Page 5 of 6 FirstFirst ... 3456 LastLast
Results 41 to 50 of 58

Thread: How Many Pros use LF?

  1. #41

    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Toronto
    Posts
    27

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    There are plenty of artists using LF in their work, and it's nice to see the standards they've maintained.
    Garry Madlung
    Veteran of many tours of the Canadian Rockies

  2. #42

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    2,673

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    I occasionally come across examples of photographers who are using large format cameras, or film in smaller formats, for professional work.

    This Todd Korol video is about using a Deardorff 8x10 to make photographs at the Calgary Stampede. The series was commissioned by Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper. The video shows how the Globe presented the photographs at 12:55, and Korol talks briefly about the commission and working with the paper's photo editor.

    Street Photography with an 8x10 View Camera




    New York Times photographer Todd Heisler recently completed an assignment to photograph 115 of the people who kept New York functioning during the worst of the pandemic. The series was shot with a Mamiya RZ67. The Times, in a major spread, published all 115 photographs for the July 24th, 2021 weekend. I suspect that there's a book coming. Here's part of the accompanying background story, which includes Heisler's reasons for using film:

    The Metro desk, including [photo editor] Jeffrey Furticella, the editor Meghan Louttit and the photographer Todd Heisler, started plans in February [2021]. The idea was to photograph a huge swath of people, maybe even 100.

    But how to photograph so many? The team thought about using a studio but didn’t want to force participants to ride public transportation while the coronavirus was still spreading in the city. The uniformity of studio shots would also work against the project’s mission. “We didn’t want them to look like passport photos,” Mr. Heisler said.

    From February to June, Mr. Heisler and [reporter] David Gonzalez traversed the city, from Staten Island to Astoria, Queens, and everywhere in between, to meet waiters, shoeshines, dry cleaners, salon workers and personal trainers. They made a point to capture subjects in their neighborhoods or places of business.

    Mr. Heisler shot in medium format, black and white film so that readers wouldn’t be distracted by contrasting colors, but also to develop a greater connection with the participants, he said. To him, digital portraiture can edge on the impersonal. “You look at the back of the camera, you make the picture, you look at the camera, and it kind of affects this relationship,” Mr. Heisler said.

    With film, “you have more of a rapport and relationship with the person because you’re not looking at the camera, you’re not looking at the images,” he said.

    Precautions were taken to make sure photo sessions were as comfortable as possible. From the start, “it was a constant balance between efficiency and establishing a relationship,” Mr. Heisler said.

    “People weren’t regularly vaccinated yet,” Mr. Heisler added. “We were still operating with our own Covid protocols of being very careful about going into peoples’ homes or going into spaces” and asking them to take off their masks.

    This is the Wikipedia entry about Mr. Heisler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Heisler

    And this is a screen capture of one of the photos in the spread. I show the text overlay, but note that in Times spreads like this the text scrolls away to reveal the photo by itself:

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Screenshot 2021-10-17 at 11.00.07 AM.jpg 
Views:	69 
Size:	54.9 KB 
ID:	220468
    Last edited by r.e.; 17-Oct-2021 at 09:10.

  3. #43

    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Canmore Alberta
    Posts
    754

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Todd Korol is a consummate professional an uses a wide variety of gear including the 8x10. He did a fine series on the last newspapers rolling off the Toronto Star's line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3_Tj6_BZY.
    One of the cool quick rigs that Todd uses is a non-folding Ebony 4x5 with a 135mm lens.
    I've also run into Calgary Sun's photographer Michael Drew shooting 4x5 at the Writing-on-Stone rodeo.

  4. #44

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    2,673

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Y View Post
    Todd Korol is a consummate professional an uses a wide variety of gear including the 8x10. He did a fine series on the last newspapers rolling off the Toronto Star's line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3_Tj6_BZY.
    One of the cool quick rigs that Todd uses is a non-folding Ebony 4x5 with a 135mm lens.
    I've also run into Calgary Sun's photographer Michael Drew shooting 4x5 at the Writing-on-Stone rodeo.
    Korol makes corporate videos as well as still photographs, so I imagine that he made the Toronto Star video as well as narrated it. Another appearance by the Deardorff 8x10: "I need a sherpa".

    I think that Korol is running the most engaging large format channel on YouTube. He knows what he's talking about and has a very appealing style. Nice to see a pro devote the time, because he sure isn't making money from YouTube. He says that he started making his videos because he was going crazy with pandemic boredom.

    As a kid, I was a Toronto Star paperboy

    Here's Greg's link incorporated into the thread:

    The last days at Toronto Star's printing plant


  5. #45

    Join Date
    Sep 1998
    Location
    Loganville , GA
    Posts
    14,408

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by r.e. View Post
    Korol makes corporate videos as well as still photographs, so I imagine that he made the Toronto Star video as well as narrated it. Another appearance by the Deardorff 8x10: "I need a sherpa".

    I think that Korol is running the most engaging large format channel on YouTube. He knows what he's talking about and has a very appealing style. Nice to see a pro devote the time, because he sure isn't making money from YouTube.

    As a kid, I was a Toronto Star paperboy

    Here's Greg's link incorporated into the thread:

    The last days at Toronto Star's printing plant

    I wonder how many of those rolls of paper were used that last day and what happened to whatever was left over?

  6. #46

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    2,673

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Salomon View Post
    I wonder how many of those rolls of paper were used that last day and what happened to whatever was left over?
    As a former Toronto Star paperboy, I was curious myself about the context. The Globe and Mail (which commissioned Korol to photograph the Calgary Stampede, post #42) and the Star are Canada's largest circulation newspapers. In 2016, when this happened, the writing would have been on the wall for the Star's print edition. As part of its move to digital, the Star decided to contract out its printing to the country's largest commercial printer, which happens to be nearby. No doubt the remaining rolls of paper went there.

