Urban Motion

© Ben Anderson

Often as I’m browsing around the net I’ll find an image that instantly makes me sit up and take notice. More and more often these images will have been captured on medium or large format film. See my earlier post about Mark Brautigam’s work.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m being limited by the equipment or format that I’m using and this had definitely become the case with 35mm digital - that’s not to say that I had become the best of the best within that genre, but that I knew I had something more to offer — or perhaps more importantly, something more to learn by moving up the format ladder. With that in mind I obtained some medium format equipment and started to use it with gusto - I think some of the results have far surpassed what I had imagined I could obtain.

You may be smirking and asking yourself how the image above demonstrates this - and I would forgive you entirely for thinking as much, but for me the image above is most definitely a step in the right direction for my photographic sensibilities. Film, and the larger formats, simply exude a higher aesthetic than I’ve seen possible with digital media. Digital work often comes across as far too cleanly, aseptic even — not all of the time granted, but much of it.

So, I’ve seen where I want to go, and I’ve leapt onto one stepping stone on what is undoubtedly a larger crossing, but the lure of large format photography is incredibly strong. Do I continue to leap? Or do I hold myself in check, take stock of the geography, and learn the lie of the land before moving off?