Do you use 100% of a LF negative?

[Kevin Crisp]

Yes except when using Grafmatics.

[neil poulsen]

Yes, I edit negatives. I think that editing is a crucial part of the creative process. Usually, editing is done to simplify, to remove extraneous details that don't contribute to the core of the message. In this way, one can drive home the message in the most powerful and direct way.

With that said, I carry more lenses than many photographers. I pick my perspective (camera position in a 3D space), decide on my frame, and then I select the lens that fills as much of the negative as possible with that frame. After all, the reason we're LARGE FORMAT photographers is to get that beautiful, luscious tonality that greater negative areas can provide.

It occurs to me, is it really necessary to confine our compositions to rectangular frames? Wouldn't it be interesting, as part of the editing and creative process, to not be restricted to a rectangular image? Imagine how such a process might shape the overall effect?

[Corran]

I think that editing is a crucial part of the creative process. Usually, editing is done to simplify, to remove extraneous details that don't contribute to the core of the message.

I agree. But some of us do that pre-exposure.

[Jac@stafford.net]

No divine entity designed our formats. I crop as I wish. Although I admit to being a full-frame fanatic back in the days when I was a 35mm photographer dodging dinosaurs.

[Drew Wiley]

Pre-exposure editing, Corran? Does that mean whacking a distracting vine out of the scene with a tripod leg, like I sometimes do, or an obnoxious tourist if they don't move out of the way?

[Bob Salomon]

Pre-exposure editing, Corran? Does that mean whacking a distracting vine out of the scene with a tripod leg, like I sometimes do, or an obnoxious tourist if they don't move out of the way?

Or cutting down the telephone pole?

[Drew Wiley]

I suspect there are quite a few Haydukes among us.

[Tin Can]

Seldom

[Vaughn]

Pre-exposure editing, Corran? Does that mean whacking a distracting vine out of the scene with a tripod leg, like I sometimes do, or an obnoxious tourist if they don't move out of the way?

I have been known to lay branches temporarily across ferns in the foreground and/or hold branches aside. I recently asked a fisherman not to walk in front of the camera during a long exposure -- fortunately I did not have to resort to whacking him with the tripod -- I would have had to reframe the image.

But like Corran, all my cropping is done pre-exposure. Just the way I work...not about purity or any such nonsense. But I will be exploring and hopefully be successful in producing a body of work this summer that involves a different form of cropping (pt/pd images from 11x14 negs, and perhaps some 8x10 negs.)

[Pere Casals]

Generally, yes. But I’m not opposed to cropping when required to get the best image.

+1

I'd add that many times this is seen at shooting time. Sometimes we'll just print what we have in the framing, this sports a sort of authenticity I cannot explain, but sometimes we don't have the exact focal that we would want for a certain composition, then we may use a wider than necessary lens to later crop.