HCB Appreciation

[MattKing]

I think portrait in LF is especially hard upside down because features display internal emotions. A smile becomes a frown. How do you know when the best time to shoot? The brain can't see into the subject very well. Upside down may work better with simple geometric shapes and minimalism. But beyond that, right-side up works better.

For most portraiture, it works best if you use the viewing screen to compose generally, but then move your eyes away from the screen/viewfinder to engage directly with the subject before releasing the shutter.
à la Yousuf Karsh:

 

[snusmumriken]

Francis Meadow Sutcliffe comes to mind as a master of composition.

The funny thing is, his late photos with a Kodak, where (I think) the image was reversed but right way up, are quite disappointing.

 

[Don_ih]

I think portrait in LF is especially hard upside down because features display internal emotions. A smile becomes a frown. How do you know when the best time to shoot? The brain can't see into the subject very well. Upside down may work better with simple geometric shapes and minimalism. But beyond that, right-side up works better.

Like what Matt said. You get your sitter to ... sit. Then you set up the overall composition (looking at the ground glass and focusing). The sitter has to stay put. Then you wait for the proper expression, if it ever comes, while the film is in the camera with the slide removed and the shutter cocked.

Generally, focus for a portrait is on the eyes. It's pretty important that they stay where they're supposed to. So much easier with a rangefinder or slr - for everyone involved.

As for Cartier-Bresson's drawing and painting - perhaps he would have been somewhat significant as a painter/ sketcher if he'd not skipped away from it when he was so young.

 

[Mike Lopez]

Many of photography’s best and most important portraits have been made with large format cameras. When used by capable hands, there is no issue.

 

[GregY]

For most portraiture, it works best if you use the viewing screen to compose generally, but then move your eyes away from the screen/viewfinder to engage directly with the subject before releasing the shutter.
à la Yousuf Karsh:
View attachment 414399

That's how it's done....
I'm no HCB....but i take my eye away from the camera....subject immediately relaxes......
Shutter.... mission accomplished

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

For most portraiture, it works best if you use the viewing screen to compose generally, but then move your eyes away from the screen/viewfinder to engage directly with the subject before releasing the shutter.
à la Yousuf Karsh:
View attachment 414399

Releasing the shutter after setup makes sense. I do that myself with smaller-format cameras when shooting people. So how does looking upside down improve compositions, and what type of non-portrait photography does that work best in and not so well?

 

[MattKing]

Releasing the shutter after setup makes sense. I do that myself with smaller-format cameras when shooting people. So how does looking upside down improve compositions, and what type of non-portrait photography does that work best in and not so well?

Here is one where the placement of items in the frame was critical for me - not upside down in my case, but laterally reversed, and upside down would also have worked:

Down and Up Again - Tynehead Park (MSA Gentle, Low, Slow Light)

• MattKing
• Dec 31, 2017
• 8

Another for the current MSA. This time looking from the forest, through an opening, to the...

 

[Don_ih]

So how does looking upside down improve compositions, and what type of non-portrait photography does that work best in and not so well?

With normal vision, you get used to certain arrangements of things very quickly. Inverting the scene in some way (left-right or up-down) can make you aware of parts of the scene that are not balanced or well-related or are awkward in some way. Any kind of composition would be fine for that - but it's not that necessary when taking centred photos of mostly symmetrical things (like portraits). Just think of it as a forced reassessment of a scene. It's also not something everyone would find useful.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

With normal vision, you get used to certain arrangements of things very quickly. Inverting the scene in some way (left-right or up-down) can make you aware of parts of the scene that are not balanced or well-related or are awkward in some way. Any kind of composition would be fine for that - but it's not that necessary when taking centred photos of mostly symmetrical things (like portraits). Just think of it as a forced reassessment of a scene. It's also not something everyone would find useful.

But if you use the upside-down view to start with, looking at the GG to line up teh shot, you don't get the advantage of the normal human perspective of right-side up. I often use my digital camera as a director's viewfinder, set to BW or color to match the film and zoomed to what I think is the best view angle. Then I select the lens and try to match the view through the 4x5 camera to the original director's viewfinder.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I think portrait in LF is especially hard upside down because features display internal emotions. A smile becomes a frown. How do you know when the best time to shoot? The brain can't see into the subject very well. Upside down may work better with simple geometric shapes and minimalism. But beyond that, right-side up works better.

You're misunderstanding how the brain works. The eye actually "sees" things upside down. The brain doesn't "flip back" the image, as if often portrayed, but, in a series of (of course) complex neural processes, puts things back together.

There have been experiments in which people were asked to wear upside-down glasses. After a period of extreme disorientation, their brains started to adapt, and after a while, they were able to move around normally.

Same thing happens with the view camera. Do it just a couple of times, and yes, you see things upside down and it's confusing. Practice often enough, the brain adjusts, and although you do see upside down, you don't see things, people, etc. as upside down anymore. As stated in the article posted below: "Images reach the eye in some peculiar fashion, and if that peculiar fashion is consistent, a person's visual system eventually, somehow, adjusts to interpret it — to perceive it, to see it — as being no different from normal."

Experiments show we quickly adjust to seeing everything upside-down

A researcher wearing goggles that inverted everything stumbled about wildly at first, but soon enough he was able to ride a bicycle

www.theguardian.com

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You're misunderstanding how the brain works. The eye actually "sees" things upside down. The brain doesn't "flip back" the image, as if often portrayed, but, in a series of (of course) complex neural processes, puts things back together.

There have been experiments in which people were asked to wear upside-down glasses. After a period of extreme disorientation, their brains started to adapt, and after a while, they were able to move around normally.

Same thing happens with the view camera. Do it just a couple of times, and yes, you see things upside down and it's confusing. Practice often enough, the brain adjusts, and although you do see upside down, you don't see things, people, etc. as upside down anymore. As stated in the article posted below: "Images reach the eye in some peculiar fashion, and if that peculiar fashion is consistent, a person's visual system eventually, somehow, adjusts to interpret it — to perceive it, to see it — as being no different from normal."

Experiments show we quickly adjust to seeing everything upside-down

A researcher wearing goggles that inverted everything stumbled about wildly at first, but soon enough he was able to ride a bicycle

www.theguardian.com

View attachment 414464

I just find it more efficient and get better results composing right-side up. Especially since I also shoot medium format with an eye level rightside up viewfinder (I can;t stand the left-right orientation of a waist level finder either. ) and rightside up with cellphones. Switching back and forth with different views confuses my brain.

 

[Mike Lopez]

I think portrait in LF is especially hard upside down because features display internal emotions. A smile becomes a frown. How do you know when the best time to shoot? The brain can't see into the subject very well. Upside down may work better with simple geometric shapes and minimalism. But beyond that, right-side up works better.

It sounds like you’ve never used a view camera before. If you ever try one out, you’ll quickly learn that you must close the lens aperture and then remove the dark slide from the film holder before making the exposure. When you close the lens, you no longer see an image on the ground glass. I challenge you to tell me which way the image is oriented on the ground glass at the time of exposure. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

 

[Mike Lopez]

I just find it more efficient and get better results composing right-side up. Especially since I also shoot medium format with an eye level rightside up viewfinder (I can;t stand the left-right orientation of a waist level finder either. ) and rightside up with cellphones. Switching back and forth with different views confuses my brain.

In less than one day we’ve gone from universal declarations like “right-side up works better” to subjective statements like “I just find it more efficient…” and “switching back and forth confuses my brain.” Progress!!!

 

[cliveh]

This is pretty good: -

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It sounds like you’ve never used a view camera before. If you ever try one out, you’ll quickly learn that you must close the lens aperture and then remove the dark slide from the film holder before making the exposure. When you close the lens, you no longer see an image on the ground glass. I challenge you to tell me which way the image is oriented on the ground glass at the time of exposure. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

I don;t understand your point, Mike. We're talking about composition. Composition is made before you close the lens aperture and remove the dark slide to make the exposure.

I;ve shot 4x5 since Covid. Here are some of my shots. I think I understand composition. https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort...ch=1&tags=4x5&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

In less than one day we’ve gone from universal declarations like “right-side up works better” to subjective statements like “I just find it more efficient…” and “switching back and forth confuses my brain.” Progress!!!

Everyone here, including you, is giving their opinion using subjective statements. What works for you may not work for me and others. Progress has nothing to do with it.

