We are leaving on another trip tomorrow.  We will be gone about a week and will be heading to NW New Mexico and NE Arizona.  Bisti Badlands, Chaco Canyon, Aztec NM, Shiprock, and Canyon de Chelly.  Due to the economy this may the be last trip we take for quite some time.

During one of the sets with the new flowers I used the 8X10 and developed the film to have more contrast than usual.  This was to experiment more with alternative processes.  I have been working with Cyanotype, VanDyke, and Kallitype.  The print shown above is a Kallitype print.  It is a close relative to Platinum and Palladium but is much less expensive.  When I was doing the alt process work before I was never quite satisfied with the results using the digital negatives.  Many people today use digital negatives and some who are well experienced with alternative process have switched from analog to digital negatives.  As with other forms of photography, I prefer the look and feel of analog.  Digital will definitely improve but it will always be a different medium than film.  Some people will prefer film as long as it is available.

In any case, producing good analog negatives for alternative processes is a bit of a challenge.  One of the negative I was working with required a 6+ hour exposure using Cyanotype while another one required a 1 hour exposure.  KAllitype is faster, the print above was using a 6 minute exposure.  I hope to do quite a bit more alternative process prints in the coming months.

 There was no way I could stop with this plant with the 8X10.  The 8X10 still feels huge and cumbersome and that tends to inhibit the creativity.  When you have equipment that is not totally comfortable the context is changed to one of working with the equipment rather than working with the image.  The 4X5 was that way in the beginning but now it actually feels like a compact camera and is very versatile and easy to use.  So I spent a couple of hours shooting the flowers with it and am very pleased with the results.  

All of the series is quite pleasing but these are my favorites.  They are busy but not cluttered and appear to have good cohesion.  I used the Adox CHS 50 film and I am thrilled with the results.  I am getting along quite well with the film so far and am looking forward to shooting it in the field and comparing prints with the TMax.

For each of these shots 2 lights were used.  One to the left was a large soft-box, the one to the right was a bare reflector.  I seem to be using that type of configuration frequently now.  Partly for convenience and partly because I like the results.  Use the soft-box to provide overall illumination and soften the shadows and the reflector for providing highlights.  Frequently though I will add barn doors or a snoot on to the reflector to provide more control.  Bit for these, just a bare reflector.

One thing I always keep in mind when working with artificial lighting is the closer the light is to the subject the softer the light.  If you want to create strong shadows, move the light back, for softer shadows, move the light closer.  When I first started using artificial light this seemed to be backwards but that is the way it works and can be used for creative effect.

A reader posted a question about how the shot of the storm the other night was done.  I was going to respond with a comment but the comment started getting a bit long and I thought it would be best to make another post with a couple more shots from the series.

Several previous attempts have been made leading up to this one negative, which os not the final one.  Some of the attempts were strictly learning how to meter and guess about the exposure and some were failures.  I have tried several of the walkways and this is the only one that has really caught my eye.  

About 3 in the afternoon I set up the camera.  Did the focusing framing, etc.  Then exposed a couple of sheets of film to make sure it was all good to go.  In retrospect it would have been better to use instant film, but that did not occur to me at the time.  Once all was set up, I put a plastic bag over the camera to protect it from the rain.  Even though it was under an eve, water can splash.  The 2 photos here are from the afternoon.

Once it was getting dark, I metered the scene.  It was dark enough that the brightest point was EV1 so I calculated it would take a 2 hour exposure with the ISO 50 film I was using.  So I put a film holder in the camera, removed the dark slide and opened the shutter.  The camera was left unmolested for 2 hours.  About 15 minutes before the end I turned on the walkway lights.  But unfortunately, the camera was moved during the exposure so the image is not sharp.  The gate also moved so there is a ghost gate in that exposure.

After the 2 hour exposure I metered with the walkway lights on and decided a 32minute exposure was appropriate.  That is the one in the first post.

Unfortunately, the shots with standing water all had sharpness issues.  That is one of the things I wish to correct next time.  The other is, the 32minute exposure should have been 45 - 60 minutes.  Parts of the negative have very little texture and no detail. 

These days it seems my imagination is captured by flowers, it could be the season, it could be that it is less practical to go anywhere, it cold be simply that I love florals and and am going through a phase that florals dominate my vision.  For whatever reason, I seem to have a lot of florals recently.  

