Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/02

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Subject: [Leica] How big can you print a 35mm photo?
From: pswango at att.net (Phil Swango)
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:03:49 -0700

Tina M. wrote:
Those are fantastic.  I'm at the other end of the extreme and want people to
hold my 8x10 prints in their hands to look at the people and feel a
connection that comes through getting close to the photo.
=================================================

I'm the same.  I actually dislike too-large prints, although there are
obviously situations that call for huge ones.  I enjoy the intimacy of a
Polaroid held in the hand, love the old Walker Evans SX-70 sets, don't want
to move my eyes back and forth to encompass the frame, want to be aware of
all four edges, want to grasp the composition in a single take, etc.  That's
why the long threads about pixel pitch and sensor size don't interest me.  I
realize that ultimately, bigger is technically better, but in my personal
photo world it doesn't matter.

*However*, the trend in the fine arts photo world has been toward really
huge!  Jeff Wall, Tina Barney, Andreas Gursky, etc.

Someone wrote recently that in the 21st c. the traditional quest for formal
balance (a la HCB) is being replaced by an art that is not so much a
rhetoric of form as a display of idea writ large.  So the (my) taste for
concise presentation of formal balance may be out of date.

In the same vein, I also like to sit near the back of a movie theater!



-- 
Phil Swango
307 Aliso Dr SE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
505-262-4085


Replies: Reply from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] How big can you print a 35mm photo?)