TN 134 Railroad Bridge, April 2017
Running Water Trestle over TN 134 and I‑24.
April 2017, expired 220 roll of FP4+ with Mamiya 645 Pro TL.
Leah, Film. March 2013
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“Spring, Leah” Ektar 100 and Portra 400 Film. Biltmore Estate
Lauren and Laila, Film
Grey day in February. Lauren, Model and Laila, Photographer
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Superia X‑Tra 400, Mamiya 645 TL Pro
Wallpaper: Toy Truck in Film
Did you know that when you are taking a photo up close with a c300 (or any other TLR I would imagine) you have to correct for parallax? Oh? You did? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re all so smart. So now I know. But when I shot this roll of film from the other day I didn’t have this knowledge. I thought I was making the appropriate compensations (and I was, only it was just for exposure not for framing) — and I shot a few frames without correcting.
But sometimes that’s OK. And they didn’t turn out all that bad — just kinda, I dunno, surreal? Like dreams that we half remember. Yeah, we’ll go with that. In fact, here is how I will present this photo in the future:
of the vantage points inherent in the vision of a child”
Behold, your weekly wallpaper offering! Click to download the set of files.
Photo Exploration: “From Inside” Railcar Photo
We all have walked on a railroad, and any of us who have ever taken a photo have probably photographed along railroad as well. Seemingly endless tracks stretching forward and backwards. Merging and diverging curves and impossibly straight lines cutting through and riding along the earth. I’m hard pressed to think of a more accessible metaphor for humanity’s eternal struggle to control and utilize our environment.
I remember some of my first 35mm photos (10th grade, K‑1000, 50mm lens…some kind of bulk-loaded b/w film) were of tracks in Natchez, MS. Those negatives (and all the rest from that age) are unfortunately lost, but with a little work I’m sure I could find the same places on again. I likely followed the tracks from in front of Grandmother’s house down Broadway, across Canal and into busted up parking lots and rambling kudzu that led into the bayou.
This image was from a walk with Andrew Fedynak on Riverside Drive in north Asheville/Woodfin. Andrew is gracious to let me borrow a Mamiya c330 with an 80mm lens, the “normal” lens for that film size. The c330 is the first camera I’ve shot that does square format shots, in the 6x6cm size. Shooting with a square viewfinder (and one without a pentaprism to “correct” the view) is a bit startling. Beyond the normal left-and-right reversal, for the first half of a roll I was tilting my eyes in the viewfinder to see the additional material that would normally be present with the 6x45 or 2x3 ratio formats.
Once I settled down into the format, there was an appreciation with the freedom from having to fill all that extra space. I could frame a square shot and not to have worry about what’s going on with the edges. I was able to compose much tighter, whereas before an image like the one above would have been empty and too center-weighted in a wider format.
Andrew and I walked a good half-mile of track with temperatures in the low 50’s and drizzle all around to get from a parking lot to a small set of railcars that have been idle for years. I knew to conserve frames for shooting when we reached the cars, but it took discipline to adhere to that behavior. I’m a sucker for rails and there were plenty of amazing photos to be had along the way. Shooting a 400 speed film (specifically Fuji Superia X‑Tra 400) was much faster than the usual color film I shoot, and I was enjoying being able to hand hold all my shots. There were abandoned ties, rocks, switches and more.
But at the cars there was the distraction of abundance. What to shoot, how to shoot, should I bracket, should I conserve…so many options. There are plenty of other photos from the rail cars, but this last photo before walking back was my favorite. Somehow grass had seeded over four feet in the air into the grime and muck accumulated inside a car. Everywhere were warnings on the cars saying “Doors Open from Inside” (or something) but I saw those words as a directive for nature to take advantage of the opportunities presented. Maybe to win a little space back from the railroads we use to carve our way through the natural world.
Print of this piece available for purchase here.
Rome: Slide Film
A selection of the Velvia 100F, 6x45 format, shots taken with the GA645. Rome, October 2012.
Photo Exploration: Mountains to Sea Trail
Once back from Rome, we tried to get out and see the leaves and colors as much as possible. Once very successful outing in that respect was a Sunday afternoon walk on the Mountains to Sea Trail just outside of Asheville. The image below is from that excursion.
Slide film is one of the more recent media I’ve come to explore, and really only in the past year have I done any meaningful work with that sort of film. This particular shot was with the Fuji GA645 (same as the camera used here)and Fuji Velvia 100f.
There is a strange feeling working with a large-ish format film and yet working with a small-ish piece of equipment. Compared to the RB67 or even the 645 Pro TL, the GA645 is lightweight and ultra-portable. Taking it for a spin in the woods, when one has to potentially carry plenty of other equipment, is a real pleasure. The glass is immaculate and focusing is dead on (or you can manually focus if you prefer). And the result of the slide film is breathtaking. I wish there was a way to relay the feeling of holding a slide over the internet. Even viewing a print doesn’t quite have the same “WOW” factor for me as a slide does. Maybe the transparency? Maybe the compactness and clarity of the slide. Whatever it is, in the fall with the colors and textures I don’t know if I’ve seen any other photographic medium that measures up to slide.
Regardless of your photographic equipment, there is also the question of HOW to photograph a scene. And photography of striking colors are way up on my list of “Hard Shots.” I think a large amount of the difficulty is that we experience a walk in the woods with seasonal foliage quite vividly, and our recollection is often even greater in saturation than reality. Thus, photographing such scenes in ways that evoke the same emotion is substantially more difficult than other, less “oomph” driven shots. But I do have some basic ideas that can help.
The first is composition. When photographing nature, it is easy for me to get swept up in the “pretty” shots that don’t tell any story. But when I focus on composing an image with a little bit of narrative, my satisfaction down the road is much higher. Especially when shooting film which has such potential for quality reproduction that failures are that much more evident. So be sure to shoot every image, or every series of images, to bring the viewer to the scene and envelop them in the moment.
Secondly, unless you are intentionally taking a photo of something singular, I’d stay away from small depth of field’s. I know my impulse is often shoot wide open and get some rocking bokeh, but I’ve found that the effect can be jarring. Part of what makes color foliage so amazing is that everywhere you can look and focus there is color. Sharp and bright and saturated. When you blur that background (and/or foreground) in the photo, the “being there” effect can be decreased dramatically.
Last, I try as much as possible to cut through the mist. I use a polarizer, haze filter, whatever I’ve got handy to increase clarity through the entire scene. That is, unless it is a long exposure with enough time for the mist or fog or whatever to move about. Otherwise I have found that, like the second point, the reduction in overall clarity can do harm to the entire photograph.
With everything there are exceptions to the above, but those three guidelines above certainly increase my gratification when reviewing the photos after a session out in the woods.