LF Sightings?

[Dan Fromm]

LF? So far this year, I've seen very few people shooting film in any format, none shooting larger than 6x6. LF? Never seen.

 

[Bob F.]

Once, about 5 years ago: Buttermere, Lake District. LF outside the studio is not big in the UK (and probably half-dead *in* the studio these digital days...).

Bob.

 

[scootermm]

ironically I had a really obscure and strange dream last night.

I was in an old spanish church taking pictures (not suprising... if Im in a place like that its usually doe to a desire to photograph it) alls normal.
But I saw another photographer. Older guy with glasses and a REALLY long ZZtop style white beard.
He was using this weird and strange 8x10 camera... it was motorized... he has this little remote in his hand that controls it. so I go over to him and introduce myself, as I never see LF shooters out shooting around here.... in fact Ive NEVER run into anyone when Im out shooting (aside from digital photographers)
I introduce myself and ask a bunch of questions about his camera... he was very condescending to me in the conversation as a whole. I then commented that the camera design look very similiar to the metal Canham design. He got defensive at that point....
so I changed the subject and asked him what sort of film he had loaded in his film holders....
He said he was experimenting with a digital camera membrane.... it was a sheet of "digital" film that was loaded into a fancy holder and then record the image and then was downloaded on the same little remote that controlled the camera....

it was a sad dream.

He actually taunted and laughed at me when I opened up my 7x17 camera and starting setting up to take a photograph of some of the candles in the church... telling me that his camera would be able to capture all the colors and such much better...

so i went about my own shooting and enjoyed the rest of the day (dream)

VERY STRANGE

 

[MurrayMinchin]

so i went about my own shooting and enjoyed the rest of the day (dream)

VERY STRANGE

Yet so symbolic...in spite of what the Older Master Photographer said , you went and did your own thing...

Murray

 

[bobfowler]

Now you only see LF cameras sitting in photo store windows like mummies in museum exhbitions.

The dreaded "Deardorff as Furniture" syndrome...

There's a couple of camera shops in this area with old 'dorffs sitting in windows, rotting away on tripods, never to be used again...

So sad.

 

[Deckled Edge]

Yep, I know what you mean Jim, often times those point and shoot guys have a complex, resulting in a bit of an attitude.

I'm afraid I'm the one that gets the "attitude." When surrounded by tourists asking "can you still find glass plates?" or "That's HUGE, it must be a hell of a telephoto!" or "Are you making a movie?" my creative juice begins to curdle. I'm usually a nice guy, but the distractions, as Dave found out in D.C., don't favor my best work. I just want peace to figgur out the filter factor or the contrast range.

My answer to the thread question: Twice. Once I didn't have my camera in view, and a guy walks by with a baby Deardorff on a tripod. I said, "Nice 'dorff" and he looked at me like I was the voice of God--surprised the heck out of him. Second time was in Monument Valley. I met an Australian 5x4 shooter. We talked for quite a while.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

I guess I've seen quite a few then, relatively speaking.

Steve Terrill once, a local Oregon photographer with several nice books in the Columbia River Gorge. And then maybe one or two a year in the National Parks that I like to go to. And then, of course, that makes me one of those people that everyone else sees in Death Valley, Canyonlands, or the Tetons.

Actually, one time at the Tetons, in February at the Snake River overlook, I arrived before sunrise and there were several photographers already there. I placed my tripod at the end of the line, and set up my 4x5. There was an 8x10 Canham, a couple of wooden 4x5s, my Technika, a couple medium formats and a couple 35mm. Everyone snapped away, and shortly after the sun rose, everyone left but me. I stayed for another hour and a half as the clouds built up and swirled around the peaks and the moon set behind them. I have to say, my best photos that day were not from the sunrise, but from that later period. I'm glad I stuck around in the 15F weather!

 

[Rich Long]

In the wild, before I took it up myself - 3 times in about 8 years.

In November 1997 at the 'tunnel view' overlook in Yosemite. In the fall of 1998 at Great Falls on the Potomac River near Washington DC. Sometime in 2001 at a steel mill in Colorado.

Since I took it up in 2003, I've come to realize that there are a bunch of us shooting landscapes here in Colorado. Nine or ten of us got togther just last weekend.

 

[Charles Webb]

Like the majority of posts, I seldom see any one with big boxes. Cars will be pulled off the highway to shoot d.....l shots of Pikes Peak some 40 or so miles away. The Royal Gorge is almost in my side yard, but even there you see only a few 35mm's along with a hoard of their kissing cousins loaded with 16 MB chips. "Hey Mom/Dad I am out of space, what should I delete"

I do have and idea where a bunch of the LG format fan's are, they are staking out on ebay and sniping my bids.

 

[Frank Petronio]

I often see RIT students photographing tall churches in Rochester with rickety Calumets and Tiltalls. In fact Willie Osterman once staged a photograph of a dozen view camera photographers, all draped with darkcloths, posed all over a hillside at the local Victorian cemetery. It got made into a funny poster, now long out of print.

I see old coots with view cameras all over Yosemite everytime I visit. Joshua Tree last month. Everytime I've visted Point Lobos. If it was photographed by Ansel or Weston and is just off the road, it's easy to find lf photographers swarming about. PITA if you axe me.

 

[JG Motamedi]

NY is rife with them. The Brooklyn botanical gardens on Saturday morning (free entrance from 8 to 12) usually has a monorail and often a woodie, with the occasional hand-held Technika. 8x10 is rarer, but I have one guy at many of the large demonstrations and parades with an 8x10 Deardorff and a Gitzo tripod.

