Justifying the use of a large format camera...

[avandesande]

Creating top quality 35mm images is every bit as difficult(if not more) and costly as large format. Precision is much more important with 35mm.

 

[Claire Senft]

Wake up and smell the coffee.

 

[Aggie]

Are they so insecure with their own cameras, that they have to have you justify why you are not blindly following them like a sheep? Don't worry about it Matt. YOU do what you like, and let them do what they like. If you are asked again, just say, "I'm secure enough in my abilities, I don't need your type of camera."

I personally kept moving up in negative size, because I wanted better resolution at larger sizes. I could not get what I wanted enlarging a 35mm to an 11x14 inch size paper. I do find that I shoot mainly two cameras. My Wisner 4x5, and my Mamiya 7II. Depends on the circumstances, and what I have to do to get the shot.

 

[MattCarey]

...then the other extent of having some people tell me I dont justify, nor have the skill and photographic sight to properly shooting with such a format as 8x10 (or for that matter 7x17 soon to be)

You already have tons of good comments. Let me add my random thoughts:

We aren't talking scuba. It isn't like you are going to get yourself trapped in some wreck watching your air supply dwindle. Worst thing that happens is that you waste your own money and time.

justify--yeah right.


Matt

 

[Brook]

I was going through my garage, and found a bunch of stuff I shot in art school 10+ years ago. I realized it took making alot of crappy photos to begin making some good ones. No amount of theorizing or new equiptment can take the place of taking a lot of photos and being honest with one self about what works and does not.

Dragging around a view camera and just looking and taking a few shots is its own reward. No justification required.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Just in the last week Ive gotten the mixed input to the extents of meeting many fellow APUGers and having them seem to quite enjoy my 8x10 photography/printing and then the other extent of having some people tell me I dont justify, nor have the skill and photographic sight to properly shooting with such a format as 8x10 (or for that matter 7x17 soon to be)

Doesn't this remind you of a "professional" attitude, which says that if you're not part of the trade with your qualifications, then you shouldn't do it. Surely works for engineers, goldsmiths, etc, but then these trades have their own door for beginners. With photography, you can do it from day one when you're completely unexperienced, without having to go through any specific process. You won't build a bridge on the first day of your engineering degree.

I think there is a veiled resentment from the people you talked to: they don't like amateurs, they don't like people trying to learn by themselves, they just like people like them. It looks like an attempt to assert their "professionalism" over your honest attempts at learning.

On the other hand, you can see that the APUG people were receptive and encouraging: I think people here want to MAKE photo, not pretend they do.

 

[MattKing]

There are only two possible reasons I can think of why it might be necessary to justify using your LF equipment:

1) if the slower, more cumbersome process isn't suited to the subject (e.g. using an 8x10 view camera for a photograph of a child blowing out birthday cake candles at a party, with everyone having to wait around while you set up - clearly a 4x5 folder is better suited to this situation ); or
2) if you were only using the camera to impress others, and not to actually create images for your satisfaction and the satisfaction of others.

After reviewing the fine images you have posted on APUG, it is clear that neither situation applies to you.

 

[jovo]

In a country where Joe Sixpack can don the duds of any professional athlete he admires even though he's so out of shape and overweight he couldn't walk briskly around the block without wheezing....or buy and wear NYPD or NYFD caps and T shirts in Boca Raton or San Diego or Montreal for that matter, it takes a helluva lot of nerve for anyone to tell you (who clearly isn't schlepping around LF equipment for show) you need to justify a damn thing. Go kick 'em in the tripod!!

 

[photobackpacker]

I recently asked a D****** "IMAGE MAKER" why his camera came stock with sound effects to make it sound like a film camera with a motor drive!

I got six rapid eye-blinks but no answer. Justify that!

 

[John Kasaian]

Hey when you shoot an 8x10 you're a natural target for size envy. Just tell 'em: "Sure pal, mine is certainly a lot bigger than yours and chicks dig me---just deal with it!" ;-)

 

[Jorge]

Hey when you shoot an 8x10 you're a natural target for size envy. Just tell 'em: "Sure pal, mine is certainly a lot bigger than yours and chicks dig me---just deal with it!" ;-)

Or to put John's suggestion more succintly......tell them "Size DOES matter"

 

[brent8927]

It's not the size of your equipment that matters, it's how you use it.

 

[David Brown]

Just in the last week Ive gotten the mixed input ...

Matt:

It's BS.

Cheers

David

 

[MattCarey]

I get this question all the time..."Why you using that old, ****y, heavy camera?!" "Why dont you just shoot digital? *beep* *beep* *beep* (fires off a few shots in random dirrections).

