

Tim, great links, thanks.


I also agree that the photographs measure the distance between photographer and subject perhaps more than the subject itself, but ultimately I find many contemporary photographers too complacent about this distance. I feel it becomes a way to be safe, not to engage; it's too comfortable.
....
much contemporary work that holds this distance doesn't elaborate on what that distance means for them. I feel like asking, "OK, so you feel removed, but what do feel about being removed?" I don't sense anything particular about it, be it dismay or nostalgia or desire or whatever; I'm not hearing the photographer's voice. There is little contact, or transgression, or crossing boundaries. The pictures are good, but somehow often not dynamic enough for me. Distance as a kind of objectivity doesn't bother me, but distance as neutrality does.

Interesting points, Claudio. I'm not sure if this criticism applies to Soth's work, but it applies to a lot that I've been seeing lately.

[claudiocambon]

Tim, great links, thanks.



Interesting points, Claudio. I'm not sure if this criticism applies to Soth's work, but it applies to a lot that I've been seeing lately.

Yeah, I didn't really get into it in relation to Soth's work because a) I haven't spent enough time with it and b) I am hesitant to pronounce judgment on other people's work in public settings. I would hate to have someone write off all my years of work with a snide sentence or two, and I think everyone (minus perhaps the egregiously arrogant!) deserves a fair and nuanced assessment which ultimately acknowledges its own subjective standpoint.

[adrian tyler]

i must admit i found it dissapointing that the fundamental question, what's the point of a portrait?, was answerd by the thesis that you learn so little about the sitter and you only learn about your own reaction and the space between you and them...

15 minutes in the prado museum certainly dispells this thesis for me, but old masters aside, a great photographic portait not only works around this distance but surely draws on in the the very soul of the sitter.

i just saw the exhibition "ordinary citizens, the victims of stalin", for example, a group of about 100 mugshots of condemed people before execution, i found the portraits so powerful and moving that and distance between us became non existent, i supposed i could feel everything that the portraits revealed.

certainly the i-sense (or ego) in our society is something that is nurtured and indeed promoted from a very early age, but art can remove this distance from ourselves... of course if this "distance" is your intent and people dig-on-it who am i to disagree.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/adriantyler/sets/72157600381276933/

[ifer]

hmm... i am starting to do portraits on my 4x5 camera and i came across this thread.
i am just curious... what is this 'distance' that you guys are talking about?

[Lazybones]

hmm... i am starting to do portraits on my 4x5 camera and i came across this thread.
i am just curious... what is this 'distance' that you guys are talking about?

About 8 feet.:D :D :D :D