Feedback on website update: why I've gone digital

Hi everyone. I recently added this page to my website to describe my transition from large format film to digital photography: http://www.brettdeacon.com/gallery.php?gallery=Digital. The reason I did so is that it has been bothering me that the way I have traditionally marketed myself as a "large format photographer" has becoming increasingly inaccurate as I have gotten more and more into digital photography. After going all of 2009 without exposing a single 4x5 sheet of film, I've decided to come clean and talk about why I’ve chosen this new path on my website. If you have time, I’d appreciate reading any comments you might have on this webpage. Thanks very much!

Brett,

Read through your description. For me the advantage of being able to blend images and create literally 'custom' graduated filters with as many exposures as needed is a monster advantage. That said I wish I had a way to take advantage of the camera movements that i naturally have with my Ebony. Architecture looks really cheesy on a DSLR (IMHO) unless things are dialed in perfectly with a TS lens. I am looking into TS lenses for next year and may wind up getting all three after seeing what results SB gets with his new lenses.

Just a few thoughts.

RichieV

Hi Richie. Thanks for your comments! If I were an architectural photographer, I highly doubt that I would have switched from 4x5 to digital. The movements are too important, and I don't own a T/S lens because Sony doesn't make one (not cool), and the Hartbei/Zeiss lenses are way too long (I'd prefer a 20-24mm model). Digital photography with good T/S lenses may be the best of all worlds. With landscape photography I haven't found the lack of movements with my digital SLR to be an issue in the vast majority of situations, which is consistent with my experience using my 4x5 camera. I've only tried focus stacking with Helicon Focus a few times. It's great for static subjects but not so much for anything that moves in the Wyoming wind, which is pretty much everything I enjoy photographing.

Wow, great article. Lot's of information. The good thing about coming for large format to digital is that you have taught yourself to slow down and get things right in the camera and look around for the great shots, instead of just firing away and taking 1000 shots to later hope to sort through and fix in photoshop/lightroom later. This is one of things I have to really work on when I get out in the field. Slow down and get it right the first time.

Thanks for sharing.

Nice read, Brett. There are a number of us who have taken the same path - some faster than others (mostly depending on their work habits and desired outputs).

Great article Brett! I just posted a link to this on Facebook and will probably use this with clients who come into my gallery with the assumption that if it is digital it probably doesn't reflect the actual scene. Thanks!

Well done!

Brett, after reading your confession and explanation, my reaction was positive. You come across as sincere and absolutely convinced that you have made the right decision after much thought and consideration for you and your clients.

I will share this with a couple of my friends who are as far from crossing the rubicon from film to digital as you were.

Bill Brennan

By the way Brett, your "Oxbow Bend Panorama" still drops my jaw when i see it.

Guys, I'm grateful for your comments! There is a tension between marketing, ethical, and artistic issues I've felt keenly since I joined a co-op gallery last summer. I've had many conversations that began with a customer asking me "so, do you enhance your photos?" The answer to this question is complicated, and I'm afraid the nuances of answering "it depends on your definition of enhancement, but yes I suppose I do, and let me tell you why it's a good thing" are impossible to convey in the span of a brief conversation. I posted this webpage in an effort to address this issue. Erik, from your comments I'm guessing if you had a nickel for every time you fielded this question, you could retire to someplace exotic like Estes Park.:)

Brain, I just found out today that I won the University of Wyoming Union photo contest and that the university wants to purchase a framed 2 x 10 foot print of that Oxbow Bend panorama. I can't wait to see how it looks at that size!

Brett, you are certainly right about the number of comments I receive like this. It's the worst part of the job. If it is digital, it can't be trusted. Brett, I suggest that you also post this on one of the NPN forums as I'm sure that there are many other photographers who would enjoy reading your very nice synopsis both to clarify their own thinking and to help those who may be on the edge still.

That's a very clear explanation Brett. I'll be linking to it from my FB page also. Eight yrs. ago I had to make the decision to go LF or digital at that time (both was not an option with limited expendable income). I went digital.
Although I would have liked to have been "disciplined" in the method of LF I don't regret not going that route, especially these days.
BTW, I tried Helicon Focus. It's a tough program to master. I'd much prefer a T/S lens or two. I don't think I'll have one in the stocking this year though.

