This LF photog has attitude

Mainecoonmaniac · Oct 15, 2014

I'd say it's moxy.

http://petapixel.com/2014/10/15/ground-glass-ode-large-format-photographer/

superpos · Oct 16, 2014

amazing video!

this is why I love large format photography

Regular Rod · Oct 16, 2014

Why walk miles on rocky terrain with the camera not safely packed and the tripod folded? Or was this just for the video? On another matter, why are there intelligent people that still smoke?

Nevertheless, his message is first class and hits the spot.

RR

baachitraka · Oct 16, 2014

Smoking is so out of fashion on these days. Sadly, too many smoking instances on the video.

Ian Grant · Oct 16, 2014

Regular Rod said:
Why walk miles on rocky terrain with the camera not safely packed and the tripod folded? Or was this just for the video? On another matter, why are there intelligent people that still smoke?

Nevertheless, his message is first class and hits the spot.

RR

I always walk with the camera ready on the tripod once I've started shooting, it's quite normal, it means I can shoot quickly in changing light conditions. It also spreads the weight a bit when on rough terrain. If I'm out with my 10x8 the backpack would be too heavy.

Ian

Steve Goldstein · Oct 16, 2014

Any idea what that front pack is that he seems to be wearing?

Old-N-Feeble · Oct 16, 2014

Regular Rod said:
Why walk miles on rocky terrain with the camera not safely packed and the tripod folded? Or was this just for the video? On another matter, why are there intelligent people that still smoke?

Nevertheless, his message is first class and hits the spot.

RR

I used to walk with an extended tripod and attached 4x5 resting on one shoulder. Why, you ask? Because it looks so friggin' cool.

paul_c5x4 · Oct 16, 2014

Old-N-Feeble said:
I used to walk with an extended tripod and attached 4x5 resting on one shoulder. Why, you ask?

In a crowd, it forces people to keep their distance, especially if you have spikes on the end of the legs

Jeff Kubach · Oct 16, 2014

That is a geat video!

Jeff

winger · Oct 16, 2014

Except for the smoking, I love it.

And I walk around with my 4x5 on the tripod like that, too, if I think I'll be shooting before I need to use my hands to climb something.

Hatchetman · Oct 16, 2014

you know how hobos put their belongings on the end of a stick? leverage you know. easier to carry.

Mainecoonmaniac · Oct 16, 2014

I was walking around at Muir Woods with my Fuji 6x9 on my tripod and I got a bunch of weird looks. I'm the freak that shoots film. God bless the freaks!

PKM-25 · Oct 16, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I'm the freak that shoots film. God bless the freaks!

Oooh....I might have to use that as my quoted sig...

Alan Gales · Oct 16, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I'm the freak that shoots film. God bless the freaks!

Amen, Brother!

Vaughn · Oct 16, 2014

Another freak here...

ntenny · Oct 16, 2014

I'm a backpack guy personally, but if you had a secure enough mounting and a camera that balanced well, I can see how the extended-tripod thing would make sense. I've done it with my little 645 SLR before, but I think my LF cameras would be too heavy for comfortable balance.

As long as he's packing his butts out, I don't have a problem with the smoking. I mean, it's *bad* for him, but I'm pretty sure he knows that by now! I wouldn't have chosen to highlight it in the same way if I were the filmmaker though.

-NT

PKM-25 · Oct 16, 2014

I rarely carry my cameras like that after busting a Nikon F2 on rocks in 1989.

Not a fan of smoking either but in some "Marlboro-Man" kind of way, it fits with his duds and demeanor. I bought his print from the cave scene because I believe in the tactile life before me as I age into my own version of ashes...

Newt_on_Swings · Oct 16, 2014

One slip and there goes his camera on that terrain. It doesn't take long to pack up the lf camera. The only time I carry it on a tripod like that is for short distances with my field camera. His ground glass is constantly exposed to the elements and dust. It's not fun at all to have that dust that can migrate onto your film and see blank spots after developing. But all in all he does look pretty bad ass, and the video does a good job romanticizing the art form. I wish he used his hands to dodge and burn the print and tongs or gloves to develop it too, which irks me as a photo teacher.

DREW WILEY · Oct 16, 2014

I've hauled view cameras up a helluva lot of mtns and on hundreds of rugged backpacking trips, maybe a thousand of em. But one thing I simply
won't do is carry one any significant distance over the shoulder rifle-style. Learned that lesson the hard way. Just a couple summers back I was
with a friend in a magnificent off-trail "sanctuary" in the high Sierra about a week's walk from the nearest road. My friend is a highly accomplished climber who has been all over the world and often backpacks with expensive Rollei MF SLR gear and Zeiss lenses. But he likes to
carry this stuff on tripod rifle-style. Late one afternoon after we had already set up camp he wanted to explore upstream a bit, slipped on a wet
rock, and manages to twist his ankle, dunk his favorite obscenely expensive Zeiss wide-angle lens, and break two legs off his Gitzo carbon fiber
tripod. I managed to whittle two prosthetic legs from bare pine branches and duct tape them to his tripod. Then I had a pair of pliers in my pack and managed to pull out the dent in the filter thread to his remaining lens, while the other was hopelessly fogged for the duration of the
trip. And the duct tape came in handy for reinforcing his ankle for the week-long trip out over three high passes. I still tease him about that
jerry-rigged tripod; but it did work for the duration of the trip.

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 16, 2014

I am a lazy photographer, so I do carry my camera and tripod like that sometimes, but only when it's easy to walk. If I have to walk difficult terrain, then I pack up and put it on my back instead.

I liked the video a lot, though. Captures a lot of the spirit I feel when I'm out and about. Great work.

cliveh · Oct 16, 2014

Real LF photographers don't make videos about their arduous process, they just do it.

pbromaghin · Oct 16, 2014

After decades as a former smoker, if a guy wants to take a break from shooting 8x10 landscapes to sit on the edge of a cliff in twilight as beautiful as that and light up a Marlboro Light 100, heck, I might even join him. Or maybe sit a few feet downwind to enjoy the smell.

rjs003 · Oct 16, 2014

Pay a visit to www.moffitt.org/ I spent seven weeks with these folk while I under went radiation treatment for cancer of the Larynx.
coughing and choking till you puke wasn't any fun.

Truzi · Oct 16, 2014

pbromaghin said:
After decades as a former smoker, if a guy wants to take a break from shooting 8x10 landscapes to sit on the edge of a cliff in twilight as beautiful as that and light up a Marlboro Light 100, heck, I might even join him. Or maybe sit a few feet downwind to enjoy the smell.

A Bali Shag Halfzware Shag seems more fitting to that scenario. Marlboro Lights? That's almost not smoking in the first place. LOL.

Even though I'm a smoker (and never did it to be "fashionable" - if I were that malleable I'd not still be using film), it does seem a bit much in the video. I'm also not at all against vulgarities, but again, it seemed a bit much and a bit too detached. Almost as if both were purposeful in creating an "image." Perhaps a bit pretentious?

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Oct 16, 2014

If you give me the most expensive large format camera , I have no option to photograph another tasteless painted concrete building. I am not leaving 300 meters diameter around my home for past 12 years and I started to draw my feet lying on the bed occasionally. Every drawing better than the older one and I have a Winsor Water paints and may be I will color it. I smoked 60 cigatettes in 5 hours last night. I think I must buy a classic paint poster and copy it. I have 200 hobbies and subclass is 1000 or more and I am thinking on them.

This LF photog has attitude

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