Chesterton Windmill

[Marley's Ghost]

Yes, it’s clearly worthwhile going back there, with all this advice firmly ignored. Perhaps an initial perambulation, without the encumbrance of the kit?

…and no, you certainly don’t have to use all the movements, but there are some angles that look uneasy without them. The screen and the moment are the great deciders.

I laugh in the face of uneasy ... though the clown costume in bed might be takings too far

 

[thronobulax]

@Irv_b Please do take note that it is always easier to be an editor than an author. The varied comments here are all well intended, but - at the end of the lens - it's YOUR vision that matters most of all, not our editorial commentary

 

[Marley's Ghost]

@Irv_b Please do take note that it is always easier to be an editor than an author. The varied comments here are all well intended, but - at the end of the lens - it's YOUR vision that matters most of all, not our editorial commentary

Absolutely ... all someone else can say is what floats their own particular boat. You may be sailing to a different sea ... and that's great.

The only one that's immutable and unchangeable and never wrong is Saint Ansel (does a clumsy curtsy) may all his zones be ever magnificent!

 

[thronobulax]

Weeeeellll .... I have worked my way through almost all the available books and even seen St. Ansel's work up close and personal. I stipulate that he was a fine craftsman and educator that brought repeatability and rigor to the field.

However, his prints, while lovely, are not particularly remarkable, certainly by comparison, say, to Edward or Brett Weston. I daresay most of the experienced silver printers here (and elsewhere) are able to produce prints of similar quality, noting that the aesthetic would be rather different. Ironically, the ability to print at that level is directly attributable to his care in educating the rest of us on how to do so.

He did, of course, produce some memorable work, "Moonrise" foremost among them in my opinion. But even that was a bit of an accident and is reputed to be miserable to print, given that it was badly underexposed. So even St. Ansel was subject to the laws of large numbers - of the thousands of prints he made, we treasure but a special few.

The one sense in which is work IS remarkable is that he had the equipment built for very large prints. Today finding paper, let alone a projection method to make prints six feet wide would be a herculean undertaking.

P.S. For those who've never had the pleasure, Paula Chamlee at Lodima Press is selling a beautiful set of books of Brett Weston's work as well as some of Edward's stuff. I have one in the series and the production values are very fine and the images are really strong.

 

[Marley's Ghost]

Weeeeellll .... I have worked my way through almost all the available books and even seen St. Ansel's work up close and personal. I stipulate that he was a fine craftsman and educator that brought repeatability and rigor to the field.

However, his prints, while lovely, are not particularly remarkable, certainly by comparison, say, to Edward or Brett Weston. I daresay most of the experienced silver printers here (and elsewhere) are able to produce prints of similar quality, noting that the aesthetic would be rather different. Ironically, the ability to print at that level is directly attributable to his care in educating the rest of us on how to do so.

He did, of course, produce some memorable work, "Moonrise" foremost among them in my opinion. But even that was a bit of an accident and is reputed to be miserable to print, given that it was badly underexposed. So even St. Ansel was subject to the laws of large numbers - of the thousands of prints he made, we treasure but a special few.

The one sense in which is work IS remarkable is that he had the equipment built for very large prints. Today finding paper, let alone a projection method to make prints six feet wide would be a herculean undertaking.

P.S. For those who've never had the pleasure, Paula Chamlee at Lodima Press is selling a beautiful set of books of Brett Weston's work. I have one in the series and the production values are very fine and the images are really strong.

My tongue is so firmly planted in my cheek with many of my comments that it has nearly worn a hole ... and my zany British irony may have sent you astray. Edward Weston is perhaps one of my earliest 'jeez I wanna take pictures like that' heroes. My very earliest was however predating all of the afore mentioned ... and a female of the feminine persuasion: Julia Margaret Cameron (who lived on the Isle of Wight where I was born). Though most of my poster boys (and girls) as far as images go come from formats with less real estate than Large format, like Helmut Newton, Bob Carlos Clarke, Robert Mapplethorpe and of course Robert Frank and Henri Cartier Bresson

 

[thronobulax]

Yes, that tongue planting isn't visible here across that big pond.

The thing is, that each of the aforementioned bring something new to the discussion. Well, except for Mapplethorpe whom I consider a pandering hack that no one in the pretentious New York arts clique had the taste to call out as a fraud - much like, say, Warhol ... but I digress.

But the Westons, and even St. Ansel, taught me a love of the abstract and the beauty of the close up detail - something with which I remain afflicted lo these 5 decades after I got going ...

 

[Marley's Ghost]

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/flowers/
We will have to agree to disagree about Mapplethorpe, his 'flowers' are very well in keeping with large format ethos in my opinion. His homo erotic work is more challenging, but I think valid in its own way.
I guess we are both into a good few year of photographic experience: I sold my first work in 1973 so by my reckoning that's 48 years pumping silver halide Well a few years punting around electrons ... but we won't talk about that

 

[David M]

Well…. Even pandering hacks can print well. We have two examples here. Mapplethorpe and Cameron, both involved in capturing celebrities. Very different print styles.
It is routinely assumed by feminist commentators that Cameron’s techniquie was criticised by the Patriarchy, simply because she was a woman, rather than because of the visible spotting and frilling itself. An early unwitting pioneer of the Holga, perhaps?
Thronobulax is right. We are all mere coat-minders and the decisions are up to Irv-b himself.