[LargeFormat] Introductions

[Skip Roessel]

Greetings to my fellow photographers!

By trade I’m a cinematographer who shoots corporate image (propaganda), TV shows
and commercials on various motion picture film and video formats to make the
housing payment, not inconsiderable here in New York City. My major credit is
director of photography on a kids’ show called “Blue’s Clues”, a boy and his dog,
which is a relentlessly didactic loss leader for merchandise licensed by Viacom.

I’m 52, recently divorced, dwelling on the West side in solitary splendor with two
Abyssian cats, which are a breed of cat with a sort of dog-like personality.
Equipment is all around, cameras in the linen closet, Jobo tank in the bathtub,
you get the picture.

That’s because my advocation is large format “fine art photography” on
silver-sensitized celulloid, developed in smelly solutions the way my daddy taught
me, and the further my commercial work devolves into frantically-paced, low-res,
highly compressed digital and video media, the more I value texture,
previsualization, and not seeing the outcome of the work for four days. In black
and white. Luddite and proud of it.

Some 4x5, a little big panorama with an antique 7x17 Korona and process lenses,
but my favorite is a Canham metal 5x7 with its 1.4 aspect ratio.  Hey, that’s the
Golden Rectangle, by the way…  4x5, at 1.25, is too square!  I recommend Plus-X or
Bergger in pyro developer.

No room for printing in here.  There are darkrooms for hire downtown with big
enlargers.  It would be tough to make a living selling sumptuous B&W prints of
trees and beaches, but I’ve heard it can be done.  And the TV commerical market
having slowed down here recently (actually everything has slowed down here
recently), I have lots of spare time to vacuum cat hair out of the filmholders.

I also like cooking and this is a great neighborhood for food.


Skip Roessel
skiproessel@mindspring.com

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