Nice article with clearly illustrated points.

I can highly relate to this, since I too have recently pretty much completely moved away from 4x5 film. My trip to Norway this last summer was my last hurrah with the 4x5, and even then when shooting it as much as possible, only 10 out of 36 of my "keepers" came from the 4x5.

I still think a 4x5 drum scan is clearly superior in resolution to full-frame digital, but as you stated the difference is not so vast anymore to justify all the drawbacks of 4x5 film (for me the weight was the biggest problem).

I know you're a Sony guy, but I've got to say that the Canon 5D2 with tilt/shift lenses has been the perfect solution for me. With the tilts and shifts, along with the live view manual focussing abilities, I feel like I'm shooting a modern digital version of the field camera. I still have to take extra care with the compositions and focussing, like 4x5, but it's all so much easier and quicker.

Brett
I am with you. I have shot less than 20 sheets of 4x5 this year and will probably shoot even less next year( although I still have over 100 sheets in the fridge.) My Nikon D700 and the 24mm tilt/shift are a great combo, and as you so eloquently wrote on your web site stitching and exposure blending give digital capture some great advantages.
Congrats on the Wyoming Union. I also found out today that they will be purchasing two of my prints also
Steve

To each their own. In 4X5 I've found a way of working with the camera that I enjoy, and that is what is most important. But I also work with 35mm as there are times when the small SLR is the right or only tool for the job.

Mel, I have a great deal of respect for any photographer who continues to shoot 4x5. Jack is right that drum scanned 4x5 is clearly superior to full frame digital with respect to resolution, and that alone is an incredibly compelling argument for using the big camera. Truth be told, I actually feel a bit sheepish about the fact that I've switched to digital in full knowledge of this fact. There's no doubt that large format photography is also fun to use in its own way; to each his own is definitely right. Over time I've found that things other than pure resolution/detail became more important to me, and I've also found to my surprise that I seem to care far more about detail than customers/family/friends who seem not to be able to tell the difference between big prints shot digitally or with the 4x5 camera. I went to Glacier NP last summer and Aspen last fall and shot liberally with my 4x5 and DSLR, and nearly all my keepers were digital images. This experience definitely shaped my decision to focus on digital capture. Jack, I wish I had access to T/S lenses in the Sony system. I do hope they come out with some soon, though I'm not holding my breath. The Zeiss lenses are nice to have in the meantime, even if I only own one of them. I seem to be getting by well enough without live view, perhaps because of the incredible viewfinder in the Sony a900. Still, live view would be nice. Steve, congratulations to you as well! Will your pieces be in the Wind River section? I have two others that will be hung in the Snowy Range room. The photos on your website are stunning - just incredible! I am a huge fan of your work! I's some of the most artistic photography I've ever seen.

Brett
Thank-you very much for the kind words about my work. My two prints will be in the Powder River Basin room.

Brett, thanks very much for your very lucid explanation. I wish you'd posted this a few days earlier. I had to explain this exact issue to a friend. I think I'll direct her to your site.

Extraordinarily well done! Well written, thought out and photographed. Congrats to you and Steve on your Wyo prints! I'll take a stroll on my next Laramie visit.

I have to say that I agree greatly with your assessment about keepers. I found that when I shot with both 35mm (film or digital) and 4X5 at the same time, the 35mm becomes a distraction from the 4X5 and the larger format suffers. Its so easy to frame and react with 35mm that it changes the mindset and brings a different focus to photography. I'll also say that I find it very difficult to use the 4X5 when traveling with someone else.

To address this, I decided to stop carrying the 35mm when I use the 4X5. There are also times when I'll leave the 4X5 at home and just use the 35mm, so it goes both ways. I do use my LX3 sometimes as a framing tool or to decide about a color balance, but I've done a good job of separating my LX3 and 4X5 efforts. These days I'll keep the LX3 out on my pack harness and use it to take the nice scrapbook snapshots along the trail while the 4X5 is targeted towards specific goals.

I would say that it is interesting that in this group interest in large format seems to be waning, but the large format community itself is growing quite fast. There has been a recent resurgence in homegrown techniques like wet plate and ziatype printing.

