8x10 in Paris-Chamonix-Normandy-Dublin-Clonakilty

[Cameron Cornell]

We could have crossed paths!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Too bad! It would have been fantastic to have a coffee and compare notes!

Four days in Chamonix has passed and now we’re staying in a farmhouse on the coast in Normandy with a view toward Mont-Saint-Michel. I’m sitting in the car in Genet waiting for the grocery to open. Today, Mont-Saint-Michel (plus portraits of the girls in the yard of the farmhouse). Tomorrow, Omaha Beach.

It’s so beautiful and, God help me, picturesque here. On this trip, I’ve thought a lot about the objectives of photography. There is a sense of desperation that can take hold of a photographer when faced with spectacular surroundings. This is the aspect of photography that I hate and try really hard to avoid. It’s that feeling of wanting to catch something. It’s an anxious wanting, a very unhappy feeling. What’s better, what’s actually quite wonderful is instead to make an honest connection with a place or with a person and only then set up the camera. What is required to do that is an acceptance that a picture may or may not happen, and that finding that connection is the more important goal. I do believe that a photograph made AFTER connecting with a place or person has more potential to be a great thing, and certainly more meaning for me.

Anyway, the struggle is a pleasure.

Here is me making an 8x10 of Mont Blanc from the chalet in Chamonix a couple of days ago. I watched the light for three days before shooting in my effort to have the pretty picture of mountains mean something for me later.



Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com

[dodphotography]

Too bad! It would have been fantastic to have a coffee and compare notes!

Four days in Chamonix has passed and now we’re staying in a farmhouse on the coast in Normandy with a view toward Mont-Saint-Michel. I’m sitting in the car in Genet waiting for the grocery to open. Today, Mont-Saint-Michel (plus portraits of the girls in the yard of the farmhouse). Tomorrow, Omaha Beach.

It’s so beautiful and, God help me, picturesque here. On this trip, I’ve thought a lot about the objectives of photography. There is a sense of desperation that can take hold of a photographer when faced with spectacular surroundings. This is the aspect of photography that I hate and try really hard to avoid. It’s that feeling of wanting to catch something. It’s an anxious wanting, a very unhappy feeling. What’s better, what’s actually quite wonderful is instead to make an honest connection with a place or with a person and only then set up the camera. What is required to do that is an acceptance that a picture may or may not happen, and that finding that connection is the more important goal. I do believe that a photograph made AFTER connecting with a place or person has more potential to be a great thing, and certainly more meaning for me.

Anyway, the struggle is a pleasure.

Here is me making an 8x10 of Mont Blanc from the chalet in Chamonix a couple of days ago. I watched the light for three days before shooting in my effort to have the pretty picture of mountains mean something for me later.



Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com

I’ve found it quite hard to connect with locals and make genuine pictures. I had a crux of sorts since I’m here on a grant, I have been rephotographing Atget’s work...






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cameron Cornell]

That Atget project sounds fantastic. Who gave you the grant? He was quite prolific. How many of his images do you plan to attempt? I suppose much of what he shot no longer exists.

Here are a few setups from Normandy. We’re at sea now, en route to Dublin.


Profile portrait of my daughter in the yard of our rental house near the village of Genêts.


Detail of the village church in Sainte-Mère-Église.




Omaha Beach (Dog Green) at first light.

It’s been well worth the effort regardless of the outcome because the process has been so much fun.

Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com

[dodphotography]

That Atget project sounds fantastic. Who gave you the grant? He was quite prolific. How many of his images do you plan to attempt? I suppose much of what he shot no longer exists.

Here are a few setups from Normandy. We’re at sea now, en route to Dublin.


Profile portrait of my daughter in the yard of our rental house near the village of Genêts.


Detail of the village church in Sainte-Mère-Église.




Omaha Beach (Dog Green) at first light.

It’s been well worth the effort regardless of the outcome because the process has been so much fun.

Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com

I teach photography at the high school level... an independent school outside of Boston. The grant is supported by one of our alumni family.

I found and made pictures at about 30 Atget sites. The remaining sheets were pictures made in conversation with Atget’s work or his mindset.

D-Day Sites were amazing... really moving.

Unfortunately due to some traveling issues and my film forecast I was out of film by that point. So, hopped into Mont St Michel / Normandy sans view camera.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cameron Cornell]

The trip is just about finished. We fly home to Washington State tomorrow. I have four sheets of film left that I’ll shoot today in the garden of the house where we’re staying in Dublin.

The kit worked. I’ll describe it here in a level of detail that will be really boring unless perhaps you are one of those people trying to plan a trip.

