Common Themes

The meeting of medium and message.

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Clifford Ross, HARMONIUM MOUNTAIN I, Archival Pigment Print 70 3/4 x 203" (framed quadriptych) 2008, Archival Pigment Print 42 3/4 x 93 7/8" (frame) 2008, Archival Pigment Print 26 1/4 x 54 3/4" (frame) 2008

Recently Jorg Colberg wrote a post in reference the use of various mediums and photography. Colberg argues intelligently that sometimes photographers confuse the format choice for actual content in photography. In his original post he argues:

Using a so-called toy camera, for example, doesn't automatically produce a great photo. A light leak or a soft lens might contribute to what makes a particularly photo good, but that doesn't mean that if you buy a Diana camera (which are now in production again and sold for way too much money - seriously, if you want one buy a vintage one on Ebay) you're guaranteed good photos.

The same is true for large-format cameras. There almost is a cult of large-format photography out there. It's true, large-format cameras can lead to very spectacular results, but using a large-format camera is no guarantee for that.

Or take vintage/alternative photography processes, many of which are notoriously hard to use. But as before, using a wet-plate collodion-type process (or whatever that might be called) does not guarantee good photographs.

The medium a photographer uses does not grantee quality artwork and this conversation reminded me of a lecture my professor of last semester, Philip Perkis (book) gave to the class. In the short lecture, Perkis, strongly urged the class to stick to a particular medium; that is find the medium that you like best and stay with it learn it inside out use it all the time. He even went so far to argue against the zoom lens. After Perkis's lecture I kept thinking about his arguments while I was looking at established artists in the New York galleries and museums and on the whole the majority of the shows the medium of the photographer what integral to their style.

Colberg brings up Gursky and an example of a photographer who:

produces equally large and involved images (please don't email me to start arguments about whether or not those are "Gigapixel" or "What-have-you-pixel"!), using Photoshop (or whatever else), but whose images are vastly more interesting. Seriously.

I think part of Gursky's strength flows from his evolutionary track. Andreas Gursky uses a large format 5x7 camera and has learn over the years what the world looks like through this particular view. Gursky found a format that suited him and committed to it.

A photographer does not have to work in the same format their whole life but Clifford Ross's scattershot approach lead to the flop of his most recent exhibition Mountain Redux. I really enjoyed his previous work for the Hurricanes and then the Mountain work with his new R1 Camera. Part of what I really enjoyed with Clifford Ross's R1 camera and the Mountain series is described by Peter Galassi in his introduction to Andreas Gurski's Book (MoMA 2001):

A small picture is illegible except from near at hand, but a large one may be viewed from a distance and then by degrees more closely. This range of regard is an old story for painting, but it became familiar to photography only recently. Many artists have treated it with indifference, making big pictures whose imagery, as we approach, simply dissolves into the unlovely industrial material of photographic paper. Some of Gursky's largest productions, sacrificing precision of detail to grandeur of effect, do suffer slightly at close range. Most of his pictures, however, offer a continuous reward from very far to reasonably near, as the macrocosm reveals its microcosmic structure.

Clifford Ross made a successful first crack at exploration this relationship that larger photograph can have with the viewer. But in moving from his R1 camera into remixing these images into "Harmoniums" through the use of 3d software and a lot of computer power I believe he is loosing the original qualities that I enjoyed in the original Mountain Series.

Ultra Large Format (ULF) Color Photography (Clifford Ross's R1 vs. Graham Flint's GIGAPXL Camera vs. Alastair Thain's 9"x9")

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I have been following Clifford Ross’s photography since 2005 when I read my first article about the R1 Camera he commissioned to build. The camera is based around an old World War 2 era arial film cartridge system that is still in circulation and Kodak still manufactures color film for it.

The New York Times article puts it nicely:

The camera, called the R-1 (R for Ross), looks oddly rigged, like something out of Dr. Seuss, and almost like an antique viewfinder camera on legs. In fact, Mr. Ross pulls a cloth over his head and the back of his contraption when he takes a picture. But with this camera that he concocted out of 60-year-old camera parts, mirrors, a microscope and other items - none of them digital - Mr. Ross has taken photographs on 9-by-18-inch negatives that when slowly processed by hand and digitally scanned contain 100 times as much data as the average professional digital camera.

For example, in the mountain photographs that Mr. Ross took in Colorado - of Mount Sopris, near Carbondale - shingles on a barn appear in sharp focus 4,000 feet from the camera, as does a tree on a ridge four miles away.

You can get some sense as to what standing in front of a Clifford Ross print is like from a zoom feature on his website.


Clifford Ross, Mountain III, Chromogenic Color Print, 71.5"x130" (frame) 2005 and 53"x93" (frame) 2006


Clifford Ross, Mountain III (full size detail)

Not long after reading about Clifford Ross I stumbled upon the Gigapxl Project (wiki). Forming around the same time as Cilfford Ross; the Gigapxl Project was created by retired physicist Graham Flint. Using a surprisingly similar technique Flint’s Camera uses the same film format as the R1 Camera thus the two cameras have a vaguely similar tank like look. If you are interested in the technology of these types of cameras Gigapxl’s website has a geeked out technology section for your statistical pleasure. I am much more interested in the aesthetics of creating landscapes so dense with details then diving into technical differences.

WIRED has a good discription of looking at a Gigapxl image in a 2005 article, “Photographer Seeks Resolution:”

A photograph of a San Diego beach shows a paraglider swooping over bluffs. Zoom in on some tiny dots on the cliff, and a group of people with binoculars and telephoto lenses can be seen. Follow their gaze, and you’ll see naked sunbathers on the beach.

These cameras allow for a viewing interaction where the viewer’s distance far to near adds a layer of intensity usually only seen in large paintings. Now that these photographs can be produced in similar size and intensity the interaction with the picture becomes vastly different then when you look at a standard sized image.


Copyright 2006 Gigapxl Project, Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument. Southwest Washington, Gigapxl 480-mm (normal) camera, f/19, 1/60s


Gigapxl Project, Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument. Southwest Washington (full size detail)

When an image lush with detail such as the mountain images produced by Clifford Ross and the Gigapxl project the viewing experience becomes charged with interaction. Not only do your eyes dart across the image building the image in your minds eye but upon closer inspection since detail is maintained your eyes are flooded with information and leads to a more immersive viewing experience.


Alastair Thain, 560,000.00 Hours, London 2004

While I was writing this post I came upon another photographer using a home made camera largely based upon the same aural film cartages. I found Alastair Thain’s work via Flat-e: ICA: The Show episode seven. ICA: The Show is a British based video magazine. Although Thain’s Camera is quite similar to Ross’s and Gigapxl’s his images have more in common with Eggleston then with Adams.


Alastair Thain, I -10 Freeway 1989

I will certainly keep looking into these three artist’s development and what the will happen as the digital world collides into their film biased practice. Already they are going into new directions. Clifford Ross is experimenting with 3d manipulation which so far has underwhelmed me (at least in web form). And in August of last year Google started incorporating the Gigapxl photos into the 3d virtual environment of the Google Earth.

I also have to wonder what other artist would yield if they worked with these oversized cameras and really go to know them. Would a Andreas Gursky be improved is you could see more detail?