On Sunday as Mary and I were doing our weekly grocery shopping I walked past a potted plant in the grocery and it grabbed my attention.  I got lost in the simplistic beauty of this plant and stood looking at it for a while, as Mary started the shopping.  Many different possibilities were evident and the images were flying about in my head.  When I finally caught up with Mary I told her I was going to buy the plant.  As we were finishing I went back and it was still speaking to me so it was adopted.

Last night I set up the lights and 8X10 and began shooting.  This also served to help me get more familiar with the Adox film.  Out of the 4 negatives, this one is my favorite but all are quite nice.  I am seriously considering shooting some 4X5 this morning. 

A lot has happened in the last week.  There are significant challenges ahead for my business and that means change.  It is at this time, too early to know the extent of the changes but I am hoping for an overall improvement over time.

One of the reasons for buying the 8X10 camera was to get back into some alternative processes.  After working with the digital negatives I found them to be unsatisfying.  The 8X10 analog negatives have their own set of challenges but I have been learning what they are and also trying to learn how to shoot for the alternative processes.  I hope to have some examples soon.

I bought some different film to try and am happy with it.  There are 2 reasons for using this film.  One is cost, it is about 1//2 the price of TMax.  The other is feel, TMax is a great film and I have no intention of abandoning it, but I want to explore other films and get a feel for what they are like.  Last time I did that it was Efke 25 and the exposure problems were tremendous.  I was shooting it at 2 stops below the rated speed and the negatives were still too thin.  This film is Adox CHS 50 and 100.  So far it has worked very well and I am pleased with it.

 As seems to have been the pattern for a while now, we had storms over the weekend.  Yesterday we had rain for a large part of the day.  Our home has some nice brick walkways and I have been trying to capture them for quite some time.  I have tried with digital, MF film, and 4X5 but none have been what I was looking for.  however, as is the norm, with each failure another problem was eliminated until last night I got the one above, almost exactly what I am looking for.  I hope to have a chance to refine this further during the next storm.

A few years ago I went on a kick of going north to the Lake Pleasant area to photograph hot air balloons.  It was a real kick but after a while I lost interest.  This was all done with a DSLR and some of the photos were pretty good.  

Recently I have been hankering to get out and shoot hot air balloons with large format cameras.  Last night I finally did it.  Rather than using the 4X5 which I am much faster with and know the lenses better I decided to use the 8X10.  Well, not saying it was a disaster but it did not work out so very well.

They set up pretty quickly, constant motion so blurs are going to happen.  Once the balloon is upright it begins moving and you gotta work fast.  With a small format camera that is much easier but with large format it is quite a challenge.

Of course, I realized that it would be very challenging and did not expect to get any useable photos from it.  What I expected was to learn a little of what is necessary to shoot them with a large format camera.  Some of the things I learned are:

Setup speed is critical, anticipate the shot and prepare for it in advance.  But the preparations should not include stopping down or inserting the film holder.  This is because the scene is changing and sometimes the changes are not what you expect so by leaving the aperture open and the film holder out you can reframe more quickly.  I am much faster with the 4X5 but wanted to use the 8X10 to create a bigger challenge, and in that I was successful beyond my wildest dreams.

Shutter speed is very important.  To avoid blur, the shutter needs to be as fast as practical.  Those 1/2 second shutter speeds are to be avoided.  After a couple of exposures I set up in the back of my truck to get further off the ground and thus have less ground in the foreground (without using front rise).  This helped keep the aperture a little wider.  Select more narrow DOF where possible. I only took ISO 100 film but quickly realized I should have taken ISO 400.

I hope to try this again in the near future and hopefully have some photos to share next time. 

These photos are from several years ago using a DSLR.

 Og my photographs this top one was the first photo I had ever noticed this effect in.  Soft, grainy but yet,  sharp.  I know the room well and it always has nice soft light.  During certain times of the day there are shafts of light coming in but I have never been successful in taking advantage of those, always way too much contrast to really make it work.  But, the sink area photo has this effect as shown below in the 100% crop of the photo.

As you can see here, this is a great effect for this photo.  So what made it happen, I am not totally clear on that yet.  One component is soft diffuse light.  I could be wrong but it seems as though plus processing also tends to enhance the effect.  So how to recognize when the effect will be there is somewhat of a puzzle still.  Through experimentation I hope to continue to nibble away at the answer.

An example of one that was shot in  very soft light and plus processed is this one from Fort Ross in California.  It was a long exposure on ISO 400 TMax film.  The Kitchen was shot on ISO 100 so perhaps that is part of the equation.  The 100% crop below shows none of the same effect.

