On Format

After reading not one, but two recent posts about format, and thinking about my own internal debates on the subject this weekend, I knew I needed to hash things out in a post. When I was thinking a few months ago about what to shoot next besides more self-portraits, I wanted to jump into doing some of the stuff that’s more outside my comfort zone— shooting strangers (which terrified me) and shooting film (which I loved to do but didn’t feel as skilled at doing as working digitally).

I’m already on my way to getting comfortable with shooting strangers, but in the initially uncomfortable situation of shooting people I don’t know, of feeling the weight of their expectations, I’m more often than not leaving the Mamiya in my camera bag and reverting to what makes me feel more competent and sure, shooting with my DSLR. The thing is, I really do want to be shooting more film, and not just because I want to push my limits or brush up on certain skills. For me, the tools I use have a dramatic effect on the end result. Not only are there differences in color, tonality, sharpness, and depth of field, but the emotional tone of my images changes, not as a result of the format but because of the way I approach shooting with a different camera.

I’m not sure I can really explain it, but the world looks different through the viewfinder of my 645 compared to through the viewfinder of my DSLR. I don’t look at the configuration of objects on a plane, but rather see the expansive space, see the looseness and openness of the world rather than how tight and controlled it might be. Darius Himes explains that “the different physical interface with the tool leads to a corresponding different mental interface with one’s surroundings. Walking around with a 35mm SLR is simply physically different than walking around with a tripod and an 8×10.” And even though my DSLR and my 645 are both handheld cameras, the weight of my Mamiya, the sound of the shutter and motor drive, the smooth glide of the focusing ring, and the finite number of exposures on each roll give it the feeling of being special somehow, and that affects the way that I shoot. I shoot with that feeling, a sort of tingly excitement, inside of me. I think that feeling shows in my images (I’m basing this assertion on an admittedly small sample of less than a thousand frames— I’ll get back to you once I’ve shot a lot more film). I feel like the images are more gentle, less cold. I don’t know if that’s the way I want my images to look (I promise that I’m not putting film on some sort of pedestal or privileging it as more real or arty than digital, because depending on the subject matter I many times prefer the look of digitally-created images) but I do know by now that I can’t force my work to be something it’s not. I am excited to develop some of the portraits I’ve taken recently and compare them to the digital ones I’ve made of the same subjects.

Liz Kuball writes that “maybe the projects a person is drawn to are the ones that are also best suited to the camera he likes. Maybe the two decisions are nearly inseparable.” I wonder if my uncertainty over the format for this project and uncertainty about the content/tone/direction are linked; I’m sure they are. The question is, which decision will come first, the format or the direction? Or maybe the two decisions really are inseperable. Maybe it will just fall into place and the decision will be made through the process of working and making more images.  That’s my plan, anyway.