I Built an 8×10 Paper Negative Box Camera… and It Works!
I know, I know. It’s been done before, but not by me, so I gave ‘er a go. It started when I discovered a blog post online: DIY Foam core 8×10 camera by Cory Norton.
I know, I know. It’s been done before, but not by me, so I gave ‘er a go. It started when I discovered a blog post online: DIY Foam core 8×10 camera by Cory Norton.
Columbus, Ohio-based photographer Mat Marrash has been working in large format photography for the past six years -- a span longer than pretty much any other hobby that's emerged in his life. He has also spent a lot of time thinking about why photography has had such a big impact on him. He shares those musings with us in this 2.5-minute video by Rooted Content.
"Soul" is a beautiful 5-minute short film about the work of Canadian fine arts photographer Jakob de Boer, who traveled to the Pacific Northwest to capture landscapes with his large format camera.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, large-scale residential districts were built in and around Paris, France, to provide affordable housing for a booming population. Known as "grands ensembles," these sprawling complexes were sometimes poorly planned and constructed, causing some to have many empty units as residents found other places to live. Others, however, remain populated and are bustling with life.
In both cases, there are senior citizens who call the housing projects home. For his project Souvenir d'un Futur, photographer Laurent Kronental documented these strangely beautiful buildings and the seniors who live in them.
Ian and Erick Regnard are two Mauritian-born photographers who have won big awards for their underwater 4x5 Polaroid photos.
Chris Payne is a architectural photographer who focuses his camera on design, assembly, and the built form. For his latest project, Textiles, Payne visited the color-, shape-, and pattern-filled worlds of textile mills in the American Northeast.
While sitting in a coffee shop last Friday, I really didn’t want to answer any more emails so I went to a bar instead, ordered a pint and sketched out a bit of a doodle for a big camera. I then called my buddy Zach who shares my open schedule and vague ability with power tools, and he stopped by my studio an hour later.
I explained what I wanted to do and showed him my napkin doodle. I think his reaction was something along the lines of “I have no idea what you’re talking about... but sure”. So we went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of wood and some screws.
If you thought the idea of a smartphone selfie stick was peculiar, get this: photographer Jesse Chehak has created a gigantic selfie stick for his large format camera, and it actually works.
Epson today announced its new SureColor P-Series line of large format commercial ink jet printers. The new lineup includes the SureColor P6000 and P8000, which is geared toward photographers (and other creative professionals), and the SureColor P7000 and P9000, which is designed for high-end commercial purposes.
If you’ve been waiting for the chance to convert your 4x5 large format camera into something that can produce instant results, then you are in luck. A company called CatLabs has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to introduce their Instant Pack Film Holder for 4x5 camera systems.
Once readily available, direct positive photo paper has near seemingly disappeared from the market. Ilford recently resurrected their Harman Direct positive paper with plans for it to be available throughout the world this August. Now, another competitor, Galaxy Company, is working to bring their own positive photo paper to life. And Galaxy has a unique feature on their side, which they are calling ‘Hyper Speed.'
I’ve been taking photos all of my life. Something that I realize now started from a young age: I’ve been genetically disposed with bad eyes, but it was only discovered around the age of ten. This forced me to look closely at what was in front of me for a long time. Once I got tested and got glasses an entire world opened up. As a result, I’ve always looked at things and people with an appreciation I doubt I could’ve had any other way.
It’s a hunger to try and capture what I see in the moment as it presents itself, be it a theme or a feeling, a relationship or a time. There’s always a story to tell and that’s why we take photos.
Photographer Gary Schneider shoots portraits with a rather unusual technique. For his project titled Faces, Schneider had his subjects lie on a black backdrop under his large format camera and then sit still for eight minutes while Schneider slowly illuminated the details of their faces with a small light.
Professional photographer Leif Norman recently gave a talk at …
For the past two years, British photographer Paul Thompson has been trying to push the boundaries of night photography with his large format film camera. His images of landscapes and seascapes are captured under moonlight and require exposure times of up to two hours. The resulting project is aptly titled "Moonlight."
