Large Format Aesthetics

[Larry Bullis]

String with knots... yep... old studio trick... shhh !

But you can't use just any string !
(seriously, no bonus points for anything that stretches !)

Do I have this right? Let's see, the distance between the knots increases by a factor of 1.414? Never having had a recurrent task to perform, I've always been doomed to rely on a tape measure.

 

[gerryyaum]

My concern is that 8x10, suits a much different style and aesthetic than I'm used to. And thinking about the ultra sharp clarity of LF it seems you'd have to have a different approach to fashion photography, like it'd be more about the clarity and focus of the image rather than the shapes.
anyways does anybody have experience or suggestions about fashion shooting on 8x10 - notable photographers? BTW I don't like Dave Lachapelle or Gregory Crewdson style -- so just a heads up.
thanks

Avedon did portraiture and I think lots of his fashion stuff with a 8x10. A very different type of shooting. I found that doing portraits with the 8x10 was bot exciting and rewarding, doing fashion might be more difficult trying thou.

Jock Sturges does some of the best work ever with a 8x10 camera, you might want to study his work as well.

8x10 portraits from 2007

http://gerryyaum.com/sex worker.html

 

[aatonpanavision]

I'm excited about the prospect of taking fewer photos and working longer with the models. It actually seems like it'll be an extension of the style I've been tending towards anyways. Shooting 6x7 I usually had a "master shot" in mind and the rest of the exposures were safety's and filler.
I found looking at 8x10 photos on flickr a bit demoralizing, but I've found some good stuff to look at in the forum that got me excited again.

 

[wogster]

What Ian said. While the West Coast school of large format emphacized sharpness and clarity, that's a style which large format was capable of facilitating. That's not what large format forces you to do. In fact, using large format equipment is arguably the most versatile means of producing a photograph. You can literally do things with LF that you can't do with other types of equipment, or can only do with great difficulty.

If you want selective focus, imagine how much easier it will be defining what's in focus and what isn't with a 4x5 inch or 8x10 inch viewing screen, instead of a small reflex viewfinder, or a 2" LCD screen. You have access to the widest variety of lenses -- even ancient lenses from the earliest days of photography, with all their weird and wonderful optical "defects" can still be used. You can make your own lenses from simple optical elements, cardboard tubing, and duct tape. You can do, almost literally, anything you want. Check out Jim Galli's website, for example, for examples of large format photographs which use the optical abberations of old lenses for definitely non-sharp pictures.

What large format doesn't do well is fast photography -- if you can't imagine a portrait session without a motor drive, you're in for a shock. If you need to make 256 pictures in order to later select the six you really wanted, large format is going to frustrate you. Large format is deliberate, structured (in the operation of the camera, anyway,) and organization pays big dividends. You really ought to try it, if for no other reason than to know from personal experience what it's like. I'm betting that if you can get past the mechanics of using the camera, you're going to really like the tonality a large negative provides, even more than whatever degree of sharpness you're looking for. Just remember that large format is a very deep well -- because it's so versatile, there's always more you can do with it.

Mike

Personally I think the main driver of format should be what you want as a result. One of the problems photographers have, is that they often look for the universal format, but there isn't one. Just like a carpenter may have 5 different saws, the photographer really should have multiple cameras in different formats. They may then have an 8x10 on a big wood tripod, a 4x5 on a smaller tripod or hand held, a 120 roll film camera and a 35mm or digital SLR. They may and probably should switch between those cameras to get what they want for a particular image, rather then limit themselves to what the camera is capable of.

Yes an 8x10 camera is a wonderful device, I wouldn't want to do a 2 week long kayak ride hauling a 25lb camera and tripod around though, although I would like a relatively lighter folding 4x5 field camera though, using that and a 35mm or DSLR would give you the best of both worlds, use the 4x5 when you have time to set it up and the SLR when you don't. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some photographers wouldn't simply take a shot with the 4x5 and a DSLR version from the same vantage point to get both.

 

[GraemeMitchell]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned him, but Nicholas Nixon for environmental portraits.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

The string trick (which I learned from my high school photo teacher, a cranky old wedding photog who also did some printing press work and used the string for setting the distance from the main light to the subject for strobe exposures):

Attach a string with a knot at the end of it to something that doesn't move like the top of a tripod leg and have the subject hold the string taut up to his/her nose, then look at the groundglass and focus, not on the end of the string, but on the near eye. Then when you are ready to make the exposure, darkslide out, shutter cocked, you can check the subject distance with the string, and it may feel a little silly, but virtually every shot that you check this way will be dead on in focus, wide open on 8x10" or larger, it's very accurate.