Good article Brett. You've put down in words what I have been thinking for a long time. After shooting 4x5 for 15 years I've gone digital for the past two. Whereas I used to get 2 or 3 good compositions at sunrise and sunset, I can now get 5 or 6 times with digital of varying exposures. The resolution is why I got into large format, but I was also following the likes of David Muench, Carr Clifton, Larry Ulrich and others. I was also submitting to calendar companies and magazines and that's what they wanted. Shooting digital has been totally freeing for me and is getting more and more accepted by editors. The best thing about it is the weight. I can no longer carry 50 pounds of 4x5 gear in to the back country for miles and miles. I definitely don't regret going down the large format road and would encourage you young bucks to have at least some exposure to it because it will improve your image taking.

My last post contains an image of a snow fence that I took practically in the dark. Never would have attempted this with my 4x5.

Brett,

. . . unscrupulous photographers to "enhance" their images in a way that presents a fraudulent portrayal of reality.

Uh, am I the only one slightly bothered by this sentence?

Don’t get me wrong Brett; I think you’ve delineated some good facts in a well written and thought-out explanation. Like many others here I’ll be borrowing from your thoughts when people question me about my “image manipulation”. I’ll be upfront in regards to which images are more “artistic interpretation” than others.

My concern is that the quote above appears to be slanderous towards photographers who consider themselves more artist than documentarian; those that allow a little of their feeling of a place into their work. If that isn’t your cup of tea I understand, and applaud your choice and your resolution. However, I think denigrating artists who take a less photojournalistic view – and are forthright about it – is shortsighted.

Perhaps you could clarify when an image devolves into a fraudulent portrayal of reality.

I’m not trying to start a flame war here – I just think that you could change this sentence in your work to be more positive about your art while being less negative about the art of others.

Thoughts?
Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex. Can't you see that I'm trying to make things into black vs. white? So why do you have to get all "shades of gray" on me?

Your comments are very well taken. My point that you quoted, which I clearly didn't elaborate on sufficiently, boils down to one's definition of the term "fraudulent." I completely agree with you that it's a totally acceptable artistic choice to "interpret" a scene in a manner that is designed to represent one's feeling at the time, or as a buddy recently argued to me, to "maximize the potential of the original capture." I think that if one chooses to do this and the end result is significantly different from the original appearance of the scene to the human eye, the photographer should be up front about this. If they are, no "fraud" has been committed, even for the most digitally altered image. Of course, the definition of "significantly different from the original appearance of the scene" is in the eye of the beholder, which brings us to the gray area.

The intended audience of my recently added webpage is customers who might be considering purchasing a print from me (i.e., the general public). My concern is that the totally valid subtleties of this discussion will be lost on people who have the (very arguably mistaken) idea that a photo should literally depict the natural world in a more or less documentary manner. Like Erik mentioned in an earlier post, selling prints from digital images sometimes requires that we assuage people's concerns that the print doesn't reflect reality. If a photographer chooses to consider their work to be an artistic interpretation of reality rather than an attempt to portray it literally (again, this can be a subtle distinction), that's more than fine with me. For my purposes however, I'm hoping that staying away from this manner of marketing my work will result in fewer discussions about the "validity" of my photographs.

I liked this, Brett. I never made it to 4x5 but spent some years with the pentax 6x7. I still love blowing away the dust and looking at some of the good transparencies from those years. But my success rate has soared for the reasons you state as I shoot now with the 1dsmarkIII. The image quality is as good or better. I do think those experiences made me a better photographer and they have probably have helped me make even more use of digital's benefits.

Well, I still miss the smell of "fixer in the morning" after an all night darkroom session. When I moved to Colorado in '91 I thought I was in LF heaven! However, I never exposed a single sheet of film with my 4x5, never got my darkroom put back together so I sold it all. I did not even own a camera until 2003 and that was digital. I did some experimetation with image manipulation in the darkroom but it some how did not feel, well, honest. Now I wish I had some of those negs and prints! Go figure! But that old 4x5 taught me everything I know. I still take my time with digital cameras like it was a view camera. Cameras and lenses are just tools, like paints and brushes. It is how we interpret the scene and paint with the light that makes it art in my opinion. Great thread!

