Southwest Photography - Arizona Treks Blog

Entries in contrast (2)

Tuesday

Jan052010

Extremes

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 7:54AM

It has been said, if you wish to succeed, you must be willing to fail. This is true in every aspect of your life. You can not succeed without taking risks. You can not learn without trying things that may not work.

Some of the most moving work I have seen utilizes very bold contrast. Brett Weston was a master of this and I have seen others who are proficient at this as well. When done well it makes for a very strong photo. I have been looking at work that has very bold contrasts and have tried to utilize this in some of my work. However, to do it well is not as simple as it may seem.

So, here I am, in Death Valley, 500 miles from home. It is the last night there, a morning shoot then pack up and head for home. It has been solid overcast all day but the forecast for tomorrow is for clear skies. Most of the shooting so far has been in familiar places. Earlier in the day we had gone to Zabriskie Point and I was impressed by the view of the badlands there. I could visualize some very dramatic bold contrasts there as the sun first reached the badlands. So the last shoot in Death Valley was to be at Zabriskie Point.

We were among the first to arrive there and I went to a spot chosen the previous day as being the most likely to have sun first. I set up and tried 3 lenses before settling on the 210 first but then after that first shot, moving to the 480. The photo above was that first one using the 210. The one below was using the 480 from the top of the point.

I have printed a couple of these and the jury is out on whether I like them at all or not. Technically they are fine, detail where detail is needed, sharp focus, DOF as intended when shot. But artistically, the jury is still out. Some strike me right away one way or the other, some take a while to sink in. These are some of the later. However, I have found that those that take time to warm up to tend to be among my favorites for longer than those that are instantly liked.

Arizona Treks |

Contrast

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 7:00AM

Recently I spent some time with Randy Efros. That is only the second time but like the first time he found things that I need to work on and introduced concepts that were not immediately grasped. Those are usually very useful because they make you think, explore, and change your preconceptions. Well, okay, they don't force anything, but if followed and explored, your approaches to some things will change.

He said that y negatives seemed to have 2 problems, they are typically too thin, or underexposed. The other one is not enough contrast. The thin part is pretty easy to take care of in different ways, it has been suggested that perhaps I leave the negatives in the developer for an extra minute. This is in spite of the film testing. That should make them a little less thin and also increase the contrast. But Randy has talked on several occasions about shooting for more contrast. The how to do this has not hit me yet. While we were discussing contrast he said that a contrasty negative might only cover 2 or 3 zones. This seems to be the opposite of contrasty. So based on the fact that Randy has done this all his working life and I am a newbie, the assumption is that there is a concept or perspective hiding in there and I need to find it.

Some time ago I bought some 35mm film, canisters, and a bulk loader for one of my sons. When I bought the Leica I began using the film. It was out of date but not by much and thought to give it a try. The film looked good so began shooting it. Some of the film was quite old and unbeknownst to me, was fogged. While at the cemetery on Monday I shot 2 rools, one was the slightly out og date film, the other was the fogged film. The difference is immediately obvious. The newer film has a nice contrast and sharp image, the fogged film seems dull and lifeless, flat.

Scanning the fogged film produces a very contrasty image. The scanner expands the range which due to the fogging is quite narrow and you have very little tonality, almost all is black or white. Is this a hint as to the narrow range being contrasty? When I print from the figged film, the image is gray and flat. So, it would seem this adds data to the puzzle but in no way answers it.

Do you run into puzzles like this, concepts that seem to be upside down? How do you work through them? Is it worth the effort for you to search for answers?

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