 

[Don_ih]

But if you use the upside-down view to start with, looking at the GG to line up teh shot, you don't get the advantage of the normal human perspective of right-side up.

Well, with a view camera, you do, because you typically look for what you want to photograph with your eyes. Then, after setting up the camera, you may be disoriented and not even recognize things well in the ground glass. You need to kind of identify the boundaries of what you have selected on the glass and work it out with what you saw looking at the actual world. So there is an automatic balancing of composure elements if you actually pay a lot of attention to both the scene in front of you and how it looks on the ground glass.

Switching back and forth with different views confuses my brain.

That's kind of the point. Switching from one to another can make you aware of different relationships between elements of the scene. When you look out in front of you, you normally have a point of focus on some thing or other. If the scene is flipped around, you need to relocate your point of focus and may discover it's actually difficult. "Seeing something" tends to ignore everything else that's also within view.

 

[snusmumriken]

After a bit of practice with photobooks, I’ve noticed that those with a central subject or a basically diagonal composition (like the one @cliveh posted a few comments back) are essentially unchanged when upside-down. Those with a more intricate layout, where the balancing of tones and shapes is more nuanced, benefit from the treatment to the extent that it makes me less likely to focus on recognisable objects - but personally I find that a marginal gain.

Then there are compositions that are clearly right- or left-handed, which for my eyes are totally negated by being inverted or mirrored. Does that mean they are bad?

 

[MattKing]

That's kind of the point. Switching from one to another can make you aware of different relationships between elements of the scene. When you look out in front of you, you normally have a point of focus on some thing or other. If the scene is flipped around, you need to relocate your point of focus and may discover it's actually difficult. "Seeing something" tends to ignore everything else that's also within view.

You can extend this analogy (switching from one printer-photographer's viewpoint to another) to printing in the darkroom, as a recent Member Organized Function recently revealed.

 

[warden]

I think portrait in LF is especially hard upside down because features display internal emotions. A smile becomes a frown.

That’s not the half of it. Because my brain can’t adapt I would be filled with terror looking through the upside down, waiting for my frowning subject to fall through the sky. The horror!

Wait, does gravity also get flipped? Where’s my fainting couch?!

 

[Mike Lopez]

I don;t understand your point, Mike. We're talking about composition. Composition is made before you close the lens aperture and remove the dark slide to make the exposure.

I;ve shot 4x5 since Covid. Here are some of my shots. I think I understand composition. https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=4x5&user_id=55760757@N05&view_all=1

You were complaining about how the image being upside-down on the ground glass confuses you, and then you literally asked “How do you know when the best time to shoot (sic)?”

The point is that, at the time of exposure, you can’t see the image on the ground glass anyway. This applies in portraiture, landscapes, or whatever else you are pointing your view camera at. Turn the question around on yourself: How do you know “the best time to shoot” anything with a view camera? Now do you understand?

 

[Mike Lopez]

Everyone here, including you, is giving their opinion using subjective statements. What works for you may not work for me and others. Progress has nothing to do with it.

You are one of the few people here who tend to speak in universal declaratives, as if your subjective feelings and confusion apply to everyone. The statement “right-side up is best” is a perfect example of that. Progress is when one moves from assigning one’s own opinions to everyone to instead owning them as their own.

 

[GregY]

You are one of the few people here who tend to speak in universal declaratives, as if your subjective feelings and confusion apply to everyone. The statement “right-side up is best” is a perfect example of that. Progress is when one moves from assigning one’s own opinions to everyone to instead owning them as their own.

Thank you Mike!

 

[Mike Lopez]

Thank you Mike!

I was just about to edit my post to note that I’m not the only person who has pointed this out to Alan. Your post makes that point even better than I could. *handshake*

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You were complaining about how the image being upside-down on the ground glass confuses you, and then you literally asked “How do you know when the best time to shoot (sic)?”

The point is that, at the time of exposure, you can’t see the image on the ground glass anyway. This applies in portraiture, landscapes, or whatever else you are pointing your view camera at. Turn the question around on yourself: How do you know “the best time to shoot” anything with a view camera? Now do you understand?

Ok now I understand your point. It would have been clearer if I said. "How do you know when you have the best composition looking upside down?"