Back to Basics-Searching for the Essentials

JeffS7444 said:
This is my 2023 darkroom setup sans chemistry. I am equipped to process b&w and C41 in 16 mm, 35 mm and 120, and I plan to add Minox. The storage bin doubles as a tempering bath. Perhaps someday I will consider making fiber-based prints once again, but this time, with an emphasis on smaller print sizes, 8x10" and 5x7" b&w in particular.

The inspiration for smaller prints has been in my mind for a number of years, inspired by a viewing of Edward Weston's work. Weston specialized in contact prints, and I felt the impact of his work was not lessened by their small scale.
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Love this…

Do you have a link to Weston’s Small Prints?

I am also headed in the same direction.😇
 
This was from a long ago (Friends of Photography?) exhibit, and even if a web gallery had been created, I recommend seeing the originals in person if at all possible. AFAIK, Weston never owned an enlarger, so any prints larger than 11x14 or so were likely done by his pal A. Adams, or maybe one of his sons.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
12. Learning a different language

PHP, HTML, Javascript, and C++ in the last year.
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Impressive - took me way longer than that for just HTML4&5 and Javascript.

And I folded on Javascript 'cuz I got bored with having to put HTML equivalent to JS on every page.

Both long forgotten as I rarely touch my website these days ...
 
How about a walk in the nature?

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p.giannakis said:
A few weeks ago, I watched the movie "Mirror" by Andrei Tarkovsky. I didn't get it at all but kept watching it anyway. The reason for it were the images of the life in the suburbs, living in a wooden house. Reminded me of my childhood holidays, I could even smell the musty wood smell. I loved it but I wouldn't want my life now to be like that no matter the temptation.

I live a very frugal life, my car has a 1 litre engine and struggles a bit on the hills. My smart phone is not very smart (galaxy s7). My wife doesn't know how to switch on the TV- she only reads books. I watch movies on tv that i download from YouTube. When they call me to "upgrade" to cable TV and tell them this they think I am lying. We have never (ever) ordered a take away meal and since we have the kids we never went on a night out (with the exception of being on holidays at grandparents).

It's a miracle that my scanner and my laptop still switch on. By the way, I bought my laptop in 2011, battery is not working, I use it as a desktop. It has a significant amount of gaffer tape on it to keep it together. The most expensive thing in my house is probably my Nikon F5 with the AF nikkor 35f2.

But I don't feel like I am missing something. I like jumping on a plane 4 times a year and go on holidays. We eat out when we are there. And if the F5 breaks one day, I will go and buy an F6. I come from a working class background and so is my wife and we are brought up with having what we need. We can also have what we want but we don't find it necessary.

When I have a flare up of bad back and can't even bend to put my shoes on, then I keep adding things on the "essential" list. When life is "business as usual" I tend not to think too much about it. Although recently I saw a Seiko 5 for £40 and wondering if I really need it.
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Love that movie, not easy to understand in a rational way , easier just to follow the emotion.
 
Deardorff38 said:
Edward Weston mostly used an 8x10 camera. I've seen a number of his prints including an original print of this image owned by a friend of mine. Small prints have their charm & contact prints i find exquisiteView attachment 4824416
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One really disastrous bit of fallout from the 70's recognition of photography as a "fine art" (whatever that means) is that photography then had to compete on the gallery walls with paintings. The average print size quickly grew exponentially, to the detriment, in my opinion, of the experience of most photographic imagery. Once upon a time, and in my memory, 11x14 was considered a large print! Bigger is not always better.
 
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Retro-Grouch said:
One really disastrous bit of fallout from the 70's recognition of photography as a "fine art" (whatever that means) is that photography then had to compete on the gallery walls with paintings. The average print size quickly grew exponentially, to the detriment, in my opinion, of the experience of most photographic imagery. Once upon a time, and in my memory, 11x14 was considered a large print! Bigger is not always better.
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True....even more so in the digital printing age when common chalet furnishing includes massive prints (this one by Thomas Crauwels). Both in Japan & France the Cartier Bresson exhibits i've seen didn't have huge prints.




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Many years ago I visited an exhibition by Duane Michals. The photos were small in size, maximum 13x15 cm. At the inauguration he was asked what he thought of the current trend of printing photos in large size he replied that showing a big photo is like screaming, showing a small photo is like whispering.
I agree with his thought.
 
Were there not notable painters who preferred a small canvas? I thought there were. My knowledge of art is poor, so i can't provide examples.
 
The Galen Rowell exhibition I went to had huge quality prints at least 16x20 all from 135 format slides. Impressive.
 
Rayt said:
The Galen Rowell exhibition I went to had huge quality prints at least 16x20 all from 135 format slides. Impressive.
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I purchased a 16x20 EverColor print from Galen Rowell in the 1990s, and it's very nice. Compared to some larger-scale works by the likes of Cindy Sherman or Andreas Gursky, it's a wee little postage stamp :D But regardless, I wasn't implying that small is the best or only way to go, but simply that smaller works can have a richness and a beauty of their own. But I wouldn't carry this to eyestrain-inducing extremes.
 
Pál_K said:
Were there not notable painters who preferred a small canvas? I thought there were. My knowledge of art is poor, so i can't provide examples.
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Most of the Impressionists, when they worked en plein air, favored smaller canvases out of necessity. Sort of like taking your Leica for a stroll, and using the 4x5 in the studio.
 
Size matters. Many moons ago, a friend from what was then Yugoslavia was married to a well-known painter. Every time she brought her ailing father to a local cardiologist, he asked for a painting from her husband. The husband got really tired of this and, eventually produced a painting the size of a postage stamp. The cardiologist never asked for a painting again. Cheers, OtL
 
Retro-Grouch said:
Most of the Impressionists, when they worked en plein air, favored smaller canvases out of necessity. Sort of like taking your Leica for a stroll, and using the 4x5 in the studio.
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There is a recent Matt Osborne video on YT where he is interviewing and Australian figure photographer of some merit. And the Ozzie is filling Matt in on the fine points of cameras and formats and sensors. He claims he has done covers with something like a 9MP sensor. He said it is the picture itself way more than the detail in it. So while impressionist painters en plein air worked small for the sake of practicality we can get by with small sensors. I regret saying something like that having a medium format camera but there you are. I have an APS-C which will also take marvelous pictures. And smaller yet the Pentax Q-S1. The problem I have is not the camera but the fool holding it.

Matt Osborne - Peter Coulson discussion on sensor size and other stuff:

 
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