This is off-topic, but I find this change in attitude amusing. 10 years (or more) back, I went on a couple of photo-safaris in Africa. Sometimes an absolutely beautiful scene would present itself. I would shoot off a roll. Others along for the safari were watched me in disbelief. After I started moving along, they felt like they had to say something to "justify" why they didn't shoot. The comments I heard were along the lines of, "I already have an elephant shot".

Now, we have moved into the "Hold the shutter release down and fill up the hard drive" mode.

Since I work for a hard-drive manufacturor, I have to like the trend. I still find it amusing.

Matt

 

[scootermm]

EVERYONE
thanks so much.
really what everyones said re-iterated what my initial thoughts were.
nice to get the backing so I know Im not crazy (at least this part
most of these comments came from "professionals" or "experts from the field of academia"

interesting to get others thoughts...
thanks again for that.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

most of these comments came from "professionals" or "experts from the field of academia"

Interesting how people like this can be afflicted by tunnel vision - if what you're doing ain't like what they're doing, it's garbage!

 

[lee]

Matt:

I always look at this sort of thing as a "growth spurt" photographically. You need negative input sometimes to make you question your intentions. I see this as troubling but good none the less. I also think it is healthy for your art. I question a lot of things about what I do every so often. Some of my friends will run the other way when they see me coming now. Such is life.

lee\c

 

[mark]

EVERYONE
"professionals" or "experts from the field of academia"
.

You have gotten responses from folks on this thread who I would readily call experts in the field and a few of them, I believe, are very good teachers.

Lumping all those who are in academia, who have strived to become experts in their fields, and those who make a living from photography, with the a**holes you mentioned, rubs me the wrong way. Call those who made the comments what they are-an A**hole who teaches. Or maybe an A**hole who makes their living off photographs. I can garantee that these types of folks are not the norm. Gross generalizations are generally pointless and hold very little water.

 

[scootermm]

I agree lee.
well said.

Ive been in a state of "questioning" my work. just to delve deeper into it. and honestly Ive come to the conclusion that its fun and I love it. there is much more to it... but that lies at the foundation to it.

I do admit it can be troublesome but I agree and also cherish the troublesome times because it feels like theres a better understanding after moving through them.

 

[jjstafford]

The OP's vague reference to academia is unsupported; when I read such I want to know Who, When, What each person said. So enough of the innuendo, please.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

The OP's vague reference to academia is unsupported; when I read such I want to know Who, When, What each person said. So enough of the innuendo, please.

Subject only to the laws of libel, and based on nearly 40 years' professional media experience, I could provide you with endless examples of, for example, noted press photographers who have no idea of art photography (and dismiss it with a stream of obscenities), technical and industrial photographers who are in turn totally ignorant and dismissive of press work, etc. I have done a workshop with a minor academic who as a sideline produces photographic collages using fragments of repros of famous paintings and who told me he couldn't understand why I bothered to take pictures at all, as my work did nothing for him. I did another workshop with a former president of Magnum, initials CH, whose concept of photography was that Life magazine was the zenith of the photographic art, that nothing worthwhile had been done since, and that (for example) abstract landscape was garbage and in any case any fool could do it. I have now ceased to attend workshops, having found time and again that the workshop leader, while having undoubted expertise and a well-earned reputation, also had a condescending attitude and a total insistence on being placed on a pedestal, expressed in a total refusal to answer any questions which he/she did not want to hear (does this remind you of anyone posting on this forum?). Time and again, people teaching photography are doing it on the basis of reputations gained 20, 30 or more years ago and jealously guarded ever since. I am thick-skinned enough to be unaffected by this, but the starter of this thread provides evidence of just how discouraging so-called experts can be.

 

[scootermm]

this may have gotten off track... I was/am in no way generalizing or finger pointing at all.... not of people in the professional field or people in the field of academia (some of my most influential mentors and people I admire most are amongst the latter)

it was merely just curiosity that spurred my original posting. Interested in what others experiences were. the more people I converse with on this forum and members of APUG in person... the more I realize how much knowledge and experience they have from the years theyve spent pursuing this passion we all share.

I apologize if Ive offended or insulted anyone.

 

[Jorge]

I agree lee.
well said.

Ive been in a state of "questioning" my work. just to delve deeper into it. and honestly Ive come to the conclusion that its fun and I love it. there is much more to it... but that lies at the foundation to it.

I do admit it can be troublesome but I agree and also cherish the troublesome times because it feels like theres a better understanding after moving through them.

If you ever stop questioning your work you have gotten in a rut. I am always questioning my work and how I can do things differently, I try different compositions, exposure, development. Some work, some dont....I just dont want 20 years from now to be making the same pictures I make now, how boring.. !