civilized ku # 15 - the one-eyed monster
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 09:53AM 
One-eyed monster • click to embiggenSize matters,or so it seems in the Art world these days, especially in the medium of photography.
I've never been a fan of big prints (see quiet photography), but then again, I always thought that 20×24 inches was big. Now I know better - 12×18 feet is a big print. Sure, I've seen my photography printed to 40×60 inches (printed by Kodak's in-house pro lab using a liquid-gate enlarger) for display in the Kodak Gallery (now gone) in NYC, but those photographs seemed to be big just for big-ness sake, not for any real aesthetic reason.
Then, about 2 years ago, the wife and I were doing a gallery crawl in NYC and we came across the photography of Massimo Vitali. One of his beach scenes, printed to approx. 6×8 feet fried my brain. It just 'worked' in so many ways - from a distance, moderately close, up close, whatever, the effect was varied but no less captivating. It got me to thinking.
So, I thought and thought and eventually, nada, I stopped thinking about it. Then the Jeff Wall thing erupted and, once again, I started thinking. Thinking about BIG.
Then and now, much of my thinking has been done right next to my 8×10 one-eyed monster which is situated within arms length (literally) of my digital darkroom throne. It just stands there, with its silent gaze, beckoning and taunting - although, I swear I can ocassionally hear a faint refrain along the lines of "try getting that from your digital crap", and, "film is not dead, film is not dead...".
In case you're wondering about the 'monster' moniker, it's simple - everything about shooting 8×10 is monsterous. The cost of film and processing, the cost of a high quality film scanner for 8×10, the cost of the processing power to handle really monsterous files, the cost of printing BIG and not to mention the increased size of my bulging hernia.
Fortunately, my investment in the equipment was made years ago. Fortunately because, for example, at current prices, you can either buy 10 8×10 film holders (how many I have) or, say, a Canon 5D body.
Nevertheless, the time has come to pack it up and put it in the car. Not as my primary weapon of choice, but rather so it's there when I'm picturing with my digital crap and I just know that what I'm picturing is screaming,"BIG, really BIG."
PS - not to scare the wife, but...I intend to 'restage' the Which came first? pro-filmic moment, because I want to see it 5×5 feet on the dining room wall.
Reader Comments (9)
I love 8x10, one of the most satisfying moments in photography is seeing a perfectly exposed 8x10 sheet of E6 on the light box. Using a loupe is like pouring caramel onto a hot fudge sundae. And to add one more to the reasons of calling it a monster...tripod.
No hand holding that sucker.
Please buy a more flavorful bird. That oven stuffer roaster looked ok, but tasted alot like nothing.
and why wasn't I invited to this mud season bonanza?
So do you need a compass to tell you where to point it or to tell you where you are? LOL
You think you're joking in your PS. The current issue of the British magazine "Homes and Gardens" includes a spread with a Massimo Vitali print squeezed into a very small dining room.
Please don't ask me why I know this...
Eh, I'm not such a fan of this craze to print as big as bus. Sometimes it works, but a lot of the time I wish people would just hang more damn work instead of one lonely monster.
The only reason I'm not a fan of the big prints is because I cannot afford to buy one nor do I have the room to house one. If I did have the money though, and the house, I would! The awe and power of an image at that size (done well of course) is really quite amazing and worth at least having one. Then I would fill the rest of the halls and rooms with more reasonable sized prints.
Aaron:
Not to mention you might put a puck through it.
I enjoy little Prince, his music is awesome.
Oh…"prints"… sorry. But seriously folks. I think a large print would work in a small space depending on the subject matter. Personally I would not want to watch a love story on a huge TV
in a small room, where I would have to pan back and forth to see the whole screen. But, I get a kick out of watching sci-fi huge and loud, so that I get the feeling that I'm part of the action.