Thoughts on large format as a hobby

Gorgeous afternoon in Sand Harbor from Summer 2016. If I recall the images I shot that day weren’t that great as I it was one of the first shoots with the new to me Nagoaka. This is one of my favorite beauty shots of my standard Nagaoka setup - great contrast with the deep blue water and warm wood.

Photography has been a hobby of mine for well over a decade now. I’ve yet to find another interest in my life that combines such a unique combination of mystery, challenge, frustration, and satisfaction – often all experienced over the course of an extended shoot. But with many of my interests photography waxes and wanes in appeal to me throughout the year. It is an odd cycle and yet whenever I feel my passion for it yielding to others it comes back in full force.

Hook, line, and sinker large format represents what I consider to be the peak challenge for me with photography. It is the medium that most exceptionally represents all those qualities that photography generates in me - a supreme mixture of seductive mystery, technical challenge, extreme frustration, and sublime satisfaction.

Me at Badwater Basin, Death Valley shooting some Kodak TMax and Ektar with my Nagaoka 4x5 + Fujinon 125mm f/5.6. Only a little irony of wearing a Joshua Tree shirt in Death Valley.

The mystery that surrounds this format is very palpable. I would be remise to not mention the likes of Ansel Adams with his exquisite and well known work completed on large format, but also the likes of more contemporary photographers such as Clyde Butcher, John Sexton, and even the modern likes of Ben Horne. The photographs those artists produce are large sources of my inspiration artistically as well as technically. There is just that “look” they have - a look I now know comes from being able to have complete control of your image from perspective to focus and exposure. Seeing their final images, knowing they were able to achieve their vision through a camera is that mystery that draws me in.

Not much can prepare you for truly working with large format. Nothing is done for you - you are in control of everything. Not only do you need to mentally refine the image in the scene you also need to be able to fully read the light and otherwise be prepared on location. There is a defined process that has very little wiggle room: cleaning and loading film holders, composing upside down backwards, adjusting perspective and focal plane (i.e. movements), calculating exposure correctly (including compensating for bellows extension and other factors), properly triggering the shutter (not accidentally leaving the lens open or forgetting the darkslide), unloading the film holders, and finally processing the film. Where other formats do have pitfalls none are as perilous as those with large format - each being unrecoverable. I liken it to treading down a narrow ridge with sharp slopes; a misstep off the trail and you will fall off. 

Side note
My first true venture with large format was a trip to the Eastern Sierras with a 4x5 Graphlex Speed Graphic. Over several days of adventures to Body Ghost Town and Mono Lake with spectacular stormy skies, the first snow, and splendid light to which I shot 24 sheets. It was my first trip up that direction for photography and it was a beautiful experience. Nevertheless, all the 4x5 film was ruined due to unbeknownst light leaks in the old Graphlex - enough to make each sheet unusable but not enough to completely obscure each composition, teasing me with what could have been.

This is the frustration. So much effort goes into the photograph that when you make a misstep it hurts. Worse so is the farther down the process that misstep occurs - realizing you left the lens open while pulling the dark slide out is not nearly as painful as realizing it after you have processed that sheet. Even the subtle mistakes also sting - where everything works out except some small slight stumble, like applying too much front tilt and having a key part of  your composition just out of focus or having your film holder have a light leak. 

However, the moment when you pull out the sheet from the wash water and everything just “worked” makes all the pain, anguish, and frustration fade away. Knowing you were able to run the gauntlet and succeed is that fulfilling satisfaction that keeps you pushing through the times things don’t work out. Even if you eventually find the image lacking in composition or just plain old don’t like the photograph there is still that satisfaction of knowing you performed the process properly.

Side note
If the challenge of shooting 4x5 and getting everything to work was not enough, I also had wanted to shoot some large transparencies. As film goes B/W and color negative are quite forgiving but transparencies are not. Between a narrow dynamic range and high costs to buy/process it was going to be a make or break scenario; either everything works or nothing does. To ease the costs I found a box of Fuji CDU slide duplicating film for cheap - the only downside being that it is not meant for camera usage. Therefore it had a tungsten light balance with an ISO of 6. This meant, on top of setting the camera up properly, I would need to have a compensating filter and complicated exposure calculation.

I ended up shooting a few sheets on a trip as an addition to B/W so I wouldn’t be completely at a loss if things did not turn out. To which those “chromes” didn’t turn out - except one, a single shot of Mobius Arch in the Alabama Hills. I had, probably by luck, managed to take a well framed, focussed, and exposed sheet. The colors did require some adjustments digitally but overall the original transparency looks gorgeous on a light table. Definitely a huge moment of triumph for myself.

I am not by any means a master photographer or remotely close to an expert in large format photography. This whole time I’ve focussed purely on the technical aspects of capturing a photograph while purposely ignoring aspects of composition, light, and emotion. Further, I have also specifically not talked about the “back half” of the process that is editing and printing which can also drive the technical process too. What I have attempted to talk about is some of the allure, frustration, and satisfaction that comes from working with a very unforgiving and challenging medium.

Large format photography is obviously not for everyone - nor should it be. As with any process or device it is nothing more than a tool for rendering an idea. It is that idea that is key to any good photograph. Having said that I do recommend those that are curious to give it a try. For me, it adds balance to my work and helps my mind slow down. I only shoot large format a few times a year and shooting only a few boxes of B/W and color a year at most. While I do work quite a bit with 35mm and medium format I save the best projects for large format.