On movie sets, when it counts and money is being spent at astounding rates for equipment, crews, and talent, they don't trust the viewfinder. Cine lens barrels are marked in fine increments and they measure, so there's something to this string thing. (I just looked back and saw that the original poster goes by "aatonpanavision," so you know this).

Another trick that I've used that works pretty well with a subject that doesn't move around too much is to pay close attention to the shadows on the face, like where the nose shadow falls on the lip when the image is in focus, and you can usually adjust the head right before the shot so the shadows match what you saw on the groundglass when focusing, and it will be in focus.

My third trick is what works for photographing my 2-year-old with an 8x10" camera: more light, smaller aperture--

 

[df cardwell]

Do I have this right? Let's see, the distance between the knots increases by a factor of 1.414? Never having had a recurrent task to perform, I've always been doomed to rely on a tape measure.

I thought it would be classier if i went to a tape measure instead of a piece of string, and the first thing that happened was I forgot the tape measure.

Used the model's dental floss. So embarrassing.

DAVID: NEAT PICTURE ! (velcro on the organ bench ?)

 

[keithwms]

lol

Well, if the subject moves then there is always this option, from the age of Daguerreotypes...

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Thanks, Don. I actually positioned him in a different spot and set up the camera the parallel to the organ so the lines would be square, but as expected, he wanted to get up and push all the buttons, and fortunately the Sinar P is quick to work with, so I just adjusted the camera, refocused, used a little rear swing, and went with it. Of five shots from this shoot, I generally like the more dynamic ones after he decided to get up and move around.

The lens, by the way, is a 10"/f:4 Voigtländer Petzval lens at f:22 from around 1860, for those who are curious about what a Petzval looks like stopped down. As Jim Galli attests, this is another reason to shoot 8x10" for portraits. You can use historic lenses that make interesting contact prints with a big neg, but don't necessarily hold up well to enlargement from a smaller format.

I haven't made a final print of this yet, because I want to try it with the new Lodima paper. This one's on Azo G2, and I did a little etching on the neg to tone down that front leg a bit as well as some highlights on the organ bench that you can't see in this crop.

Which, coming back to the general topic here, is another reason to shoot 8x10" for portraits, as DF Cardwell and others have mentioned above. The classic Hollywood portraits were as much about retouching as lighting, posing, format, and camera technique, and it's much easier to work with a big negative, so that's become an often unacknowledged part of the "large format aesthetic" as well. I suspect that virtually all studio portraiture from the 1890s to the 1970s involved retouching, and much of it still does.

 

[GraemeMitchell]

I suppose the working pros in fashion who use 8x10 do it less for technical or aesthetic reasons than simply b/c they can. If there's the resources for it, then asking, why, could be responded to by asking, why not. I'm thinking McDean, Knight, Meisel. Roversi would have been an exception, since his lok was 8x10 pola.

The big film is nice, yes, but I'm suggesting that there's more of a game in play than is being suggested. Not much different then shooting a major campaign with a 35mm P&S.

 

[mjs]

Didn't think I was dissing smaller formats?

Personally I think the main driver of format should be what you want as a result. One of the problems photographers have, is that they often look for the universal format, but there isn't one. Just like a carpenter may have 5 different saws, the photographer really should have multiple cameras in different formats. They may then have an 8x10 on a big wood tripod, a 4x5 on a smaller tripod or hand held, a 120 roll film camera and a 35mm or digital SLR. They may and probably should switch between those cameras to get what they want for a particular image, rather then limit themselves to what the camera is capable of.

Yes an 8x10 camera is a wonderful device, I wouldn't want to do a 2 week long kayak ride hauling a 25lb camera and tripod around though, although I would like a relatively lighter folding 4x5 field camera though, using that and a 35mm or DSLR would give you the best of both worlds, use the 4x5 when you have time to set it up and the SLR when you don't. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some photographers wouldn't simply take a shot with the 4x5 and a DSLR version from the same vantage point to get both.

You make it sound as though I was advocating '8x10 or bust'. I didn't think I said that; I surely didn't mean anything of that nature. The original point was that a view camera doesn't 'force' a photographer into any particular style: you can have sharp, fuzzy, or anything. They're versatile. And I also specifially said there were some things view cameras don't do well, and gave a couple of examples. Encyclopedic? No, nor encyclopedic in length.

One thing, though: you said that you wouldn't be surprised to see some folks take a shot with their 4x5 and then the same shot with a DSLR. I've been thinking about that and, for the life of me, can't figure out why I would want to do that. It sounds like a bad solution to not being able to make up one's mind, although I suppose that it's a natural extension of the conceptual need to have cameras in every possible format. After all, if you might need them then I suppose that you really ought to take all of them along with you when you're out photographing. What if you didn't have one and missed something?

