Large Format Landscapes

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Originally Posted by darkrat

I always need the gaze of a third party to better interpret my own photographs. The foregroung is so big because I like to give breath to the eye, although the result is actually a bit "weak". Live there is a greater three-dimensionality, especially "entering" in the woods.
Thanks for the tips!

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I absolutely understand now. I would say, however, that the 3-dimensionality often tricks us into taking images that aren't as strong as they could be, or in some cases, outright failures (yours is not a failure by any means, fyi, it's a strong image, but in my estimation just needs some cropping).

All that nonsense aside, I've fallen into this trap a lot of times, and still do occasionally. What I've taught myself to do is to look with one eye closed. Or through a hole I create with my fingers. That stops the dimensional trickery that your brain does to you. I came upon this myself, but apparently Ansel Adams also wrote it in his book "The Camera." You start to flatten it out by seeing with only one eye, and then it's a truer representation of what will end up on the paper.

I'm sorry, I don't know if this actually helped you any, but I hope it did.

I generally consider corners and edges most. When looking at the print, I find things at thirds so that one might think I focused on those instead.

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Originally Posted by panoral

Thank you so much.

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Mohammad, your photo is quite nice, too . . . but I was trying to comment on the photo by mrzine in post #11845. Apologies for my gaff.

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Originally Posted by krishmandal

I think it's fantastic. I mistook the framing when I stopped scrolling at a point that made the frame a perfect square, so I understood eventually to keep scrolling. The picture stands just fine as framed, and can even stand a different format (square!) so I think you've got two perfectly good images here!

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Thanks for your comment. Sorry for my tardiness. I've been traveling and replying to this forum with my iPad is a pain :-). I was really happy to have achieved great depth-of-field in this image. Makes me feel like I'm "getting it". Now if I'd only stop making stupid mistakes like pulling the dark slide with the lens open, I'll be golden!

I think you're right that this image works as a square (either top or bottom). Things don't usually work out that nicely.

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Originally Posted by mathomas

Now if I'd only stop making stupid mistakes like pulling the dark slide with the lens open, I'll be golden!

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I've been shooting for a long time and while LF is something I let go of for a while, and just got back into recently, I still makes "stupid mistakes." The thing is, this format takes patience, and sometimes quick thinking, two things that take a lot of practice if you want them to be present at the same time. There are a lot of factors to consider, and a process that you must create for your own camera, and your own style, and it all gets muddied up once you get the "oooh, ooh, oooh!" feeling that your image is about to be taken away from you because the light changes, or the wind picks up, or someone comes by and says, "Nice camera, mind if I watch while you work?"

I was photographing a rather simple shot in NYC but the camera was tilted up at a skyscraper. I get a lot of attention on the streets because of the LF camera. And it happened. Someone spoke to me, and I blundered. I pulled the dark slide on the wrong side of the cartridge, and stood there holding the slide and talking to the person. And then I realized I just ruined a sheet of film. I guess you can say I was driven to distraction by all the attention someone gave me because of my camera. :)

Mistakes are not stupid. It's just that they exist in many forms and are so opportunistic (if that's a word) that they can manifest themselves in more than just one at any time. Developing habits of operational sequences can help, but there are no guarantees.

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Originally Posted by krishmandal

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I was photographing a rather simple shot in NYC but the camera was tilted up at a skyscraper. I get a lot of attention on the streets because of the LF camera. And it happened. Someone spoke to me, and I blundered. I pulled the dark slide on the wrong side of the cartridge, and stood there holding the slide and talking to the person. And then I realized I just ruined a sheet of film. I guess you can say I was driven to distraction by all the attention someone gave me because of my camera. :)

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Originally Posted by Jerry Bodine

Mistakes are not stupid. It's just that they exist in many forms and are so opportunistic (if that's a word) that they can manifest themselves in more than just one at any time. Developing habits of operational sequences can help, but there are no guarantees.

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When I started into this, my boss, who has a lot of experience in LF, enumerated a number of mistakes that I would make. I shot the first N sheets with no mistakes, but I was cautious because it was all very new. I feared that once I became more confident I would then run a larger risk of making mistakes. I also do YouTube videos, mostly on photography. I've noticed that worrying about video while I'm trying to set up an LF still shot would "take me out of my head" and risk mistakes.

So, on my last shoot while on vacation in KY, I was documenting it for YT and also feeling excited at the surroundings and possibilities. Predictably, I screwed up three sheets: pulled the dark slide with the lens open 1x, and metered but didn't set exposure before shooting 2x (I was able to re-take all). It will be interesting to develop all the sheets to see what other boo-boos I might have made.

I will say that, mistakes or not, it was one of the best times I've ever had. I was completely alone in a beautiful deep creek bed with waterfalls and cliffs and slow-running water. I took a lot of mental pictures, regardless of whether the actual negatives are any good.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7796/2...8b0eec7c_b.jpg
Shooting in Howard's Creek, Clark County, KY by Mike Thomas, on Flickr

Hi all
Morning light on Black Sea, Crimea, Russia.
Nagaoka 4x5, Telekongo 400 f32 Tmax100 Xtol 1+1
http://s011.radikal.ru/i316/1606/80/e03b57fbb241.jpg

Stunning! That's a magic moment, captured in a magic way.

Wow! Fantastic!