    The Star sold its printing plant, which is now a very large data centre. The photo below, taken before the sale, shows the size of the plant. Given the location in Greater Toronto, the plant would have been worth a lot of money. As Korol says in his video, many of the production people who are shown in the video, and that he photographed, were losing their jobs, although there was an agreement about this with the union.


    Toronto Star Printing Plant

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	star plant.jpg 
Views:	47 
Size:	42.6 KB 
ID:	220473

  7. #47
    multiplex
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    local
    Posts
    5,345

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by bgh View Post
    I'm not sure that I qualify as a pro photographer, being mostly a historian, but I do use LF professionally for my HABS/HAER jobs. The quantity of work varies from year to year, and I've never had a year when the photography work outweighed the research and writing jobs, but last year and this year will be close.

    Bruce
    Much of my income has also been HABS work and sometimes the research too ..but in the past 10 years ( for states not the feds ) has been Dslr based - pigment prints and a burned CD of images. .. way of the world I guess, even archives..

  8. #48

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    LF and MF cameras are primarily used for art and editorial work, and pros absolutely use the medium for that purpose. It's a pretty big difference from back in 'the day'. In like 1990 every time there was a new gizmo or widget you'd use god know's how many sheets of Ektachrome to capture all the nooks and crannies. Architectural guys would walk into new corporate HQs and need to capture every perfect angle out to the corners in perfect focus. Sounds very cool and technical but also most of it was pretty boring.

    One related observation is that the reputational spillover of cameras and lenses comes from that period...and it doesn't always align with the way these tools are used now. A lot of folks would would be better served by a TLR buy Hasselblads, or RZ67s. Those that probably would use the heck out of a Graflex or wood field camera buy Linhoffs or Arca Swiss. Rodenstock Sironar S lenses likely have next to no benefit for the majority of photographers today doing minimal movements. But the old guys say these are 'the best', so they stay very popular. The best example is probably Hasselblad 500 series cameras. These things are slow to focus, and very difficult to hand hold at 1/60th or even 1/125. But they're probably also one of the most desired MF systems out there.

    Thankfully or woefully I spent a number of years working in the Used Dept of a big camera store. Most of my LF lenses say Caltar, and my 6x6 is a 2.8E Rolleiflex. I do wish I would have held on to my M4 and Deardorff view camera, but the Chamonix cameras I have now are a bit faster to work with. But ya know, I'm a serial 'brand skeptic.'

  9. #49
    schafphoto's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Ventura, California
    Posts
    275

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by jnantz View Post
    Much of my income has also been HABS work and sometimes the research too ..but in the past 10 years ( for states not the feds ) has been Dslr based - pigment prints and a burned CD of images. .. way of the world I guess, even archives..
    I'm still doing mostly Large Format 4x5 and 5x7 HABS/HAER/HALS photography for 80% of my income. Architecture, engineering and cultural landscape documentation that is ultimately delivered to the National Park Service and the Library of Congress, but almost always paid for by the entities doing the projects that I am documenting, whether that's the developer, a city, or a state agency. This is a 5x7 HABS photograph of the Cornell University Uris Library before an enormous restoration project was started on the building. My digital jobs are getting fewer and fewer and my film jobs are becoming larger and more complex. Thank god the Hipsters are keeping Ilford in business, since I go through about 800 sheets of HP5 a year.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	HABS-NY-6402-6_Cornell University Library.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	58.3 KB 
ID:	221686
    `
    –Stephen Schafer HABS | HAER | HALS & Architectural Photography | Ventura, California | www.HABSPHOTO.com

  10. #50
    multiplex
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    local
    Posts
    5,345

    Re: How Many Pros use LF?

    Quote Originally Posted by schafphoto View Post
    I'm still doing mostly Large Format 4x5 and 5x7 HABS/HAER/HALS photography for 80% of my income. Architecture, engineering and cultural landscape documentation that is ultimately delivered to the National Park Service and the Library of Congress, but almost always paid for by the entities doing the projects that I am documenting, whether that's the developer, a city, or a state agency. This is a 5x7 HABS photograph of the Cornell University Uris Library before an enormous restoration project was started on the building. My digital jobs are getting fewer and fewer and my film jobs are becoming larger and more complex. Thank god the Hipsters are keeping Ilford in business, since I go through about 800 sheets of HP5 a year.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	HABS-NY-6402-6_Cornell University Library.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	58.3 KB 
ID:	221686
    I saw your website info regarding archivability of film and prints vs digital files. While it is true, and may even be less expensive in both the long and short run, many of the state agencies around here did the Digital-Push 15-20 years ago, and no longer want anything to do with prints and films. Local libraries no longer have photographic collections either, it's kind of strange.

Similar Threads

  1. Film Still Popular Among Pros
    By Michael Kadillak in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 51
    Last Post: 21-Sep-2015, 06:04
  2. Grafmatic : Pros and Cons?
    By Drew Bedo in forum Cameras & Camera Accessories
    Replies: 49
    Last Post: 11-Aug-2015, 20:29
  3. Grafmatic : Pros and Cons?
    By Drew Bedo in forum Style & Technique
    Replies: 26
    Last Post: 6-Aug-2015, 16:55
  4. DiXactol Pros and Cons ?
    By Richard Rees in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 19-Feb-2010, 16:11
  5. Is LF just for pros?
    By Ron Hughes in forum Style & Technique
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 13-Dec-1998, 00:27

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •