Re: [Leica] Re: What do you do with your Images?

[George Lottermoser <imagist@concentric.net>]

jim_brick@agilent.com (Jim Brick)6/4/018:35 AM

> turning a 4x5 into a P&S. 

Very far from a P&S. A fine photographer will use a "P&S" camera
in an intelligent and experienced manner. S/he will not point and
shoot with it, but bring all of their experience to the
limitations of the tool.

> This must be a case where you actually try to make the image in
> the
> darkroom. That is, crop crop crop until there is a photograph 
> that looks

So far I'm enjoying full frame wonders. In fact I'm going to have
to use a glass carrier to get out to the very edge of the frame.
Composition is utterly precise.

> good. Since you are not looking at the ground glass, you don't 
> know what is
> behind the subject, what the out of focus area looks like, the
> compositional placement of subjects and non-subjects, etc... 
> those things
> that a 2D ground glass is so good at revealing.

Looking at the subject from the POV of the camera, combined with
the specific, repeated experience of the camera/lens/light
combination allows one to make very, very educated and intuitive
judgements of how things will appear on the film. Thus far the
surprises have come out on the side of better than expected as
apposed to worse than expected.

> focus... etc... sometimes for fifteen minutes for one
photograph. But when

Fifteen minutes? You're better at it than I. The 1.5inch subject
: 10inch on film : 30x40inch prints, which I did for the
Barbershop Quartet Series, took me an hour to an hour an half to
get it right before I plunged the cable release. That series
served as the the motivation to develop this method.

I fully appreciate, use and respect the methods you described.
This recent method of working allows me to achieve different
results with very different types of subjects; and does not
determine that I will never use the ground glass again. I'm
simply exploring the possibilities and enjoying the results
immensely.

George