Mike

 

[wogster]

You make it sound as though I was advocating '8x10 or bust'. I didn't think I said that; I surely didn't mean anything of that nature. The original point was that a view camera doesn't 'force' a photographer into any particular style: you can have sharp, fuzzy, or anything. They're versatile. And I also specifially said there were some things view cameras don't do well, and gave a couple of examples. Encyclopedic? No, nor encyclopedic in length.

One thing, though: you said that you wouldn't be surprised to see some folks take a shot with their 4x5 and then the same shot with a DSLR. I've been thinking about that and, for the life of me, can't figure out why I would want to do that. It sounds like a bad solution to not being able to make up one's mind, although I suppose that it's a natural extension of the conceptual need to have cameras in every possible format. After all, if you might need them then I suppose that you really ought to take all of them along with you when you're out photographing. What if you didn't have one and missed something?

Mike

Didn't intend that you were dissing other formats, just trying to add some more info to the thread,,,

 

[keithwms]

About the string trick, you can get a small electronic laser rangefinder for about ~$30 from Sonin.

http://www.opticsplanet.net/sonin-laser-targeting-rangefinder.html

I am currently rigging one on a hot shoe to do scale focusing. You don't want to shine the thing in someone's eyes, but.... you get very precise distance measurements from ~2-60 ft , with no strings attached

 

[Ian Grant]

Sounds like a good idea I had thought of getting one, but they'll be more expensive here in Turkey :rolleyes:

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

About the string trick, you can get a small electronic laser rangefinder for about ~$30 from Sonin.

http://www.opticsplanet.net/sonin-laser-targeting-rangefinder.html

I am currently rigging one on a hot shoe to do scale focusing. You don't want to shine the thing in someone's eyes, but.... you get very precise distance measurements from ~2-60 ft , with no strings attached

That's fine for modern lenses, but if you shoot with funky old lenses that have wacky field curvature or diffuse focus, you really have to look at the groundglass to decide where the focus is most aesthetically pleasing, and with field curvature as you have on a Petzval, you can't even measure using a focus scale and a rangefinder or tape measure, because the "focal plane" isn't a plane. In an article on soft focus lenses from the age of soft focus lenses mentioned a while back on the LF forum, several photographers were asked to focus a lens on the same subject, and they each picked different focal points based on aesthetic preference. Julia Margaret Cameron made the same argument in the nineteenth century.

What the string does is give you a fixed subject distance, and then you can place the focus precisely where you want it based on the groundglass image. You could do the same with the groundglass and a rangefinder, but it wouldn't necessarily involve a focus scale.

 

[df cardwell]

So, you compose,
focus on the subject,
stop down.
close the shutter,
cock the shutter,
load the film,
pull the slide,
look at the subject and blast her with a laser ?

Dude, won't fly in the portrait business.
I take the string and walk over and ask her to just touch the knot with her cheek,
and, she's in focus again.

Shoot. it's about the people, not the gadgets.

 

[keithwms]

lol

Dude, nobody's forcing you to use any gadgets I sometimes like to shoot with wooden boxes too! My two favourite cameras are from 1903!

Anyway... your proposed workflow is much too laborious. For my purposes it's more like this: Point the camera at a subject, pop the beam quickly on the subject to get the distance, set that distance on the lens, and fire. Waistlevel composition is optional.

Or simply use the distance meter to decide on optimal DOF settings.

So... no fine composing through a VF or GG, no stopping down, no close or cocking of shutters, no pulling of slides, and no model getting blasted with a laser! :rolleyes:

 

[k_jupiter]

lol

Dude, nobody's forcing you to use any gadgets I sometimes like to shoot with wooden boxes too! My two favourite cameras are from 1903!

Anyway... your proposed workflow is much too laborious. For my purposes it's more like this: Point the camera at a subject, pop the beam quickly on the subject to get the distance, set that distance on the lens, and fire. Waistlevel composition is optional.

Or simply use the distance meter to decide on optimal DOF settings.

So... no fine composing through a VF or GG, no stopping down, no close or cocking of shutters, no pulling of slides, and no model getting blasted with a laser! :rolleyes:

Ya tie your model with a knot to the end of the rope and shoot them with a Taser. Don't y'all know anything?

tim in san jose

P.S. a 1903 Taser if you want to be authentic.

 

[Phillip P. Dimor]

I was going to make a tongue-in-cheek remark about drugging models but then I remembered that editor from shutterbug, Bob Shell. Oops.
I mean, that's one way to make sure you get them in focus. They surely won't be moving.. ever.