Oskar Barnack? - 35mmOriginally Posted by Jac@stafford.net
Ernst Wildi? 2 1/4 Square
Jack Deardorff? 8x10
You really aren't suggesting these men are not Gods, are you?
Oskar Barnack? - 35mm
Ernst Wildi? 2 1/4 Square
Jack Deardorff? 8x10
You really aren't suggesting these men are not Gods, are you?
” Never attribute to inspiration that which can be adequately explained by delusion”.
All great people but Ernst worked for Hasselblad USA. Victor Hasselblad invented the Hasselblad but Rollei and some other European makers had 66 well before Hasselblad
Jack was a friend but he inherited Deardorff, his family made 810 far before Jack was involved, or possibly born.
Print full negatives but mat openings are 1/2" less than the negative's dimensions.
For example 7.5" x 9.5" for 8x10 negatives.
Sidebar: this allows me to use some extra wide angle lenses that barely cover the full film's format.
Also was able to order 20+ pre-cut mats and get a discounted price for them.
Contact prints from whole plate, 8x10, and 11x14 all in 16x20 mats and frames. Got a bulk discount on a large order of 16x20 frames. When exhibited side by side, the have a good visual consistency in their presentation. At first thought 16x20 mats were too large for whole format prints, but after exhibiting several last year in a retrospective show next to 8x10 and 11x14 contact prints I was wrong.
For film, the entire film sheet out to the borders of the film holder is always used for any film image. Do not believe in cropping post processing except to clip off the film holder frame.
What goes inside the frame of the film holder happens before the camera and lens is set up. Camera position, height and lens to be used is also mostly figured out before the camera is set up. Once the camera and lens is set up, position of the camera & camera height is adjusted as needed to make the contents of the film holder frame as the initial vision of what should be in the film holder frame.
Lens focal length is used to adjust size of objects foreground_background within the film holder frame. Lenses are not used to "fit" the intended image into the film holder frame.
In the case of 5x7_13x18cm, this means direct magnification prints of 10"x14"_ish, 14.5"x20"_ish and similar. The standard size print paper is "cropped" to the full film size. The print is then mounted on to a industry standard size mat board of 16x20 for a 10"x14"_ish print and...
Knowing image presented on the ground glass will be what the image will be within the film holder frame is part of the beauty of using a view camera.
Much the same apples to all imaging devices from phone camera to digital to any film camera. Exception being technical documentation images with text notations. These are made for sharing information with not significant artistic value of any kind.
Bernice
I always plan to crop the very edges with sheet film. I like to not be locked into a particular aspect ratio. I do try to use one full dimension of the film such as a the long for a panorama or the short edged for a squarer aspect ratio than the film. I also like to float mount the print which requires a cut at least on the very edge of the image. I try to keep the process out of my work so I don't want sheet film holder edges and such in the print.
To me the important issue is not whether I cropped or not, it's whether I saw the final print when I took the shot. It feels like a failure to take a shot with the hope that you'll find a print when you get back to the darkroom. But I do admit to doing that when I have the camera setup and things just aren't working. Sometimes I'll shoot a sheet just so I can move on and study the scene on the film later. It's a cheap learning tool.
Painters work within the limits of their canvas, paper or what ever size flat format media they have chosen.
-Do painters "crop" their work after they have painted it?
Bernice
I guess you could say they crop before they paint.
Edited to add: I use to cut window mats for fellow students and for faculty at university for my beer money. Cutting them for my mentor was always a joy and a challenge. Since the window would cover 1/16" of the image (perhaps a little more), I had to pay very close attention to what was happening at the edges of the images as not to break any tension that was being created there and that sort of thing. The power of the edge -- I found it very educational.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
Precisely Vaughn.
Again, "Photographers" have a LOT they can learn from Painters and their long history of Artistic excellence.
Photographers can build upon the foundations of Painters or fall prey to their own ego, ignore what has been proven to have an ability to
express human emotions within a flat 2D image so very well or do their own ego driven thing only to discover what the Painters have known all along so very well again.
Bernice
My last wife oil painted Old Master portraits of Punks, took at least 6 months per. Big canvas and lots of layer drying time.
I made stretchers and some frames. She stretched her own canvas.
Any frame covered about a 1/2" margin. Marnie was very particular.
Moving her framed work required removing doors, windows, trucks while she hovered and worried about her babies. Several were stolen from galleries. Teamsters got them back!
One owned by Cleveland Rock & Roll museum, bought and donated by a famous Punk which paid our home down payment. I miss it from our walls. Long time past...RIP all of them.
I usually crop since I cannot tell when capturing the image on film exactly how I may use it over the coming years. Sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. For example, in the glory days of Kodachrome, Kodak's slide mounts determined how the subject was framed in-camera.
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