Large Format

By Anant Saraf, 2024

The Large Format Camera is a technological dinosaur- old and obsolete, yet capable of much more than any living animal. Its incredible sluggishness is matched by its unparalleled resolution (9), its unwieldiness by its focal flexibility (3). The most iconic photographs produced by this dinosaur document either landscapes or violence (2, 11-13).

While it may have heralded the invention of all photographic equipment and images that came after it (1), its current existence is largely irrelevant to but a small group of people. In the stupendously swift informatic age (7-9), its slow, inefficient production of images stands as an act of anti-capitalist defiance that is enabled only by the elitism inherent in its contemporary operation. A machine known to be a rite of passage for fine art photographers- for providing their 'photographer-hood' (19)- the large format camera represents the photographic past better than any other.

1. A Homage to the Large Format Camera and Other Strange Inventions That Changed the Course of My Life
2, 11-13. "Photographing the American Landscape: Will RISD Photo Love Me Now?": Large Format Photographs of a screen displaying scenes from Red Dead Redemption 2. Related ideas: this camera was invented for landscape photography, referencing "the American Landscape" and its place in the RISD Photo canon/curriculum; similarities between the Western Cowboy and the early itinerant Large Format Photographers; post medium photography.
3, 4. "Infinite Jiaolong", closeup of Infinite Jiaolong
5, 6. A Homage to Page Sonnet Sullivan (and Trees and Women)
7, 8. "'Still' Life"
9. "India Pak Conflict", Google Images Search, May 2025
10. Gods and Ancestors
15. Family
16. Sofia and Celine help me with an assignment
17. Tanaya
19. Thinking with My Camera
20. BTS

Large Format

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