Large Format, 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?":
These Large Format photographs display scenes from the Western Cowboy video game ‘Red Dead Redemption 2,’ set in Wild West America in 1899.
They reference the fact that the large format camera was primarily invented for landscape photography whilst critiquing “the American Landscape” and its
hyper-relevance in the RISD Photo curriculum, a practice in which the genre’s claim to neutrality has long justified westward expansion. I think of the
American Cowboy as a white man free to roam, enact violence, and conquer without consequence, and the early itinerant large format photographer as
operating under a similar claim to land
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