Weird? Us?
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
To the concept that the word 'purity' has any significant association with the words 'Large Format'. As the OP wrote:I believe this thread came into existence because of the use of the word 'purity' in the thread about cropping. It appears that a few people cannot comprehend peoples' decision not to crop and assume it must be due some sort of idea of purity of formats or some such silly thing.Just for fun, a matter of word association.
Some of us are weird -- some of us are way too normal.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
For some reason when every I read the word "purity" I can't help but think of this...
Vaughn's guess might not be the reason I started this thread, but it's just as good, maybe better! (And some of the replies are "weird" indeed, quite entertaining, even instructive.)
The real reason? I'd been musing on AA's LF-related remark about purity. You can find it in post #35, but no need to travel backwards – I'll re-post it here:
"The significance of the objects of nature, the significance which concerns poets, dreamers, conservationists and citizens-at-large, relates to the 'presence of nature.' This is mood, the magic of personal experience, the awareness of a certain purity of condition." (Source: Letter to William Colby, the conservationist, 1952 – not William Colby, the 1970's Director of Central Intellgence!)
So, for those reading this thread who remain shy about replying:
"LF Purity."
Quick – what occurs to you? First thought, best thought!
What memories were created by a strong emotional response, then what has triggered the recall of that emotionally created memory?
Part of what makes Fotography and all related forms of 2D images is often tied to an emotional response created memory.
And yes, I'm taking the "Feelings and Emotions" out this for very specific reasons.
Bernice
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
William Eggleston, from the afterword to The Democratic Forest (1989):
"...It was one of those occasions when there was no picture there. It seemed like nothing... . I started forcing myself to take pictures of the earth, where it had eroded thirty or forty feet from the road. There were a few weeds. I began to realize that soon I was taking some pretty good pictures, so I went further into the woods and up a little hill, and got well into an entire roll of film. ...
"... [S]omeone said, 'What have you been photographing today, Eggleston?'
"'Well, I've been photographing democratically,' I replied.
"'But what have you been taking pictures of?' ...
"'Well, just woods and dirt, a little asphalt here and there.'
"I was treating thing democratically, which of course didn't mean a thing to the people I was talking to. ...
"I am afraid there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the center... They want something obvious. The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot.' The word has never had any meaning."
***Of course, Eggleston is not a LF photographer. But others working similar territory are (Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld, for example, but there are many others). They use the deep focus and resolution inherent in LF to 'interfere' with the supposed object (or subject) as much or more than Eggleston.
If large format 'purity' is exemplified by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, presumably these post-1965 photographers are the dirty heretics.
David
Comments and critique always welcome.
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