Yesterday I went with a friend to Lost Dutchman State Park again.  It is so sad that they are closing the park this summer.  Seeing that most of the people there are volunteers it can not be that expensive to operate the parks.  It is probably a political move and I find that to be appalling, it seems that the government has forgotten the people who they are sworn to serve.  I can not see that closing these parks will help close the budget shortfall, there is a rumor that it will actually cost more short term to close them than to keep them open.  Raise the prices for entry, ask for more volunteers but do not close the parks "permanently" then patrol them to make sure the people do one enter their property.  It would not surprise me if the more influential people would be allowed to use the parks after they are closed.  Anyway, enough of soapboxing.

The weather was nice for this trip for a short time.  We took a short hike on which I carried the 5D and that is where this color photo came from.  The desert is so green now, I am hoping for a spectacular wildflower season.

After the hike, we set up our large format cameras and waited for the light.  Unfortunately there was a period of great light while we were hiking.  Regardless i made 2 negatives and the friend made 1 (he was using his 8X10).  The light was really nice but only lasted a short time.  We were hoping for some great light just before sunset but alas, a storm in Surprise obscured the sun and it was not worth making any exposures.  We left then but I am a little disappointed that we did not stick around for moonrise.  At the time it appeared the clouds would obscure the moon but on the trip back to the house I saw the moonrise and it would have been great.  Oh well, watch for the right weather conditions again.

This weekend turned into another disappointment because of inaccurate weather forecasts.  I was planning to spend one day waiting for light and another hiking in the Superstitions to get a good view of Weavers Needle.  But alas, because of the forecast of high winds on saturday (which never happened) we did not do the hike, postponed it until today.  Now it appears it will be raining most of the day and after the rain last night I do not with to be climbing around on the bedrock so no hike today.  But I may still be able to go to Lost Dutchman State Park and find some nice weather and light.  Maybe do a short hike there as well.

So the series on Quality of Light will start with a couple of bold contrast photos that I think worked.  Both of these were shot before I ever started thinking about bold contrast in the manner that I think of it today.  Both were pre-visualized to have strong contrast.  The top photo is gears in a machine at Saguaro Ranch Park.  The midday sun was shining directly on the machine with strong shadows.  There is no shadow detail and in this scan, no texture however in the print there is a little texture in the shadows.  But the highlights are there and the strong shadows which gives this a stark, almost harsh appearance which was the intention.    The shadows are small enough that the lack of detail is not distracting but large enough to be a significant part of the overall composition. 

The photo below is similar in that it was shot as a strong contrast scene to communicate the barren, harsh nature of the place, but was shot before I began thinking in the same lines as today.  Once again, detail is lost in the shadows and some of the highlights only have texture.  Strong and bold but those areas are small enough that it works, at least it works for me.  It says what I intended it to say and I find it visually pleasing.

On several occasions I have mentioned Randy Efros and Brett Weston.  I had had the opportunity to meet Randy and to learn some from him.  He was the last assistant of Brett Weston and Brett had a strong influence on Randy and it comes through in his work.  I always enjoy seeing Randy's work.

One of the qualities of Brett and those he influenced is what I refer to as bold contrast.  In many cases some detail is lost in the deepest shadows.  This is usually something to avoid because those dark shadow areas tend to be distracting.  But the way Brett used them, there is a balance that works so very well.

While not trying to copy Brett or any of the others who use the light in a similar manner, I have experimented with the bold shadows.  finding the balance is not easy.  I have had a few successes in this area but many more examples of not so good.  But still I continue to explore this very interesting way of presenting vision.  

Although I can give no specific examples of photographers who use light in this manner, there is the a quality to photographs that use soft light.  I have seen some that exhibit a very different quality and are also very interesting.  I have had more success with this although until recently was very confused about what caused the effect and how to control it.  I have been working to understand it more and to control it or at least to know what to expect.

These are merely techniques I wish to understand better and to be able to use when the photograph needs them.  But also, learning more things like this will help me to grow and become a much better photographer.

This is the first in what I hope to be a series of posts exploring the qualities of light and how to use different light to achieve different visual effects.  Like many aspects of photography this is really learning a technical skill that can be utilized in expression.

I do not know how these techniques will translate into color but I hope to explore that somewhat once the Kodak Ektar film is available in sheets.

The top photo is an example of an attempt to create some bold contrast, the one below is one of my earliest successes with very soft light.  It is my intention to focus on each of these and other examples as well as doing some studies using strobes to create different effects.