While collecting images for my “More Memories than Dreams” retrospectiveproject, I have noticed a change in the images through time. I started with a 35 mm camera and I took many photographs of subjects exploring different viewpoints and wound up creating small projects with multiple images.
I began using a view camera and both the subject and number of photographs I made decreased dramatically both in variety and quantity. The image content changed as I started to concentrate on the “greatest hit” photograph. I attributed the decrease in the number of photographs to the expense of large format film and the small number of film holders I owned. If you begin the day with the knowledge you can only make eight photographs that day, you spend a lot of time selecting your composition and work very hard to make sure that image "comes out." The project orientation of my 35 mm camera images disappeared until I could afford a larger number of film holders. Only after about fifteen years of large format photography could I afford to begin a day of photography with twenty film holders.
When I transitioned from the view camera to a digital camera, the 35 mm size and insignificant cost of recording images sent me back to the 35 mm ethos of capturing many variations of different subjects.
I wonder what path my photographic development would have taken had I not become involved with large format photography.
It's a new month and there is a new issue of The Lipka Journal at my website. Stop by and download the latest issue.
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