Pingliang Road, Intrepid Field Camera and Ilford Delta 100 film. 1/2 sec at f45.
I’ve done enough street photography now that I routinely overcome my nerves, although there are times when that familiar flutter in the stomach returns. I recently heard a comedian say that nerves can be turned into a kind of positive energy. I think I do that these days when I remind myself that I’m doing a ‘job’ - the noble job of photography - and that street is a place where the work has to be done. It’s a little mantra and a form of self-permission and motivation. When I’ve captured some frames, my nerves settle down.
Being in China with the 5x4 Intrepid Field Camera, my nerves were very much present. In point of fact, not since my first forays in public with a camera in hand had my nerves been quite so evident. A discomfiting feeling for sure, but also a life-affirming one. My senses were alive and I was all the time reminding myself about what I’d decided to do. I had come to China. I was going to do 5x4.
My nerves were not helped by the proportional nervous and suspicious looks I received from Chinese security guards, at what felt like every ten or so yards. There are a lot of such workers in Shanghai. It helps you to feel safe, but you are being watched.
Looking back, it may have been something to do with my newly purchased plastic Nikon branded tripod. This I had bought over in China, solely for the purpose of shooting with the Intrepid. The plastic beast came with a convenient black carry-case. You know, a sort of roughly ‘gun’ sized case. A case carried by a conspicuous white man who had turned up in busy areas looking nervously at security guards, walkways, entrances, exits and the crowds. Eventually, I learned to bag the case and carry the tripod with some leg extension - so it looked like a tripod. Everybody relaxed.
The Huangpu River, Shanghai. What a great location for my Intrepid camera and Delta 100 film.
I didn’t have long to shoot large format in China. I did a fair amount of scouting for locations whilst shooting 35mm, but probably did no more than the equivalent of a day with the Intrepid. I set the camera up fully on three occasions. Each time was quite magical; the locations, light and people around me each a contributing factor.
On the first occasion I drew some modest attention. One gentleman in particular was quite taken with my red-bellowed companion. He stood for some time watching me work, to the point where I began to give a silent tutorial on the shooting procedure. I know not if he wanted that, but it seemed the polite thing to do. The second time I set up the camera I was decidedly braver in my choice of location - I was in a back alley in the suburbs - but I was much more shocked by the reaction of passers-by. There simply was no reaction! I thought I was bound to be approached by the workers who came out of an adjacent building, but no, they walked around me as if I wasn’t there. I chuckled at my self-consciousness.
An alleyway in the suburbs of Shanghai. The details that 5x4 picks up in a shot like this are fabulous. I particularly enjoy the cat on the roof, top left.
The last time, on a car park with derelict buildings, a car drove into my shot at the worst time possible. Just when I began my curses, he suddenly reversed away. I was back in the zone when I was interrupted again. This time a joyous ‘CAMERA!’ was shouted in my direction. It was the driver of the car as he triumphantly skipped by. We exchanged smiles and I thanked him silently for respecting the shot. Well, I like to think it was respect.
I was attracted to the contrasts apparent on this car park. I framed a shot of the derelict building in the centre, with the slick buildings of modern Shanghai behind in the mist. Despite choosing a shutter speed of 1/2 sec, I chanced including a figure in the centre. He stopped to look at me, but I really wasn't confident I'd arrested any movement. The finished image can be seen above, at the start of this post.
So what of my experience of using the Intrepid on this trip? And what have I to now add to my original review? Two important things stand out: one is the relative compactness of the camera; the other is that I really hardly noticed the camera at all.
I was conscious of weight and bulk on my trip, a factor that led me to equivocate over whether or not to take the Intrepid. Having solved the tripod issue, I further reduced my load by forsaking my usual Manfrotto backpack. For this generously padded pack, I substituted my thin branded urban rucksack, inside which I placed a light generic camera bag to protect the 5x4. The film holders and darkcloth sat neatly on top. While the fit was a little tight, it did provide the further benefit of being very inconspicuous. With that rucksack on my back, I was truly in urban mode.
To be able to carry a 5x4 camera in such a manner is a real testimony to the design of the Intrepid. My improvised arrangement for China has made me reconsider my normal backpack: I was left with the strong sense that I had previously been carrying more bag than camera. This was a huge plus for me working in an urban environment, but it is of even bigger benefit for those wanting to work in rural and remote locations. If you are not carrying around a lot of film holders or alternative lens choices, weight is not an issue at all.
Setting the camera up and down was a pleasure. I suppose I have now developed enough muscle memory that such actions are smooth and automatic. There really aren’t a lot of adjustments to contend with. For some large format photographers in some situations this will be a problem, but of course, it very much depends on the work you are doing. As I have written before, if you are starting out in 5x4, the Intrepid makes a forgiving companion. It’s a great ‘learning camera’.
This is what I mean by not noticing the camera. At each location I was fully immersed in making the image, and my control of the camera and exposure really did flow. I’m pleased with the images I made given the time I had. Interestingly, I think I was shooting 5x4 while still somewhat in a street photography mode. I elected more than once to include a passerby, chancing my arm with borderline shutter speeds and using my intuition somewhat for compositional placement (after all, you have gone ‘blind’ once the film holder is inserted). This may be suggestive of further personal work; crucially, for the Intrepid, it shows how it can be used quickly and with ease in public locations.
I wrestled with the edges of the this image, and, not having further space behind me to retreat into, had to settle for the composition seen here. A lesson in camera positioning for sure, but I do enjoy the tonality that Delta 100 provides. A street photography / large format hybrid perhaps.