Great writeup and illustrations. I've planned on doing something similar for awhile but haven't gotten around to it. I haven't given up on the 4x5 but I have to admit it's not my first choice. I still pull it out if things are looking good but the motivation has to be high. I understand why people are drifting away.
I hope you don't mind linking and references, I think your page will be popular.

Brett, I'm just thankful to have found your site through the link - you have some stunning work. You should not apologize for the tools you use any more than you should apologize for having indoor plumbing or driving a motorized vehicle. The value of your images is not in how they were made but in the thought and emotion they convey.

Guy

@ Brett,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I can see that explaining the nuances of “artistic impression” could cause the eyes of your potential customers to glaze over. I also understand that people want to be assured that they aren’t looking at some Photoshop wizardry with a moon, rainbow and jumping unicorn (or some variation thereof).

You are spot on, and to write such an explanation would ruin the flow of your well crafted write-up. I wish it was possible for you to promote the realism of your photography without having to portray an us-versus-them mindset, but I can see how your method clearly delineates you in the mind of the buyer – anything else could be seen as waffling, and buyers don't like waffling.

Thanks,
Alex

To echo what Guy said, you have great work and it shouldn't be of concern to anyone what tools you use to create your work.

I do enjoy using a digital camera, but there's still something completely magic to me about that sheet of film on the light table and no digital photograph I've made has been able to resonate with me as much as the 4x5s I've made. But that's just me. I enjoy the process of 4x5, and I think that enjoyment transfers into the images I make - at least, I like to think so.

The other part of it for me is economic. I've spent maybe a bit over $3000 for my LF gear give or take - but it's paid for. As far as I see it, it would cost me at least another $3500 to get set up with a new camera - and that's for just one lens. So at this point in my career, even if I want to jump ship, I simply can't. At spending maybe $200-300/year, that gives me around 10 years of shooting with 4x5 for the cost of a basic digital system. And you know that the current lineup will be obsolete and replaced with the next great camera which will again cost another $2500 minimum, if not more. But the reward for that cost is you'll make 2-300 great images/year while I'll make maybe 30

More power to ya, and keep up the good photography!

This thread has some great substance, and I wanted to add a few things if I may. First off, Mel is right, use what you want and enjoy, as photography should be fun and not tedious, but also a form of self-exploration and constant learning. Furthermore, in the end, who really cares if its a slide or a digital capture? Ths image is right there, in front of their face, tangible as tangible can get, even if it is some variation of digital art. If you can sell, then you can sell a photograph to the right buyer if that is your intention. It all comes down to 2 things in my opinion: 1). presentation has to be spot-on to buyer's desire, and 2). a connection between the art and the buyer will facilitate the sale.

I used to own a gallery and I would always get the same question from patrons - "did you use Photoshop". My answer is always yes, because I have to use some sort of software to prepare the image for printing. If they ask about color manipulation, I answer appropriately, as saturation levels often get a small bump for emphasis. I have on hand various images shot with a large format camera and digital cameras, but the buyer does not know that. The reasoning is the large format slides get scanned, hence making them digital (albeit much higher resolution than their digital counterparts), and then printed in some digital manner. The 'purity' is gone once the analog process gets converted in my opinion.

In terms of gear, in my opinion, often many folks are hung up on this. I listen - remember I owned a gallery - sorry if this sounds pretentious and arrogant, but I have learned alot by interacting with people and observing behavior. Some folks tend to believe that better gear will make them better photographers, however the fundamental principles behind photographic style don't even require a camera at all. The camera is simply a tool that facilitates the capture of an image, regardless of its technological prowess. To say that LF shooters are 'better' photographers than 35mm is a flawed assumption - only they have taken the time to understand the manual aspects of the artform of focusing, tilting, shifting, and being patient - but doing that doesn't make them better photographers. Photography takes time - often lifetimes to master. And the beauty of it is the guy standing next to you may hate an image while you are enamored by it.

In closing, my message is plain and simple: use what you've got and use it right - the tools of the trade are an extension of who YOU are. The buyer likes this - they are buying something YOU made, and don't forget this come sale time. Ask Erik, he does this all of the time, and he's excellent with customers; gets them engaged in the images, tells a story. That makes the biggest difference, not the gear or the process, but the connection YOU make with your audience. Thank you.