Large Format Photography Australia

Now this is an exercise in composition. Talk about "dynamic diagonals" and "leading lines". No matter where I start looking at this picture my eye ends up following the distant water course up to the power station and then along the smoke plume to exit the edge a bit more than ha...

That's a beautiful and quiet picture with a sense of deep space. The 121mm f8 Super Angulon is a deservedly famous lens and I use mine on all formats up to 8x10.

The title of the picture, SA Mt Lofty, has me tricked. It can't be the Mt Lofty near Adelaide because there are no swarms of tourists.

Frugality? My middle name. I've never bought a bottle. Juice bottles and drink bottles are all I use. Everything is labelled prominently; no confusion. Developer stock goes in many small full-to-the-top bottles and only the one in use has airspace and potential loss through oxidation. But I use 'em ...

Alastair, maybe I get too many lurid reports from the NT but I can imagine a crocodile coming up quietly out of the shallows behind you while you focus this image. And the bush beyond is full of serpents all with various extremes of toxicity. But it's a beautiful scene too and well taken.

Light leaks in 8x10 film holders are very rare except for ancient wooden ones that have warped tops where the darkslide goes in. I've tested all my 30 (average price $50ea) holders by loading them with photographic paper and giving them the full sun treatment at all angles; so far so good. I test th...

Very interesting: a classic symmetrical composition on top, all quiet, calm, and repose, and an asymmetrical one below. The bottom picture has little leaves and branches nicked in along the top; a nice touch that works every time. But look at the water around the boats. It's almost solid with floati...

Good luck with that 20C water. I reckon that's too cold for efficient film processing and there's no technical justification for it. It's just a historic hangover from European style tap water. Running a full processing cycle, including archival washing, uses a lot of water and if it's all the same ...

The moon rises and sets every day so you would think making a good picture of it would be easy. It's not. There is only a short space of time between when the moon is bright enough to register on the film but the land is still dark enough not to be over exposed and blown out. You know when it has al...

I've checked and double checked below the lens contrast filters and have never found a downside. I use good enlarging lenses (Fujinon, Rodenstock, Nikkor) that can image every grain of a negative on to gelatin-silver paper. When I add a contrast filter (any of them from -1 to 5+) I'm still imaging e...

Edward Weston's last photograph, Rocks and Pebbles, 1948 has no centre. It should not work but I think it does. https://images.artnet.com/aoa_lot_images/45818/0_550_414.jpg So I tried a centreless composition that looked quite nice upside down on the ground-glass of the 8x10. Success, self deception...