A visit to André Mouton’s Taos Photographic

Whilst exploring the area around Agen in the South of France, I took the opportunity to visit André Mouton at Taos Photographic (www.taosphotograpic.com) in the small town of Castelnaudary, between Carcassonne and Toulouse. Together with Le Grand Format in Paris, André is the key distributor of large format gear in France. (Late last year I bought my new Fuji 450mm and Schneider 90mm lenses from him.) As far as I know there is only a handful of people worldwide (!) who are offering a wide range of large format gear. Many more vendors focus on just one or two brands. However, from his cramped office Andre sends out Arca-Swiss, Toyo, Ebony, Canham, Shen Hao, Tachihara and more to customers all over France, Switzerland and Belgium.

I noted down a couple of interesting points from our conversation. According to André, the interest in black and white has gone through its lowest point and is slowly picking up again. That is encouraging news. The large format market in Europe is small but stable and perhaps somewhat expanding. He confirmed what I read in a View Camera Magazine issue a while ago: the LF market has massively shifted from professional to amateur users (the 80/20 ratio has turned into a 20/80). Most amateurs, however, buy at the cheaper end of the market (from manufacturers such as Shen Hao, Tachihara and the Toyo CF).

The interest in black and white digital printing is steadily on the increase. Andre distributes a series of piezographic inks of which he is very satisfied. In combination with the Quadtone RIP from Roy Harrington and a suitable substrate (Hahnemühle, Innova) these inks deliver better performance than the latest generation K3 inks from Epson. The prints hanging in his office are indeed an eloquent testimony of what is now possible in the digital darkroom.

I was able to handle a very Toyo 4x5 CF (carbon fibre) but was not very impressed by this very lightweight contraption. I’d rather stay with the Canham. I was more taken by André’s personal digital rangefinder, the Epson RD1s (in small format André has left film behind). Handling of this little gem seemed very good and the viewfinder is exceptionally clear. Undoubtedly better value for money than the digital M.

André also showed us some of pictures of his own portfolio, mostly classic but evocative landscapes of the American West. (where he regularly offers workshops for individuals or very small groups). All in all a very pleasant visit and certainly worth the detour over Castelnaudary ...

Picture above has been taken on an early morning in Carcassonne, the famous medieval city, very close to Castelnaudary. Canham 4x5 DLC with Rodenstock Sironar-N 150mm on Fuji Acros Quickload.