The large format look...or not?

Steve Sisk's interesting comments on "the large format look" prompted some thoughts from a few of us, and I'm posting an example to illustrate what I meant. It also happens to be one of my favorite images from last month's trip to Glacier Doubtless many of you have recently seen it, but it nicely illustrates the point that I wanted to make.

I agree that many images have a certain "large format look" to them, and I suggested that this may be due in large part to "endless" DOF, particularly with near-far shots, as well as their 5:4 aspect ratio. I seldom shoot near-far shots, using longer lenses much of the time, which made me think that much of my work is atypical for large format. This is certainly true of this image. It's shot with a 720mm lens, an extremely long length for 4x5, although its angle of view in 35mm terms is only a little over 200mm. (It retains DOF of any 720mm lens, however...or rather, lack thereof!) While it has a foreground of sorts, it's certainly not a near-far composition. If it weren't for the 5:4 aspect ratio, I suspect that it would be difficult to determine (online, anyway) as a large format image. What do you think?

Anyway...this is Heaven's Peak in Glacier NP, photographed as alpineglow illuminated its upper reaches. That was very short-lived, lasting only about 5 minutes, and barely giving me time to frantically set up. It faded moments after I clicked the shutter.

Ebony 4x5, Nikkor 720mm, Velvia 100F