Any Great Medium format photographers?

[Jaf-Photo]

I would second Sebastiao Salgado, before he went digital. But don't worry about it. The vision is more important than the medium.

 

[dasBlute]

walker evans used a rollei a bit

 

[hoffy]

David Bailey
Terrance Donovan

The thing about a lot of these photographers is a lot of them used different formats for different reasons. Hardly any of them stuck to the one format exclusively.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Bunny Yeager

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)...

Ken

 

[Sirius Glass]

Ansel Adams but he was already mentioned.

 

[film_man]

Also, Martin Schoeller. Love his close-up portraits. He uses various formats including the Mamiya RZ67 and the Mamiya 7.

 

[Robert Ley]

What a great troll post. How could anyone who knows anything about photography question whether there were photographers who used medium format?
What difference does it make what format a photographer uses. I always felt that the final image was the most important factor.


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[dugrant153]

I would second Sebastiao Salgado, before he went digital. But don't worry about it. The vision is more important than the medium.

I would third Sebastio Salgado, having just seen his Genesis book and bits of a TED talk.

Vivian Maier is someone I'd second on the list (think she was mentioned on page 1?).

 

[benjiboy]

Cecil Beaton Norman Parkinson.



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[Pioneer]

What a great troll post. How could anyone who knows anything about photography question whether there were photographers who used medium format?
What difference does it make what format a photographer uses. I always felt that the final image was the most important factor.


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Yep. Great way to get your homework done now days.

Where was the internet when I was flunk....oops....attending university?

 

[r.reeder]

Was Dorthea (Sp?) Lange mentioned? Did Weegee (Arthur Fellig) use MF?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Did Weegee (Arthur Fellig) use MF?

Heh, heh...

Does this count??



Ken

 

[lxdude]

I would second Sebastiao Salgado, before he went digital. But don't worry about it. The vision is more important than the medium.

What I got from an interview I saw was that he didn't really want to, but getting film through airports safely had become an issue.

 

[lxdude]

Ansel Adams but he was already mentioned.

Ansel was mentioned twice. Not including you, so that's three times. And now me, so that's four. Not including quotes. I think four is enough times to mention Ansel Adams.

Oops.

 

[Henry Alive]

Forma Spain: Chema Madoz, Isabel Muñoz.

 

[film_man]

What a great troll post. How could anyone who knows anything about photography question whether there were photographers who used medium format?
What difference does it make what format a photographer uses. I always felt that the final image was the most important factor.

It's a bit of trivia mate. Get of your high horse and stop trolling.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Annie Libovitz.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

What I got from an interview I saw was that he didn't really want to, but getting film through airports safely had become an issue.

Yeah, Salgado was travelling extensively for his Genesis photos. His films started to suffer from x-ray burn, so he switched to Canon 5D Mk2/3 instead. (Famously, Canon modded the screens to only show B&W.)

But since then he has actually stated that using a digital negative to print halide prints actually gives him better images than he got with 6x7 Tri-X.

Salgado is actualky featured in the promotions of both Canon 5D and DXO Optics film plugins.

So he's no longer a top advocate for MF film, but I am sure his photos are an inspiration to many.

His Genesis exhibition is actually on in my home town at the moment so I'll go and see the actual prints any day now. I'm looking forward to that. The book is beautiful but the prints should be so much better.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I saw a bunch of his prints from that show in Paris last October at the Maison Europienne de la Photographie. I felt like some of them were a little flat, and some were a little too contrasty, but that's just my reaction. Most prints were large, some were huge. Regardless, there was considerable technical expertise visible in those prints because the production values, especially at those large sizes, was consistently outstanding. Worth checking out.

 

[jadphoto]

I've recently become aware of Vivian Maier. She predominately used Rolleiflexes.

JD

 

[Jaf-Photo]

I saw a bunch of his prints from that show in Paris last October at the Maison Europienne de la Photographie. I felt like some of them were a little flat, and some were a little too contrasty, but that's just my reaction. Most prints were large, some were huge. Regardless, there was considerable technical expertise visible in those prints because the production values, especially at those large sizes, was consistently outstanding. Worth checking out.

I see. I do find the reproductions in the Genesis to be a bit on the contrasty side with loss of shadow detail. I expext some of that does come from the prints.

Still, it will be great to see large prints.

 

[ntenny]

Did Weegee (Arthur Fellig) use MF?

He sort of seems like the kind of guy who would shoot whatever he had on hand. He's identified with the Speed Graphic, of course, but he did have at least one Rolleiflex (there's a photo of him on a soundstage with it in a clunky-looking soundproof case).

As this thread shows, there are plenty of "great" photographers---whatever your definition of "great" is---who used MF, but maybe it's true that there aren't so many who are strongly *identified* with their format, in the way that AA is always thought of as a large-format photographer or Andre Kertesz as a 35mm photographer.

Arguably, medium format is a sweet spot in which the format isn't the point---it's big enough not to create major technical constraints as 35mm does, but small enough not to dictate particular working practices like LF. Maybe that accounts for the perception the OP describes.

(To add to the list, the New Topographic group were mostly MF users if I remember aright; Robert Capa migrated to the Rolleiflex at some point; Nick Brandt uses a Pentax 6x7. Appropriateness of the word "great" for any specific example is left as an exercise for the reader.)

-NT

 

[Steve Smith]

He sort of seems like the kind of guy who would shoot whatever he had on hand. He's identified with the Speed Graphic, of course, but he did have at least one Rolleiflex (there's a photo of him on a soundstage with it in a clunky-looking soundproof case).

Which, according to a book in our local library, he made himself.


Steve.

 

[Regular Rod]

John Davies

http://www.johndavies.uk.com/

RR

 

[Pioneer]

Jozsef Pataki

https://www.flickr.com/photos/90016941@N04/