Chamonix 45N-1

I’ve been shooting exclusively with a large format camera for about a year now. There have been many times in the last twelve months when I’ve seriously questioned that decision. My previous 4×5 camera was heavy, wobbly, and didn’t like to stay in focus for very long. I got so tired of carrying that thing out for a whole day only to come home with a sore neck and a stack of out of focus negatives.

At the same time, I knew that I was doing the right thing by sticking with large format. I am in love with the 4×5 negative and the way the view camera works, and that feeling has only grown—even when I haven’t always been happy with the results.

I decided a few months ago that it was time for a new camera and started doing some research. My goal was to find a camera that stays out of the way; the fewer little operational problems I have to worry about the more I can concentrate on making pictures. I decided on the Chamonix 45N-1, which is becoming known as the sports car of the large format photography world: well-made, lightweight, and extremely stiff. It’s also nice to look at and reasonably priced, as far as these things go. It’s too soon to tell if I’m going to fall in love with this camera, but so far I’m very impressed.

One of my better mistakes.

It is interesting to go back and look through the photos I’ve taken in this area over the years, as they show a clear progression of my growth as a photographer. The first time I visited with my new “photographer’s eyes” (2007, I think), I took a few unremarkable pictures of the area with a digital SLR. Something about the place piqued my interest, though, and I returned the next year with a medium format camera and some black and white film. Some of those pictures ended up as part of The universal theory of absolutely everything.

In March of 2009 my wife and I visited our friends in Baltimore again and I took another batch of photos in the ravine. It was some of my first work using color film and I was very happy with the results. Over time, however, I became dissatisfied with the scanning, processing, and selection of images, and I eventually removed them from my site.

I have finally gotten around to re-scanning and processing everything, creating a new edit, and posting them to my site. It’s incredible how much I’ve learned about dealing with color film in that time, and how much better the photos look. The tighter edit leaves me with just seven photos, which isn’t very many, but I think the series is very much improved by its brevity.

Wyman Park, Baltimore

I was planning to bring my large format camera to Baltimore this time. That will unfortunately have to wait, but I look forward to making more work in this hidden part of the city for years to come. I suppose after I finally get down there with the 4×5, the only thing left will be to get an 8×10!

Wrong light, too cold, too windy, rain, snow, and slush; bad weather is a major pitfall of winter, which also just so happens to be my favorite time of year to make pictures. But when the light hits just right and there’s a dusting of snow on the ground—well, it doesn’t get any better than that for me, so I keep trudging out there, hoping for a break.

On days that aren’t good for making pictures, I still try to spend some time out and about. It’s a good opportunity for exploration. I visit parks I’ve never been to before, or revisit a familiar place and make a left turn when I would usually make a right. My knowledge of the local landscape is constantly growing, thanks in part to those days when I am forced to take a break from photography.

Over the last couple of months I have grown to appreciate the landscape of Long Island more than ever before. When I first started taking pictures out here, I was drawn to the winter beaches and marshy forests of the southern shore. Lately I have been spending more time on the interior, learning the lay of the land.

Long Island, New York, courtesy David Rumsey Collection

The topography of Long Island is heavily marked by glacial activity. It is a terminal moraine, the area of the maximum advance of the Wisconsin glacial ice sheet, created approximately 20,000 years ago. This activity has created an interesting mix of rocky shores to the north, sandy shores to the south, and a hilly backbone dotted with kettle ponds throughout the interior. The backbone starts in Brooklyn to the west (Prospect Park is a good example of moraine topology), extends through more than 100 miles of Long Island, and continues hundreds of miles to the north in Martha’s Vinyard and Cape Cod.

At the moment, it’s those hills and ponds that have captured my attention. I love the feeling of the rocky soil beneath my feet as I crunch mile after mile. I’ve got a map with about twenty pushpins in it, full of ideas for new places to explore. Hopefully I can get the weather to cooperate at least a few more times before spring arrives.

Castellomare del Golfo, Sicily, 2008

To bid on this fine photo at iGavel.

You could easily set up an account with LiveBooks or PhotoShelter, or hire a designer if you’ve got the money or aren’t technically inclined. Many people opt to build their own websites, however, whether it’s from scratch or with the help of a web content management system. One very popular web CMS is called WordPress; it’s the software I use to run this site and many of the sites I’ve built for photographer friends over the years. Now I’ve created a WordPress theme that has everything you need to put together a basic portfolio website in about 10 minutes:

WordPress is customized through template files that control the way your website looks. What I have found is that there are plenty of portfolio themes out there already, but they’re all way too flashy for my taste. I’ve found it hard in the past to recommend WordPress to photographer friends because I knew that it was going to take a lot of work to create a site that is clean, attractive, and easy to use.

The goal in building this theme was to create a solid jumping off point; you can use it as-is or customize it to your liking. It’s as basic as you can get: a homepage slideshow, easy-to-create project pages, and additional pages to provide whatever extra information you need. It’s got a built-in blogging system, of course. It’s easy to install and update, and not too hard to customize if you know a little bit of HTML and CSS.

So feel free to give it a spin. I’d love to know what you think!

Update 2/1/2010: I have updated the theme to fix a few small javascript issues and tightened up the stylesheets a bit. If you have already downloaded the theme, please be sure to get the latest version for best results.

Chris’s project involves the creation of a custom 360 degree panorama pinhole camera, based on a device called the Ovnipan. The camera will have a total of 6 pinhole apertures, each overlapping to create one continuous 6×21cm image on the film. The images above are simulations that Chris made with a digital SLR while the camera itself is still under construction.

Chris Hoge's panoramic pinhole camera, construction detail

Chris will also be using the Polaroid film in a modified SX-70. I’ll be checking in with Chris over the coming months and look forward to seeing how this project develops.

One more big thanks goes out to Mike Sinclair, who donated a significant amount of film for the grant. Thanks Mike!

I’ve selected a group of my favorites from the auction, any one of which I would be glad to bid on myself. Click on an image for a link directly to the item listing.

Kate Hutchinson, Plates (Domestic Interventions)

Kim Holleman, Trailer Park Print

Jason DeMarte, Pink Placebo

Alexander Binder, Traum # 5

Michael Marcelle, Diorama #2

Katie Koti, Wetland

Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Altered State

Grant Willing, Frozen Waterfall

Simon Vahala, Suicide Forest (Aokigahara)

Emily Shur, Fire, Ise-Shima, Japan

Shane Lavalette, Helicopter in Flight, Essex, VT