Large Format

Positive Memories – Creating Positive Images Inspired by the Photobooth Process – By Andy Smale

When I was young, every bus or railway station, airport, Woolworths, Boots, shopping centers and department stores all had a Photo booth.  These booths allowed the sitter to have 4 pictures taken, in return for a suitable deposit of coins, followed by the actual silver gelatin black and white photographs in a strip about 1.5 inches wide and 5 inches long.  The pictures were accepted by the passport office and were of great quality.

Some of the machines were also capable of producing a single portrait or 4 mini portraits in a square as well as the more common strip of photos described above.

“Ride Slow, Take Photos” – 1200 Miles on a bicycle with a Speed Graphic – By Erik Mathy

On November 1st, 2018 I left my garage and rolled out on the old Butterfield Overland Mail Route for Tucson, AZ which was a full 1200 miles away. For almost a year prior the headlines had been dominated by news of things happening along America’s southern border. Child Separations. Immigration Caravans. National Guard deployments. On social media channels the rhetoric from all sides, which had already been getting increasingly strident, ramped up to a fever pitch. Every day pleasant people were vehemently arguing. Normal conversations spiraled completely out of control.

Graphic film pack adapter

Shooting 4×5″ GAF Film Packs in the Mississippi Delta – by Andrew Morang

A friend here in town is an experienced and very capable photographer with over five decades of experience. Early this year (2020), his wife emailed me wondering if I would like a couple of his film packs because they wanted to make space in the freezer. I thought, film packs? I had not used once since the early 1970s. They still exist? Come to find out, a couple meant an entire cooler full, and my friend had stored them in various freezers since the late 1960s! Well, this sounded like a photographic adventure, so I graciously accepted this generous gift.

Shooting 5×4 with Connie / Reminding myself how easy Large Format Photography is

The other weekend I decided it might be fun to attempt to entertain Connie my 8 year old daughter with some photography. I’ve given her a little point & shoot digital which she had been having some fun snapping with, so I thought I might show her the joys of the opposite end of the photography spectrum: shooting, developing and digitising large format film.

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