I brought three bags. A 1993 MEI internal-frame backpack, an aluminum Halliburton Zero 3.0 International Carry-On, and the largest messenger bag made by Manhattan Portage (which just happens to be the exact dimensions allowed under the seat on an international flight).

Here is my packing list:

8x10 Kodak Master Camera + 8x10 Stone Photo Gear Camera Wrap

10” Wollensak Vitax with front and back caps from Anton Orlov + 18x18” Stone Photo Gear Lens Wrap

12” Kodak Commercial Ektar (can be left on the camera when it’s folded up) with front and back caps from Anton Orlov

Lens cleaning kit

Gitzo GT5533S Systematic Series 5 Carbon Fiber Tripod (Standard) with GS5513S Rapid Center Column and Gitzo G-1570M Magnesium 3-Way Pan/Tilt Head + Stone Photo Gear custom-made minimalist tripod bag

Dark cloth

Mamiya 4x loupe

Driak 60mm Aluminium Case Precision Round Bullseye Bubble Level

Two shutter releases (bulb for Vitax, pin for Ektar)

Sekonic L-308X-U Flashmate Light Meter

Five 8x10 Toyo film holders + Stone Photo Gear 8x10 Field Case for five film holders

50 sheets of 8x10 Ilford Delta 100 and 25 sheets of Ilford HP-5

Harrison Film Changing Tent (36 x 27 x 14")

4x6’ tarp

When traveling on the plane, I packed the tripod, the film changing bag, and my clothes, etc into the MEI backpack, which I checked. In the Halliburton Zero, which I carried on, I packed the camera with the nested Ektar, the film, the dark cloth, the loupe, the film cleaning kit, the shutter releases, the level, and the tarp. In the Manhattan Portage bag, which I carried on, I packed the film holders in their case, the Vitax, the tripod head, and the ground glass, which I’d removed from the camera and packed into a film box for protection.

When out shooting, the camera and film case with holders fit in the bottom half of the MEI backpack, while the Vitax rests atop the camera on the top half of the backpack next to a zippered bag containing the tripod head and all of the small parts of the kit. The tripod and center column I carried in front of me in the minimalist case that Daniel made. The whole kit weighs around 50 pounds, so it’s essential to be in good shape.

Hopefully, I made a few good photographs. It was loads of fun in any case. As I probably wrote somewhere above, the time and money and planning that I put into this kit will pay dividends for as long as I’m shooting large format. I’ll be bringing it with me to New York in August and Los Angeles this fall, as well as probably every other trip I take for the foreseeable future.

I’ll snap photos this evening and tomorrow of the packing schemes that I described above and post them for reference. If I made any photographs worth sharing, I’ll post them here this Fall or Winter after processing this film plus the 200 sheets I’ll be shooting in August at the music festival portrait tent (see https://www.largeformatphotography.i...udio+portraits) and the trip to NY.

You can see some of the setups for the 8x10 (along with the requisite family snapshots) at www.instagram.com/papacornell. I don’t want new followers or “likes,” (God help us), it’s just a record of my projects, which includes raising my kids.

Cheers,

Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com

[tgtaylor]

I’ve found it quite hard to connect with locals and make genuine pictures. I had a crux of sorts since I’m here on a grant, I have been rephotographing Atget’s work...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you plan on printing those as albumin prints?

Thomas

[dodphotography]

Do you plan on printing those as albumin prints?

Thomas

No, just silver gelatin.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tgtaylor]

Then I would recommend that you reconsider or better, print as both silver gelatin and albumin and see which is the best for the subjects. I mixed up a liter of traditional albumin a couple of years ago and have it stored in a brown glass bottle yet to be opened. A few days ago I began to think of a negative that would make a good subject for an albumin print and think I have located one. This weekend I'll try printing it an albumin print using a puddle pusher instead of a brush and Platinum Rag paper.

Thomas

[Charles S]

I’ll snap photos this evening and tomorrow of the packing schemes that I described above and post them for reference.

Thank you for sharing, this is very helpful as I am planning a long trip as well and am hesitating between my 4x5 and my 8x10, with a preference for the latter. Your detailed post makes it seem possible to take to 8x10. If you have a moment, posting the packing schemes would be hugely helpful as well.
Any other recommendations based on the gear you had with you ?

And ofcourse we are looking forward to seeing the results of the trip

[dodphotography]

I packed a Wehman, graphic kowa 210mm, meter, cable release, 4 holders, 2 boxes of film, RRS TVC 33 in a freaking messenger bag!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk