On Shadows and Reflections

[I've been thinking about what to do with the blogspot blog for some time now. Given the rate at which I post updates it would seem the decent thing to do would be to let it die. However, I just love the large image format. And I love the back catalog of posts here. So here goes. We're keeping it.]

Part of developing as a photographic artist must be developing your own style. I would have to say the tastes of the day are really towards increasing punchiness in images. Today, an image must leap off the page, upturn your cornflakes and upset your dog just to stand out from the fire hose of images most of us are subject to. I don't exempt myself from this observation. If anything, I'm a real sucker for a punchy composition and nose-bleed colour. However, there is still something to be said for the subtle and unobvious.

Above, you see a nice detail of a screaming red Corvette. It's nice enough and seems quite simple. However, it rewards a repeated glance. That second set of tail lights? It's a reflection in the shiny chrome bumper. And what is that subtle shape on the left? Why, it's the shadow of my Crown Graphic. Look deeper still and you can even start to see the texture of the paint.

Nice. Subtle.

What Is Special About Large Format Portraits

There are many things that are special about pictures taken with a large format camera. Amongst just a few of the advantages are:

1. Huge film area means a huge canvas for light to play on. Huge detail, huge tonal range, tiny grain
2. Full camera movements. Tilt, slide, shift. You choose the plane of focus. You craft the image
3. The ground glass. You see exactly what the film will see. Ability to frame exactly. Ability to judge focus and depth of field exactly
4. Uncompromised lens design.

Actually, the list goes on and on. But for me a lot of the magic happens when you put a real living person in front of that big camera.

What do you see in this image? Softness and sharpness? Smooth tonality? An extra sense of reality? All of that and just a sprinkling of magic.

And this picture you are looking at is the very worst possible presentation of this piece of film. It is scanned on a terrible scanner using a very DIY technique of scanning the film in four slices and sticking them together in Photoshop. The film was even scanned still inside its plastic holder. Despite all of that the magic shines through.

Large format photography is the essence of photography and has been for more than a hundred years. The DSLRs of this world can never match it because they will never have a sensor spanning four inches by five inches. I look forward to creating more magic with this camera over the coming year.

Capturing The Essence

How do you capture a place? Sometimes it is easy. London? Houses of Parliment, London Eye or Tower Bridge. Seattle? Space Needle. Portland?

Hmm....

From a month's visit this was the best I managed. I was trying to get some of the more recogniseable buildings into the frame as well as some of the trees and the stream of cars heading up Burnside Road. To emphasize the road I kept the shutter open until I saw cars travel the whole length of all the visible road. To get the skyline nice I shot this just after sunset when the sky was getting nice and rich and dark blue.

LDR

Look at these soft delicate tones. Even this ugly utility box looks magical. This is overcast morning light. Flat light. Low Dynamic Range light. Here are some more low dynamic range scenes:

Sunsets
Sunrises
Portraits
Scenes in "Golden Hour" light
Forest scenes

In other words. Most actually beautiful scenes.

HDR

High Dynamic Range. Sounds good, right?

This is a an example of one of the few sorts of scenes I can really imagine wanting to take that actually has a high dynamic range. This is taken straight into a glaring sunrise with the foreground in complete silhouette. It was deliberately massively, mind-blowingly overexposed so that I could retain some of that foreground detail which, honestly, it would have been difficult to see clearly with my own eyeballs in that light.

Most scenes that are high contrast are unattractive and make bad photographs. These sorts of scenes usually look ugly in real life so it is the height of optimism to expect them to magically look great in a photo. In cases like the above where a scene has very high contrast but DOES look good we normally want to convey that high contrast feeling in the photo. This usually means letting a foreground darken to a black silhouette or letting the brightness of the bright parts burn to white.

Most HDR photographs that are successful celebrate the unreality that usually comes from excessive use of HDR software on massively high dynamic range scenes. This is, in fact, it's own artistic style. It's not a style I like but it certainly has quite a following.

I mostly shoot negative film. This capture medium has the capability to capture huge dynamic range in a single exposure. It also has very good properties at the extremes of its range. It "rolls off" organically (like our eyes do) and never "clips". This particular film, Kodak Ektar, may be the highest dynamic range capture medium on the planet which is why there is so much detail available in this crazily over-exposed scene. But most of the time, this extra latitude is best used to remove the worry about missing a shot through incorrect exposure. I do shoot carefully but with negative film I feel an extra confidence that when I press the shutter the shot is in the can.

First Thoughts

Photographs are like stories, music or dreams.

There are some that wash over you. You grasp them as a whole. They produce a mood and you are not aware of how or bothered by this.

Some photographs, however, invite you in. They are rich in detail and promise more. You want to count the trees or people or threads. You want to see into all of the little windows. You want to roam around that distant meadow.

Both of these types of photograph are important. Any camera can take the first type, although these can also be the most difficult and rewarding type of photograph to take. As humans, however, we are ever aware of our limitations. It is this second sort of photograph that taxes equipment and technique. You simply cannot put more in the finished picture than you captured at the vital instant. The traditional answer to this has always been bigger film in bigger cameras.

As such, I am now the owner of a Crown Graphic 4x5 inch press camera. This is the camera that you always see the news photographers in hats shooting in old movies. With more than fifteen times the film area of 35mm you can shoot the equivalent of 300 megapixel images given good modern film and decent scanning. In addition to this you have a more flexible camera which can use movements to bring more of the image into focus at once or to correct perspective.

So what is the flipside of all of this potential and possibility? Complexity. And this is also where the Crown Graphic really sells itself to the artistic photographer. In exchange for less flexibility than most "serious" large format cameras the Crown Graphic gives you a lot of convenience and assistance. For example, the camera can be set up in seconds since it becomes its own carrying case when folded up and has adjustments that allow you to quickly set up the camera "zeroed" and focussed at infinity. After all, this camera was made to be used handheld and often in fast-paced environments.

So how has this camera changed my life and my thinking? It has made me think. It has made me think about exposure. It has made me think about composition. It has made me think longer and harder on the question, "Is this shot worth taking?" It has opened my eyes and mind to the optical magic that lies at the heart of every camera but is usually hidden. The ground glass of a view camera is like a magic window. Through its frosted surface we glimpse dimly the very inner workings of light. All is laid bare, nothing hidden. We see the world backwards and upside down, just as the film sees it. We see at once the effect of every slight shift or tilt or swing.

We learn faith. As we take responsibility for our own film loading and unloading. As we take responsibility for our own exposure settings. As we take responsibility for dark slides, shutter cocking and correct sequences of events we learn the necessity of a certain discipline and of trusting in that discipline to deliver the desired results.