This LF photog has attitude

palewin · Oct 17, 2014

You might find it interesting to visit Joe's website, www.joefreemanjunior.com to get a better feel for his work. There is also a long thread on the video over on the LargeFormatPhotographyForum, where it turns out Joe Freeman himself is a member. And yes, many of the LFPF posters also criticized Joe for his smoking, but not for his photography.

PKM-25 · Oct 17, 2014

My mother inlaw smokes, my wife and I kind of worry about it. Joe seems to be making adjustments to his new found attention, he has slathered a big ol banner of a link to his new Estsy page on his site. I think it is a little tacky but I still ordered one of his $50 prints.

c6h6o3 · Oct 17, 2014

pdeeh said:
And yet, St. Ansel came down from the mountain and did say "The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance."; And the Children of APUG were sore bemused, and did hurl mighty into the deep of the night

Amen

thanks a lot. now there's puke all over my keyboard

RattyMouse · Oct 18, 2014

canuhead said:
another thing, he was bare handing his print in Amidol ? if that's what it was...

I think it was tea. From his site where he sells his photos he wrote: "I tone many of my prints in tea (yes, the beverage). Tea works differently than selenium in that it doesn't alter the molecular structure of the silver. I use it to stain the paper which the silver gelatin is coated onto in order to give a degree of warmth to the image."

andrew.roos · Oct 19, 2014

Thanks for sharing. Inspiring video.

[to self]
No I will not buy a LF camera.
No I will not buy a LF camera.
NO I WILL NOT BUY A LF CAMERA!

canuhead · Oct 19, 2014

saw him grab a jar and drop some chems (looked blackish) into the beaker which is why I thought Amidol. Developer also looked pretty dark, mind you, I've never used Amidol either

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 19, 2014

canuhead said:
saw him grab a jar and drop some chems (looked blackish) into the beaker which is why I thought Amidol. Developer also looked pretty dark, mind you, I've never used Amidol either

I use Ethol LPD replenished. After going through most of my replenisher I can barely see my print under the surface. Lots of developers get dark with use.

canuhead · Oct 19, 2014

ah, thanks Thomas.

winger · Oct 19, 2014

andrew.roos said:
Thanks for sharing. Inspiring video.

[to self]
No I will not buy a LF camera.
No I will not buy a LF camera.
NO I WILL NOT BUY A LF CAMERA!

Hah! Yeah, good luck with that. If you already shoot MF, that's the gateway drug to LF. Just go out shooting with some fellow APUGers who shoot LF. It won't take long.

PKM-25 · Oct 19, 2014

andrew.roos said:
[to self]
No I will not buy a LF camera.
No I will not buy a LF camera.
NO I WILL NOT BUY A LF CAMERA!

Funny, lately I find my self doing the same thing regarding getting a 16x20 camera....
(Medium format is still the best though)

analoguey · Oct 19, 2014

andrew.roos said:
Thanks for sharing. Inspiring video.

[to self]
No I will not buy a LF camera.
No I will not buy a LF camera.
NO I WILL NOT BUY A LF CAMERA!

Well, Andrew, some LF cameras are going for next to nothing on LFf and eBay!

Prasanna.

Sent from Tap-a-talk

rjbuzzclick · Oct 19, 2014

It's also possible that he's carrying the camera over his shoulder that way because the director of the video thought it looked cool, and once the video camera was shut off everything was packed back up until the next shot.

c6h6o3 · Oct 20, 2014

canuhead said:
saw him grab a jar and drop some chems (looked blackish) into the beaker which is why I thought Amidol. Developer also looked pretty dark, mind you, I've never used Amidol either

At one time a few years back, Joe sported black fingernails. He doesn't any more. Dead Link Removed.

Mainecoonmaniac · Oct 20, 2014

Not true about Amidol

c6h6o3 said:
At one time a few years back, Joe sported black fingernails. He doesn't any more. Dead Link Removed.

It think Ed Weston was one of the first Goth rockers in his time.

Dr Croubie · Oct 20, 2014

c6h6o3 said:
At one time a few years back, Joe sported black fingernails. He doesn't any more. Dead Link Removed.

Sure he wasn't just wearing bright red nailpolish and photographed on Ortho film?

Roger Cole · Oct 20, 2014

andrew.roos said:
Thanks for sharing. Inspiring video.

[to self]
No I will not buy a LF camera.
No I will not buy a LF camera.
NO I WILL NOT BUY A LF CAMERA!

You know you want to. Go ahead. Resistance is futile!

PKM-25 said:
Funny, lately I find my self doing the same thing regarding getting a 16x20 camera....
(Medium format is still the best though)

I kind of agree with this too. Having 4x5, but one that is...not in prime shape, my next camera goal is to get a nice newer 4x5, but I admit I am tempted by 8x10...eventually.

But really, I'm also sometimes tempted to get an RB67 and be done with it. MF, especially 6x7 or 6x9, will give you most of the quality improvement with none of the hassle of sheet film. I do shoot MF, but 6x6 (Yashicamat 124) and 645 (Mamiya 645 Pro) and even those produce prints as good as I could want up to the sizes I print, IF I use them like a LF camera - on a tripod, mirror locked up on the 645, carefully metered etc.

Anyone considering the plunge don't underestimate the hassles of sheet film or the number of new and creative ways you will find to screw up a shot in LF.

