Many years ago a fellow that owed me some money decided to give me a 4X5 camera to pay his debt. Reluctantly I took it because I knew I would never get the cash. He handed me a big black box with a 4X5 Orbit camera, a Schneider 135mm Xenar lens and a couple of worn out 4X5 film holders. I had no idea what to do with the camera. I didn’t know how to use it, how make the lens work and… I had no concept of what I needed to make a photograph with this funny looking contraption.
I was photographing with a Pentax 35mm camera and I thought that someday I could make an image as good as Adams or Weston with it. Little did I know! The 4X5 camera stayed in my garage for a year or so. I began to understand that bigger might be better. I bought a book or two concerning large format photography and threw them on the shelf for reference. One day I was looking for something in my junk filled garage and found the camera. I decided to find out how I might use it.
A trip to the photo store was an enlightening experience. I found I needed a tripod to hold the camera, 4X5 film, a cable release, dark cloth, light meter and all the rest of the stuff. Someone told me I would have to develop my own black and white film if I expected to get a negative to make a photo. Knowing that I would have to make some kind of a darkroom I decided to put the camera and the new trinkets that might make it work back into the garage until I could figure out what a darkroom was. Some reading proved to me that I was in for a big challenge. As the months passed I was able to acquire enough equipment to have a basic darkroom. My garage became the “room of almost darkness” with the help of huge sheets of heavy black plastic and duct tape.
I was ready now to make the perfect image I thought. I still didn’t know how to use the camera but I figured I could fake my way through it somehow. Then the storm arrived. I woke up one winter morning and a gift from “the big guy in the sky” awaited me. The mountains and valleys east of Santa Barbara were covered with a blanket of snow, beautiful clouds danced above and I have never seen such magnificent light since then. Needless to say the 4X5 camera came out and I went to work as best I could. I set the camera on the tripod. I pointed it in the general direction of what I thought would make a good photo. “God, this is hard work. No one told me that the image is backwards and upside down and the ground glass keeps fogging up under this stupid black cloth. What are all these knobs for on this damn thing”?
The darkroom was intimidating. Never before having developed 4X5 film, I could only do the job at hand from information I dragged out of a couple of large format photographers I knew. Everything seemed to be a big secret in those days. I developed the negatives in a tray using HC110, dilution B with +X-PAN film, a stop bath with way too much acid in it and a hardening fix. Of course I diluted all the mixtures with tap water. Santa Barbara water has among other things, rocks in it.
I was very, very lucky. My negatives looked pretty darn good, or at least I thought they did. I believe that the developer I used was correct for the occasion. Everything else I did was awful. The negatives are filthy with spots and scratches…wonder why. Nothing can get rid of the defects.
I was hooked. I never went back to the small camera except for candid shooting. Large format was the place for me and I had a lot to learn. I took up 5X7, 8X10 and even 14X17 formats. There simply is nothing like a large format contact print… nothing.
With a lot of work I can make a good silver image from the negative. I must admit that turning the negative into a digital file and correcting the spots, scratches and pinholes makes the job easier. It still isn’t a silver image however.
Beginners’ luck… you bet and I’m still making images with film and the “big gun”. It’s the process ya know.
Love this one pops.
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