I have one small caveat. I find that the front standard doesn’t ‘lock down’ as fully as I’d like, and is prone to moving around its central tightening screw. I pondered in my original review whether the wooden bottom of the standard would be hard-wearing in the longer term. It’s not the wear that now strikes me as the issue so much as the movement.
Now, this movement might simply be a feature of my own copy of the camera, but my suspicion is that it isn’t. I have just taken possession of the new 10x8 model, and I’ve noticed an addition that solves the issue entirely. They’ve included some small grip pads on the standard’s bottom (think sandpaper stickers and that describes them well). I don’t know whether this is in response to feedback, or simply Intrepid’s ongoing commitment to design refinement at work. Either way, the change is welcome and points to an easy user modification to the smaller 5x4. The front standard on the 10x8 is very solid when tightened.
I certainly fulfilled a personal ambition by shooting 5x4 in China, and you will gather from the tenor of my report that I continue to recommend the Intrepid for such a task. I’m looking forward now to doing some work with the newly arrived 10x8, a whole different challenge again. It’s funny that I’ve been in the habit of referring to my 5x4 as ‘the big camera’. That mantle has been lifted from it by the newly arrived 10x8, a camera that dwarfs it by comparison. The 5x4 looks tiny now, but it isn’t just the size comparison that has left me with that feeling. Using it in China has made me realise just what a compact large format camera it really is.
The fruits of my recent 5x4 labours: a small but magical contact print. The tonal range is impressive for a straight print. Paper is Multigrade Art 300, which explains the textured surface. Film is Delta 100 developed in Perceptol.
In the last post I wrote of my frustrations with 5x4 in my early use, and stated my belief in the ‘possible satisfactions’ of the format. To put matters bluntly, there’s simply no point in persisting with a format if those satisfactions can’t be acquired. At stake is a considerable investment in time and money, and, worse still, one’s efforts as a photographer. Why invest in a format if it doesn’t enable you to realise your vision, or at least a sizeable part of it?
Having developed and contact printed some negatives this week, I’ve been able to reflect on those ‘satisfactions’ and to provide some evidence to myself of the value in persisting with 5x4. Along with, ‘do I see those satisfactions’, I’ve also asked myself ‘what exactly are they’? I’ve answered yes to the first question and ‘I’m not sure’ to the second. It’s the ‘not sure’ that’s the point of this post.
Two qualities apparent in the contact prints that I would expect in see in my 5x4 work are sharp details and a wide, appetising, tonal range. Indeed, this may be the nub of it, and there may in fact be nothing more to say. It is, after all, customary to admire the detail and enlarge-ability of large format.
Yet there is that something more, a peculiar combination of elements; certainly tone and sharpness, but also the extensive rendering of fine details, a grandiose air, a certain look derived from focal length and the 5x4 format, a specific kind of depth of field, an expansive and airy tonal modulation across the image, leading the eye on a journey from centre to periphery and back again. It’s very hard to say what exactly, but I suspect it comes from the peculiar possession and combination of these elements. A ‘magic’ (for want of a better term) of the medium and the satisfactions it gives in translating the world we see with our eyes.
Photography is a representation or simulation of the visual world, and it seems to me that 5x4 has a peculiar excess of detail that our everyday vision (with its blurred periphery and constant scanning movements) lacks. It’s not just the ability of a large negative to render fine detail, but also the extensive depth of field that can be achieved with small apertures in combination with camera movements, that conspire to make this excess possible. It’s a physical feature of the medium I’m sure (my ‘magic’ is not metaphysical), but one I struggle to define precisely. Given a little more work and attention to the medium as I go, I may reach such a description in the future.
Have I glimpsed enough magic to continue undeterred (at least for now)? The answer in the affirmative has been given above. It’s nothing more than a sketch, but it is a start.
This print is very much a hybrid of new and old technology. It was shot on Ilford Delta 100 film and scanned and processed digitally before being printed on an Epson R3000 inkjet printer. The film was processed using Ilfosol 3, a developer that works very well with Delta 100, if one wants to emphasise fine detail.
I had made a darkroom print before I went down the digital route. I had envisaged this image as a very crisp and tonally varied one, something that my darkroom print didn’t quite achieve. Admittedly, I hadn’t spent too long on it in the darkroom, and remember filing the work print for further work. I must have been trying out some new ideas in digital processing, because I scanned the negative knowing what was in it and began to work on it in earnest.
One of the joys of modern technology is control. I think the analog darkroom has more than enough control in itself; the digital darkroom multiplies even this much further. The image needed some substantial perspective correction (you can see I am looking up from the camera position) and cropping as a result. I wrestled for a long time with the balance between emphasising the details in the architecture and conveying the grain in a way that I liked. You can’t have it all your own way: enhancing midtone contrast comes at the expense of adding noise to smooth areas. You are forced to protect certain areas (like sky) with carefully made layer masks. I went backwards and forwards for a long time with the tones and detail enhancement. I learnt a great deal about processing along the way.
I hadn’t really considered the print finished until a friend asked me to talk about my work and show some prints. It was at that point that I decided that I had a definitive version, printed on Epson Archival Matte paper. Looking at it on screen and then seeing the print brings a certain surprise. There is a fullness and depth to the print, a ‘rightness’ and balance that you can’t appreciate looking at a screen. It is as if the image can finally breathe. Happily, my first audience greeted the print with a lot of praise. As a photographer you do hope that others will enjoy the aesthetic decisions you make and share and understand a modicum of your vision.