Starting back in May of 2014, I finally put my first foot forward in the making of a 16x20 inch bellows camera. The idea to build a camera was nothing new to me, but I was always hesitant to begin construction since I am the type of person that prefers to work off a set of blue prints and directions. Unfortunately, since my drawing skills aren't amazing, it was pretty difficult to visualize and plan a solid blueprint of the project - which ultimately forced me to bite the bullet and simply begin construction of the camera and problem solve along the way.
Using an 8x10 camera requires patience, attention to detail and a whole lot of steps in between. But don't worry if you've never done it before: here to walk you, step-by-step, through the entire rewarding workflow is Tim Layton of Black and White Fine Art.
Photographer Chuck Baker is a self-proclaimed "camera and darkroom equipment hoarder" who can't bear to get rid of gear even when it no longer works. Having a large number of enlargers in his collection, Baker recently decided to upcycle one of them by turning it into a working camera.
The large format camera you see about is what resulted from the project.
Photographer Justin Borucki has spent the better part of a year and a …
If you're in the mood to pine for your own large format camera, the great outdoors, landscape photography, and the darkroom, this beautifully shot ode to the large format photographer is right up your alley.
It's called Through the Ground Glass, and though it does feature a bit of language (consider yourself warned), it's a visually engaging ode to what some might call a lost art.
Lovers of light painting photography, large format photography, symmetry and physics each have a distinct reason to enjoy photographer Paul Wainwright's Pendulum Project.
Created in the pitch blackness of his barn at night, Wainwright shoots these beautiful light paintings with the help of a massive Blackburn pendulum he built himself and a large format camera packing 4x5 sheet film.
Larger format instant photography is certainly nothing new, but a whole new generation of hipsters and film enthusiasts will now get to know it thanks to Fuji's new Instax Wide 300: a large format Insta camera that uses 86mm x 108mm instant film.
In the world of analogue photography, the larger you go in format, the more time, discipline and resources it typically takes to capture and develop your photographs. And while the age-old technique of developing film takes due diligence no matter the format, large format photography in particular has a certain quality to the process that makes it stand out from the rest.
New York-based photographer Michael Massaia's images are easily identified for two reasons: first, because they're all very distinct, black-and-white, large format photographs; and second, because most of them are taken in the middle of the night... a result of Massaia's struggle with insomnia.
It’s a part of New York City that few have ever seen or will ever see. Called North Brother Island, this piece of land sits in the East River, housing a piece of NYC history that has been decaying ever-so-slowly for the past five decades or so: a hospital once used to house quarantined patients from the general population of NYC.
Two months after being in Sochi to cover the 2014 Winter Olympics, photographer Guy Rhodes is sharing some of the images he captured there. But they’re not just any images. They’re analog images. 4x5 images, to be exact.
Using 34 sheets of Tri-X and a Crown Graphic 4x5 camera, Rhodes describes capturing the games with such a beast (while also shooting digital) as, "among the top experiences [in his] life."
So, you think carrying around your pro-series body and 300mm f/2.8 all day at a sporting event sucks? Well, don’t go complaining to the sports photographers of yesteryear or they might pull out a photo of them using the beast known as 'Big Bertha.'
From Los Angeles based photographer Jamie Johnson comes a unique series of photographs that juxtapose the past and the present in a fascinating way: large format wet plate collodion photos of children writing cheeky modern-day bad deeds on a turn-of-the-century chalkboard.
Leica began its takeover of Swiss view camera manufacturer Sinar all the way back in 2006, when the German company acquired a 51% stake in Sinar from Jenoptik. The real goal, however, was only truly achieved yesterday when both companies announced via press release that they had reached an acquisition deal.
Photographer Richard Renaldi's 6-year-long project Touching Strangers has been an incredible success. From viral Internet fame to a full-fledged photo book that exceeded its Kickstarter goal eight times over, there's something profoundly moving about complete strangers posed together, sometimes quite intimately, on the streets of NYC.
In the video above we get a behind the scenes look at how Renaldi does what he does, and how his subjects, sometimes reticent at first, often wind up feeling at ease and connected to this perfect stranger they didn't know existed 10 minutes ago.