Why I shoot Large Format

[Vaughn]

I have always been a LF photographer -- even starting out with my first camera -- a Rolleiflex. I discovered that I was using it like a LF camera even before I ever touched a 4x5.

[mdm]

Print quality. I think there is a sweet spot between 5x7 and 8x10 that produces beautiful prints. Bigger is not better, smaller is worse.

[alavergh]

I'm sorry for coming back to this, but I wanted to type about it.

I started in college when the photo bug bit me (is it the shutter fly?) and I started with 35mm (2004ish). By the end of my second darkroom class, I had bought a Seagull TLR medium format camera and I loved the image quality I was getting. Everybody asked me what kind of film I asked until the teacher told everybody it was medium format. I tried to enroll in a large format advanced class at my school, but there were no more spots, or at least, not enough cameras to go around. So I was left hanging.

I've always been interested in the technical side of things, so when I saw how technical it was to do a lot of large format, I was hooked. Then I graduated college and didn't have a darkroom. I do have a pretty decent digital slr with some good lenses, I've done a number of weddings and I like my digital work, but part of me feels guilty about how separated I am from my images. I can't see them as they come along. Sure, I see an image on the back of my camera, I hold a CF card, I see the photo on the screen and adjust manually until I find what I'm looking for. Maybe I'll get it printed, but it just feels too hands off to be called art in my opinion. I feel only by doing one of the more traditional processes (that is still somewhat convenient) can I really do justice to what I'm doing and confidently call it art.

It might not be a big surprise then, that I've taken up painting in the last year. It really is fun to come up with something in your head and put it on a canvas without it existing before.

Either way, any darkroom work is therapeutic for me. I always enjoyed getting up before certain darkroom classes starting, turning on an NPR classical music station, and printing while other students slowly filtered in over the next few hours.