Does large format inhibit your creativity?

[Paul Schilliger]

I use the same approach Scott is describing and that has helped me a lot. I know some would call it crutches, but a simplified small black plastic sheet that fits inside my pocket with a rectangul ar hole in the middle replaces avantageously the viewer of the camera and allows quick and easy composition and search for the best angle. Putting the scene in a two dimentional frame helps keep the graphical and not be distracted by other elements in the composition. When I think I have found the right setting, I simply reproduce and refine the image on my ground glass. Sometimes I then decide that it's not worth pursuing, but most of the tim e, it's ready to be put in the box.

[Walter Glover]

To Jonatan Brewer,

Thank you for your kind coments but in response to:

"WOW!...Eidetic! One things for sure Walter, nobody'll ever accuse you of having a slim vocabulary!" I would like to point out that at 310 lb there is absolutely nothing slim about any part of me. (Maybe?)

Have fun ... Walter

[Keith Laban]

Many thanks to you all for your answers, so many replies, there was I wondering if I would get any response!

Many of you mention the lack of spontaneity with LF but I feel in many ways this is a separate issue and not necessarily a hinderance to creativity.

Perhaps it would help if I said a little about my views on creativity and gave an example. For me creativity is about striving to be original, challenging, exciting, taking risks, experimenting, making a very personal statement.

As an example, my personal favourite photographic image of the last 50 years is a photograph (or more correctly a series of photographs) that to my mind transcends mere photography and has a sense of time and place never achieved before. Why has it taken someone other than a photographer to show the photographic world the very meaning of creativity. The image can be viewed at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hockney/pearblsm.jpg.html

Takes my breath away every time!

Thanks for the lists of photographers using LF in a creative way, unfortunately not too many contemporary examples. Perhaps some of you could provide links etc. to your favourite creative contemporary LF photographers.

Thanks again to you all.

Keith

[Paul Schilliger]

Right, now we see what you mean! "Creativity" is just like "Art" in the sense th at there are as many meanings as you ask people to tell you how they see it. I believe photo montage was a way to make something interesting out of photos that were not. It's another step in creativity. Guys started to pick up i mages here and there and with a pair of cissors, created their own story. Maybe because the creatives were not the on es who took the images, they picked from just anything, and of course, most images are small format. With the advent of digital and the first Silicon Graphics Unix stations, the tools provided for that kind of work unlishe d a new burst of creativity and we have seen many examples in the early nineties. There was hardly an advert image that did not use some sort of photo montage and some studios were specialized in that kind of work. The style was used and abused until it was replaced by other concepts. Still, when it is used well, it can be a powerful wa y to tell a story and has great impact and the example you pointed above is amazing.

Some large format photographers are making exciting artwork. I would point this link to Bruce Barnbaum website:

http://www.barnbaum.com/Gallery/SuperNatural.htm

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I own many different formats and types of cameras. While my mainstay is 4x5 and the subject matter I enjoy the most is the landscape, there are times when I get in "moods" and have to go out with a 35 rangefinder or a TLR or even my 4x5 super D and work in a different way and with other subject matter. I try to learn from the techniques required of each and apply what I discover to my overall photographic technique. I don't remember who first said this, but "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". I also believe that learning to see is the real challenge and whatever tools one has, if mastered, can be used to capture their vision.

[Paul Schilliger]

Oops, sorry! That's not the page I had in mind and Bruce might not be happy that I suggested that his pics are photomontage! Still, his prints are full of creativity! Who was it then? Caponigro? Mulligan? Someone help! I'm making a fool of myself!

[Paul Schilliger]

Found it! http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com

By the way, check Steve Mulligan's website. There is no need to use a pair of ci ssors to make amazing creative images! But the technique is there! Pure beauty:

http://www.mulliganphotography.com/

[Keith Laban]

Just to say the Hockney artwork was merely an example. I have no great passion for photo montage in general.

[Struan Gray]

Walter, your language and humour are in good nick, but your logic could do with a little touching up. I don't remember anyone saying that "'Art' is beyond their capabilities", just that nature photography wasn't necessarily their favourite arena for creating it. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Our town gallery has just had an exhibition of 'contemporary Japanese photography'. It was interesting to me because the spartan labelling and my own ignorance of the Japanese photographic world meant that I viewed the images completely out of context, uninfluenced by any knowledge of the photographers' reputation or technique. The conclusion I drew was that there are some very creative people out there, and whether they use large format or not is almost completely irrelevant.

(Incidentally, if any Danish readers see this, the exhbition is called "Illusions" and will be going to two or three Danish galleries over the next year. Worth catching.)

[Andrew Held]

It all comes down to the power of the image. Detail or focus by itself does little to empower an image it can only enhance (or detract) from what is already there. I take umbrage at the idea that 35mm shooters are "shotgunning". That is a pretty naive statement. Good 35mm shooters ally themselves with their sub-conscious eye - that which can track objects in motion and place them in a context that expresses the image powerfully. Kertesz, Cartier-Bresson all did this brilliantly. Just because most of the framing and ideas come along too fast to be fully conscious does not mean they are lesser than large format images.

This idea of 35mm as a reduction of large format technique is misguided. My work in large format has given me a new respect for the power and potential of 35mm shooting. The two formats have their respective strengths. If you use either format in a rigid formalistic way you can get stuck in the format's weaknesses. For large format it can a pointless search for utmost clarity and tone at the expense of the power of the image, for 35mm it can be the attempt to counter its intrinsic graphic power with unreal levels of saturation a kind of tarted-up attempt at verisimilitude. But a lot of good photographers avoid these pitfalls. Essentially, if you find yourself inhibited by the format find another way of using it that works for you.