I often ask myself the same question as I am lugging a heavy pack up yet another hill. Bushwalking can be a strenuous enough on its own without a view camera, so why would anyone want to haul such a contraption into the wilds?
Hopefully the images found in the galleries might give some idea why. Using a view camera for landscape photography requires an approach quite different from shooting with other formats. The movements offered by these cameras provide a unique ability to control of perspective and focus. Rather than being optional, understanding and using these movements is essential to successful photography with a view camera.
All this of course takes time, so rather than being reactionary, large format requires an anticipatory and contemplative approach. That's not to say that photographers using other formats don't give similar thought and care to their photography but large format view cameras, by their nature, lend themselves to this approach.
To get the best out of the equipment a lot of thought needs to go into an image. Therefore a large format photographer might take far fewer images but the quality should reflect the thought that went into taking them. I find that rather than thinking in terms of taking many pictures at a particular time/area, my goal is to really analyse the scene and endeavor to capture it in one or only a few images.