How Many Pros use LF?

[Tin Can]

Pro may mean 50% of income from business

Let's use LFPF definition of LF

Pros include our suppliers, that make emulsions and tools

Not asking anybody to out themselves or others, their business may be accountable

Hobbyist has evolved from essential in the history of imaging, to condescension

Discuss

[Ulophot]

Hobbyist, not to be confused with Hobbit (I never read the books, so I know only that it's a creature of some kind), has in part, at least, been replaced by enthusiast, if we can avoid splitting hairs here, and the latter has a positive energy to it.

I think your question about pros means, "use LF professionally," as opposed to those who use digital professionally and keep LF a pursuit of enthusiastic leisure. I look forward to ensuing data.

[Tin Can]

I think the original term was Amateur, which has changed meaning several times and now derogatory

Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography

The Rise of the Amateur Photographer 'threat'

The Amateur Tradition: Photography’s Second Self

[Luis-F-S]

Last time I used large format was when I shot 4x5 transparencies for architectural work 30 years ago. Now I use it for my personal work, in 8x10.

[Mark Sampson]

Well, I'm drifting into retirement after 40+ years in the business... I haven't used an LF camera on assignment since around 2010 (architecture was the last stand for LF in the professional world).
I was shooting LF for myself at least since 1981, and I have no plans to stop. I've shown my personal work a fair amount, and was represented by a gallery in NYC in the '90s. All that work was made with a 4x5 camera.
LF has been impractical professionally for a long time now, for all the well-known reasons; so be it.
"Amateur" means "lover'- all of us here are lovers of the 'craft and sullen art', whether or not we're getting paid for it.

[sharktooth]

I see that Cambo and Linhof still have "small" (2x3) digital technical cameras based on large format designs. When I spoke with the Linhof rep here in Canada a couple of years ago, he said that these cameras were still quite popular. I remain dubious, but maybe there is some commercial use for these, but I can't think what.

Is anyone still doing large format commercial portraiture?

[Thad Gerheim]

2/3rds of my income is from my sales of photos from large format film capture and inkjet photos that I sell from my gallery that is only open 4 and 1/2 months of the year. I know that there are some who disagree, but most people who come into the gallery can see a difference in depth and tonality between my drum scanned work and digital capture. Not that I'm wealthy, just satisfied.

[Ulophot]

Tin, you're correct, of course, about amateur, meaning lover, from Latin via French. Closer to enthusiast than hobby, whose origin in Middle English is a bit hard to grasp. (And speaking of hard to grasp, what is that "2022" for your signature signify?)

I suspect the large format commercial portraitists are few and far between, judging from the few on the board and occassional references to others, some working in collodian or other non-celluloid processes. I harbor a suspicion that, digital technology notwithstanding, in some cultures not as frantically rushed as ours has become, cultures in which the appreciation of the briefness of our lives leads people to take time with matters of importance, there may be a bit more of it still. A common thread among an apparent majority of those returning to film at least part-time, or starting into it seriously for the first time, is the appreciation for the slowing down and thinking about image creation that film, especially LF, tends to impose. (I am not arguing that it can't be done with digital technology; I'm just reporting.)

[Bernice Loui]

Been decades. There was a time from the later 1980's to mid 1990's was partial income producing.

Made in studio product images (this can be technically and artistically-creatively demanding in many ways), portraits both in studio and location and group pictures (these are more difficult to do well than it appears), some architecture indoors and outdoors.

The few landscape images were fun_zies never intended for revenue.
These days LF is fun_zies only for a long list of reasons.


Bernice

[Tin Can]

Good for you!

Your Flickr is informative!

2/3rds of my income is from my sales of photos from large format film capture and inkjet photos that I sell from my gallery that is only open 4 and 1/2 months of the year. I know that there are some who disagree, but most people who come into the gallery can see a difference in depth and tonality between my drum scanned work and digital capture. Not that I'm wealthy, just satisfied.