What is your ultimate 4X5 portrait ?

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What is your ultimate 4X5 portrait(not head shot) and why?

-- gilles langlois (langloisgilles@yahoo.com), April 09, 2001

Answers

Response to 4X5 portrait

By me? Or by someone else? What is yours? And when it comes down to it, why would format matter? A piece of film, a piece of paper, or a camera, is just a medium for transporting an image of an idea.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), April 09, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

To answer your question more directly:My favorite portraitists who work (or worked) regularly in large format are: Nicholas Nixon, Sally Mann, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, Edward Weston, Timothy Greenfield-Saunders, andPaul Strand. Sometimes William Wegman, Gregory Heisler, and Cindy Sherman and Chuck Close are in that pantheon as well.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), April 09, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

Arnold Newman's Stravinsky (1946). Unexpected, creative composition.

-- Stewart Ethier (s_ethier@parkcity.net), April 09, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

I am not sure what format was used for this particular shot, but, Ansel Adams did a wonderful photograph of an old woman behind a screen door. To me, it seemed to capture the feel of poverty in the desert southwest.

-- Edward Kimball (edward.kimball@ns.sympatico.ca), April 10, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

Karsh did some fine work also!

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), April 10, 2001.


Response to 4X5 portrait

To me, the finest portrait ever was by Arnold Newman, showing a demonic Krupps, strongly side lit, against the background of his armanents factory, with strongly converging perspective. Apparently Herr Krupps wasn't too happy about it! I photograph products rather than people, but if I had the capability to have taken that shot I would give up my speciality tomorrow. In my view, most so-called portrait photographers are sadly lacking in both technique and creativity. I don't know whether the Krupps portrait was shot on 5"x4", but as Ellis says, what does it matter?

-- Garry Edwards (bestsnapper@aol.com), April 10, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

Ok I'll bite... I really love Mapplethorpe's portraits of Isabella Rossellini and Sandra Bernhardt, although I'm not sure exactly what format was employed.

-- Mark Minard (roswell@a-znet.com), April 10, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

Hi

Mapplethorpe worked with a Hasselblad almost 6x6!

-- Armin Seeholzer (armin.seeholzer@smile.ch), April 10, 2001.


Response to 4X5 portrait

Horst P. Horst! I think he worked in lf(?)

-- David Munson (orthoptera@juno.com), April 10, 2001.

Response to 4X5 portrait

Paul Strand's portrait of Susan Thompson standing in the kitchen with her apron on.

-- B. (bmitch@home.com), April 10, 2001.


Response to 4X5 portrait

Mapplethorpe's portrait of Donald Sutherland, not sure about the format, though.

-- Haim Toeg (haim_toeg@bmc.com), April 11, 2001.

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