 

[livemoa]

I was just in Hong Kong and I saw two different photographers using 5x4. First one was in a shop called Shanghai Tan and he was shooting polaroids of somebody using a Linhof. The other was when I was on Lantau Island at a fishing village (the name escapes me at the moment) when I had a short chat with a guy using a Toyo.

Localy, I occasionaly see people using lf cameras, or they see me and stop and talk. Being a small country you tend to get to know most other lf photogs.

 

[mjs]

Other than my buds in the Midwest LF Asylum, once or twice in the past 8 years. One was a fellow carrying a wooden 4x5 on a tripod through a new local hotel with a big glass atrium. I know they're out there -- the local camera store carries 4x5 TMX for me and 4x5 TMY for someone else. They wouldn't carry it on spec, so someone's buying it.

mjs

 

[Graeme Hird]

Never in the wild.

Twice on organised trips (one of which was the get together in Melbourne at the start of the year: David with his ULF monster)

 

[Nige]

Since I was at the same meet with Graeme and David (but toteing my Mamiya 645) that counts for one occurance. Another APUG member, Barrie, and I have been on several outings together but I've never seen another LF 'out in the wild'. I can't remember seeing any MF and could count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone using a tripod!

As far as enquiring people are concerned, I've had many stop and ask questions, but no one has asked if it's digi or a hassy! Several have risked poking their head under the darkcloth to view the GG and have always emerged with a smile!

I did have an interesting experience with an armed guard (don't know if they have live ammo though) at our Rememberence Shrine. The shrine has a "no commericial pics without a permit" policy which I was aware of. I was using a 35mm on tripod shooting IR film and the guard came down to enquire as to my usage of the pics. He was fine with my explanation (which was accurate... personal work). Another day I was there taking pics with my 5x7 pinhole camera. Largeish brown wooden box on tripod which takes me 4-5minutes sitting on the ground to change the paper neg in a change bag. I shot about 8 images and didn't get approached at all! (not even a passerby)

 

[galyons]

I have rarely seen other LF photog's live in the field. Of course, the exception to the rule is when a bunch of us get together to raise havoc! That being said, I took my wife & daughter on a mini road trip Saturday last.

We went from our home in Contra Costa county to the Marin French Cheese Company to Point Reyes up Tomales Bay to Bodega Bay over the ridge to Occidental for a family style Italian dinner. I wasn't allowed to take a camera! At Point Reyes, near the lighthouse, I saw a 4x5 shooter, head in dark cloth, about 50 yards off of the main road. I didn't get a chance to wander over and chat.

About 4 years ago, I stopped and chatted with a 4x5 shooter on one of the back roads between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The only other time, probably 10 years past, was Fern Canyon above Arcata, Ca. (Almost to the Oregon border).

That's it in about 30 years!! But think of the odds, what... there may be, at most, 100,000, (if THAT!) of us? That's less than 0.03% of the population spread over X million square miles of our favorite haunts. Not surprising! So, NEXT TIME, I damn will wander over and say "Hi!"

Cheers,
Geary

 

[Jeff Dyck]

I had a very strange encounter last summer (shooting in Murray's backyard). I was out on some old mining roads near the border of Northern BC and Alaska shooting (North of Hyder/Stewart near the old Granduc Mine). It was my second day out (having camped in the back of the truck the night before) and I hadn't seen a single person or vehicle (let alone a photographer) for almost 2 days. I spied a good potential shot from the truck, so I parked it, put my pack on, slung my tripod over my shoulder and proceeded to bushwack up the side of a hill to get to a better viewpoint. Imagine my surprise when I crested the hill to see an old TLR set-up on a tripod. The photographer showed up about 10 minutes later (he was scouting another shot) and we had a good chat. He was out camping with friends and had taken off hiking for the day and spied the same shot. He was the only other person I saw that weekend. That medium format encounter is as close as I ever got to encountering a large format photographer on the North Coast!

Murray - I sent you a PM.

 

[Mateo]

Well if you all come over here to the Monterey penninsula you'll have no trouble running into people shooting LF. I see others out all the time.

 

[photobackpacker]

Last November I was standing on a bridge overlooking the Cross River water falls working with my 4x5. As I worked under the dark cloth, I noticed the toes of another standing beside me. I came up for air and this gentleman asked if I minded if he took my picture. I laughed and said no problem. He went back to his car, drags out a Wisner 8x10, set up on the center divider in the middle of the bridge and took my picture as I worked with the beauty of one of the many magnificent rivers cascading into the North Shore of Lake Superior.

After he took the shot, we chatted for awhile and then each retreated into the business of taking pictures. A pleasane encounter of another friendly, unobtrusive and focused LFer.

 

[ChrisC]

I haven't yet, but there are one or two others who post on this site who are close buy. And the local photo lab I go to has a reasonable selection of 4x5 film, so there must be others out there.

 

[livemoa]

Hey Chris, where are you?

I'm in Wellington as is Clayton who posts here

 

[ChrisC]

I'm in Wellington also. I knew Clayton was as we've talked before, and I had a sneaking suspicion there was another.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

For those who care...alas...Jeff has just moved...D'OH!

Any other LF'ers in the Rupert, Prince, Terrace, Kitimat, Smithers, Etc...area?

Murray

 

[livemoa]

I'm in Wellington also. I knew Clayton was as we've talked before, and I had a sneaking suspicion there was another.

there are a few lf photographers in Wellington, have you come across Andrew Ross?

 

[ChrisC]

I've checked out his site on photospace a couple of times, but that's the extent of it. I haven't been shooting seriously for very long, and am only a couple of months new into LF. I've thought about seeing what a couple of the local photography clubs are like, but I've been enjoying learning at my own pace so far.