But then again, why don't I just go RB67? For one thing, my 4x5 kit can be smaller and lighter by a considerable margin if I just take what I need! For another, the ground glass view really is addictive. Then there's the availability of movements way beyond what you'd get with any shift or tilt/shift MF lens. And there's just something about working with the view camera on the tripod and the inverted ground glass view that is really contemplative and causes you to slow down, even more than you'd HAVE to, and work deliberately.

All in all I'm glad I have a selection of formats as each have their virtues.

Dr Croubie · Oct 20, 2014

Roger Cole said:
Anyone considering the plunge don't underestimate the hassles of sheet film or the number of new and creative ways you will find to screw up a shot in LF.

Don't forget the ability to push/pull N+1/-1 per shot, rather than per-roll.
(and also don't forget that for 8x10 the area and cost is about the same per shot vs per roll, so screwing up is a lot more expensive )

Roger Cole · Oct 20, 2014

Well yeah, you can do that of course.

But with modern VC papers being so good the need to do that, to that extent, is much less than it used to be. What I'd do in my hypothetical RB67 world would be to get three film backs (for B&W, a fourth for color probably) and devote one to N, one to + and one to -. If I gave the + one about N+1.5 equivalent and the -1 about -1.5 I think I could handle the vast majority of lighting I'd run into. I'd print different negatives with different filters more so than with sheet film maybe, but that's a small price to pay for doing away with dust during exposures.

Of course I might have film in there a long time to finish a roll, especially the plus development one maybe, but I could just develop what I'd shot for the price of four shots of 4x5 or one 8x10, roughly.

Dr Croubie · Oct 20, 2014

Yeah, god bless VC. The most I've ever walked around with is 2 backs for colour (RVP and Ektar), and 2 for B+W (PanF/D100/FP4/APX and HP5/TMY/TX, sometimes an extra back with D3200 depending on where I'm going and what's floating around the fridge on the day), that covers almost all lighting I run into. But that's only because an extra Kiev back costs as much as a roll or two of film so why not?

I'll admit to not really practising N+/- routines religously, the closest I get is when there's too much range to capture I switch from RVP to Ektar, or on B+W I'll just rodinal-stand it to get all the detail I can without blowing out.
One day I'll have to learn how to use the Zone system properly when I start coating my own paper and am stuck with a single grade (unless I just buy Rollei Black Magic VC emulsion, but that's damned expensive and I'd rather mix my own).

Speaking of using MF as LF, how about the Fuji GX680? It's practically an LF camera that takes rollfilm, more movements (and heavier) than an RB, afaik you can crop to 6x8, 6x7, and 6x6, and the lenses are as sharp as any other EBC Fujinon. And they're so unpopular these days that they're practically giving them away on fleabay.

Roger Cole · Oct 20, 2014

Giving them away, really? Last I looked they were hard to find, kind of expensive when you did find them, and lenses were rare too. Supposed to be a very capable camera. (And, as you say, big. I've never seen one but someone posted a picture of himself with his here once. It was a behemoth.

c6h6o3 · Oct 20, 2014

Dr Croubie said:
Sure he wasn't just wearing bright red nailpolish and photographed on Ortho film?

With ortho film the highlights on his forehead wouldn't have blown.

Dr Croubie · Oct 20, 2014

Roger Cole said:
Giving them away, really? Last I looked they were hard to find, kind of expensive when you did find them, and lenses were rare too. Supposed to be a very capable camera. (And, as you say, big. I've never seen one but someone posted a picture of himself with his here once. It was a behemoth.

Yeah, I've seen a fair few go lately, direct from Japan. I buy a lot of LF lenses from Astrosmith and he's always got a lot of GX gear, see here. $2 - $20 for a scratched-but-working 120 film back, $110 for a body, $60 - $120 for decent working lenses (less if you don't mind a bit of haze, and having bought a 'hazy' lens from him before I can barely see it in the glass, let alone on the print). Not sure if it needs a custom battery, if it does that'd be the only reason not to buy it.
And that's just from one seller, as someone else pointed out in another thread there are a lot of Japanese sellers just discovering ebay now, prices for a lot of things are going to come down.
Almost makes me wish I'd gone for GX instead of Pentacon/Kiev 6x6 and Mamiya 645, at those prices I may yet end up with another system.

Behemoth it definitely is, there are pics on those auctions and one at LuLa, but noone's holding it so it's hard to get a sense of scale. Just keep remembering that the hole in the back and the focussing screen cover at least 8x8cm and it'll dwarf an RB, they're probably the size of a speed-graphic at least.

c6h6o3 said:
With ortho film the highlights on his forehead wouldn't have blown.

Unless he's a green/blue-skinned alien?

Roger Cole · Oct 20, 2014

Probably with that is shipping from Japan. On something the size of a GX that would be awful, to North America anyway, maybe not quite as bad to you.

Dr Croubie · Oct 21, 2014

Yeah, at least on that one that Astrosmith sold he charged $75 worldwide shipping, but most of the stuff I've got from him (LF lenses and Toyo bits and bobs) are $20 flat-rate worldwide (and most stuff appears within 3 days, something about Japan EMS post that's so much quicker than from the US and EU, besides the distance).

It seems that the batteries may be a little hard to come by, I see adapters to AA-sized batteries that go for $140, more than the cameras and most lenses. But you can still kit-out with a body, battery, and lenses for less than $400 (there's also an adapter to let you use LF lenses, then you can save on buying more lenses too).

Damn GAS, now I want one.

Roger Cole · Oct 21, 2014

Hush. You're making me want one instead of an RB.

But I need a new-to-me 4x5 first.

This LF photog has attitude

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