Alligator Junipers, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas, No. 19

Pine Canyon, Big Bend National Park, Texas, 1979. No. 30

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, 1979. No. 40

Pine Canyon, Big Bend National Park, Texas, 1979. No. 54

Saguaro National Park, Arizona, 1980. No. 60

Zion National Park, Utah, 1980. No. 90

Lost Mine Trail, Big Bend National Park, Texas, 1980. No. 98

Franklin Mountains, El Paso, Texas 1981. No. 104

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, 1981. No. 116

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, 1981. No. 131

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, 1981. No. 149

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, 1982. No. 182

WORKING WITH THE BIG CAMERA

Here I am in about 1972, as a student in UT-Austin's photojournalism program. Great teachers, great hair.

Many years ago I used a large-format camera, so called because it used film that was four inches wide by five inches tall—13 times the area of 35mm film. Starting with an image of that size, I could make an 11 x 14-inch print with very little enlargement, resulting in incredible sharpness and detail. I have yet to see a book or computer screen that comes close. You can lose yourself in a large-format print.

The camera that holds this film uses a design that goes back to the beginnings of photography in the 1800s. Because the lens can independently be tilted and swung sideways on its axis, a skilled photographer can do things with focus and perspective that are impossible with a 35mm camera. This bigger camera required a bigger tripod, and with a few film holders* and a couple of lenses, filters, focusing cloth, drinking water, etc., I carried a fair amount of weight out into the wilderness. In the Rocky Mountain region, that usually meant going uphill at altitudes of 3,000 to 8,000 feet. At Great Sand Dunes National Monument in Colorado, I was trudging up and down 400-foot-tall sand dunes at 6,000 feet elevation. I was in better shape then.

You can learn more about large-format photography in these articles:

Large-Format Photography (Wikipedia)

View Camera (Wikipedia)

*Each holder stored two sheets of film, one on each side. I looked a lot more than I shot, and setting up and shooting one photo could easily take a half hour, so three or four holders were usually plenty for me.