[house]

Years ago there was an international touring exhibition of Ansel Adams prints titled “Ansel Adams at 100” which was in two halls where I saw it. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the first hall’s collection of contact prints. Yes, contact prints no more than 4”x5” and even Winter Sunrise at 8”x10” stuck up 7 feet high was a contact print from its 8”x10” negative. I only remember one actual enlargement of a storm over the prairies in the whole hall. Disgruntled, I moved to the second hall. My impression was the curator had his own agenda in mind, to downplay Adams’s achievements.

The second hall was entirely different, filled with enlargements up to 3 feet or more on the long edge. Aspens, northern New Mexico, different versions of Mt McKinley and Wonder Lake, Denali National Park among others. I stood captivated at Mt Williamson from Manzanar for a long time. This was more like it, the images had room and scope to sing and I still look back on the day as worthwhile.

When I said people I meant "normal" people not the people at their top of art/photography game.

I find large format contact prints amazing. Perhaps I've seen good prints but they small scale, high resolution thing is interesting. High on a wall sounds less than ideal though

[biz-engineer]

The debate of higher resolution or not, smaller cameras vs larger cameras , always develops from the confusion between "good enough" vs "better" vs "money & time budget". Better is better (better and usually more expensive), and if good enough was the goal then most things in this world are already way beyond good enough.

[HoundFrog]

I feel like now is the best moment to say "Cartier-Bresson". Photography is very diverse. Small set producing just decent shots has it's place.

[Wheatfield]

Years ago there was an international touring exhibition of Ansel Adams prints titled “Ansel Adams at 100” which was in two halls where I saw it. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the first hall’s collection of contact prints. Yes, contact prints no more than 4”x5” and even Winter Sunrise at 8”x10” stuck up 7 feet high was a contact print from its 8”x10” negative. I only remember one actual enlargement of a storm over the prairies in the whole hall. Disgruntled, I moved to the second hall. My impression was the curator had his own agenda in mind, to downplay Adams’s achievements.

The second hall was entirely different, filled with enlargements up to 3 feet or more on the long edge. Aspens, northern New Mexico, different versions of Mt McKinley and Wonder Lake, Denali National Park among others. I stood captivated at Mt Williamson from Manzanar for a long time. This was more like it, the images had room and scope to sing and I still look back on the day as worthwhile.

I was in a gallery store in Santa Fe looking at what they had for sale. I came across a signed copy of Moonrise over Hernandez. They only wanted 16k for it. I actually considered it for a few seconds before sanity took hold again.
My God it was a thing of beauty.