Arizona Treks

 Last week my youngest son and I went to the Sedona area for a day trip.  Unfortunately I was practicing my air-head skills that day and had forgotten Mary had a medical procedure scheduled that I wanted to be there for.  Consequently the day was a short one but I make it back in time for the procedure.

We only went to Red Rock Crossing on the National Forest side.  That is about a 1.5 mile round trip hike.  We took the 8X10.  It is heavy but that was not the problem, the shoulders hurt a lot after carrying the camera for a ways.  But we made it, the river was high after the rains.  I made 3 photographs while there.  

The top one was made with the 600mm lens.  The print is a contact print and is beautiful.  The bottom print is of a back-water.  It was made using a 210mm lens, f/16 and TMax 400 film.  It is not quite like I hoped, the print is okay but not exciting.

Rod and Randy have both recently encouraged me to shoot more 8X10.  They both said "shooting 8X10 and making contact prints will make you a better photographer".  Well, continual improvement is what I strive for so I began shooting more 8X10 not really understanding why it would help, just trusting those whom I have great respect for.  One of the immediate things I realized was, if you'r doing contact prints, cropping is a compromise.  So I began to be more careful with the framing.  Another thing that helps is that you see the image on the ground glass at the same size it will be printed.  That really helps to pre-visualize the print.  When I went back to the 4X5 last Saturday, I noticed I was more diligent with the framing, not relying on crops as much.  As time goes on I can see that shooting the 8X10 more will have an impact on everything I shoot.