Photography is truly an art form, and perhaps the real devotees of light and shadow,  the true artists among photographers, are the people who hold on with a passion to the great cameras that were being idolized in  Monterey last weekend.   It was a bright, clear April morning. Weston Beach at the Point Lobo State Park near Carmel simply cried out "take my picture."   And they did.  About fifty true believers worked their magic with their historic view cameras.    I was struck with the similarity between large format photographers and artists who use oil paint on canvas.  The easel has been replaced by a tripod,  the canvas by a monster camera and the paint brush by a lens.  These folks, like a painter, are willing to set up their cameras and wait.  Wait until the light, the scene is exactly right before they commit their view to film.  What a great way to start a conference on large format cameras.   Men with cameras that can only be described as behemoths lined the rocky shore Friday morning at Point Lobos and struck light to film.  It was certainly an appropriate way to start the Large Format Conference that brought together the true artists of our profession.  I felt dwarfed running around with my little Fuji S-2, but this was a gregarious group of people who were more than willing to talk photography at any level and share the secrets of the great cameras with me.  

      There were two amazing cameras on display Friday morning.  The largest was  manned by Dick Arentz  It was a twelve by twenty Deardorf that was originally made around the turn of the century (Not this century, but the last one).  In case you're not familiar with the expression "twelve by twenty,"  it just describes the size of the film that is used with this camera.  Each negative is twelve inches by twenty inches.  Compare that to your 35 mm film and you get the idea.  Here's Dick with his monster camera.   The next largest belonged to Clyde Butcher.  It was a puny Eleven by Fourteen Deardorf.  By the way, if your interested, these types of cameras are still available on the market today.  

       These are the kinds of cameras used by Ansel Adams to make his historic Yosemite photographs, and they are still in use today by professional photographers who specialize in landscape photography and commercial advertising work.