The other week I was driving home from work and in one of the shopping centers was an outdoor art fair. I made a mental note that I should go take a look during the weekend. Well, it didn't happen. But, yesterday, different shopping center - same art fair, so I stopped and took a walk around.
There was about a dozen booths - with 3 devoted to large prints - well stretched canvas and metal plates. All sizes, but quite a few up at the 60" (long end). Landscapes - country, seascapes and the various traditional Arizona scenes - Grand Canyon, Canyon Country, Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, Sedona & Oak Creek Canyon, the Indian pueblos, etc. Also, one in particular had a lot of the Greek/Italian towns on the sea, harbor scenes and the street/courtyard scenes.
They were all stunning, well executed, colorful - fully saturated, with the scenes well framed, fantastic depth of field, absolute perfect focus - all hit all the buttons. All were really well done!! They were all pretty well priced - from about $350 to $700 for the larger sizes (well above 20"x30"). There were also a number of multiple panels (at the upper end - $700/set). On the large canvases the detail was exceptional - I looked close. The more I looked, I was seeing pretty much the same level of detail from a couple of the K5 prints I have done (on occasion). Stitching panoramas are a reasonable possibility in these large formats (with a cropped sensor). But that is still at the low end at which these folks were operating.
In talking to the folks, I asked about cameras - 8x10 and 6x6 field cameras, but then there were the Pentax 67 and 645 (film) and then the recent Pentax 645D. Good cameras with quality glass coupled with light, location, opportunity, skill, experience (they each had about 30 years) and a bit of luck tossed in.
Anyway, I had a nice time perusing through the images....