Digital BW, The Print

Hello All -
Now these are the kinds of discussions that I find personally, most 
interesting. After all, one can only go so far with technical 
discussion (as important as that is), before you have to look at the 
photograph itself - the emotional content, subject, light - all that 
and more that creates the impact of how we see and translate to the 
printed image. When all is said and done, the method - digital, film, 
format doesn't matter if the photo is boring.  This is something I try 
to think about whenever
I plan, shoot, and especially when editing. And since I teach as an 
adjunct, variations of this is what I try to impress upon students.

Since Michael and Peter were talking about large format, I'm wondering 
how many of you had similar experience to this:  As a student, we were 
all required
to own and shoot only with 4X5 or 8X10 camera.  I always enjoyed doing 
so, and only realized many years later, how that "forced" slow down of 
composing [upside down :-)] had such a strong impact on my entire 
career, even as I became a working photojournalist by my senior year in 
college -- of course working only
in 35 mm.  What I learned from large format, was how to compose a 
photograph, and working in fast moving journalistic situations, at 
least for me, enabled
me to get a pretty high percentage of interesting and/or unusual 
compositions to my work. I'd like to say developed a style, but 
hesitate, because I'm not sure, even after so many years, that I have 
that!  But I do feel that the large format  discipline was invaluable.

And yes - Kertesz, Frank and Weston, among others are my all time 
favorites along with John Heartfield (for his content).

Now 40 years later, I find myself shooting a lot of material on 6X9 (as 
large a format as I care to carry around to locations). So that means 
scanning and
printing with MK7 inks on a 2200. My darkroom seems to have disappeared 
about 3 years ago.

What experiences others have about all this?

Regards,

Clay Price

Michael Vendrell wrote:
>   ... As to how
> one best finds the tools and methods that work best
> for them in the evolution of their vision - that is
> something only personal experience (including
> listening and looking at the work of others) can
> answer....
> and Peter Marshall wrote:
>> I've used 8x10 and I have to say it was never a
>> match for 35mm for most
>> of the things I wanted to do as a photographer. It
>> depends what you
>> want. There isn't a single path. My vote for the
>> greatest photographer
>> of the 20th century would quite probably go either
>> to Andre Kertesz or
>> Robert Frank or Walker Evans depending which side of
>> the bed I got out
>> of this morning.