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My name is Michael Morris, I am a photographer who came to photography later in life.  I started with digital and found it unrewarding so after a short time with MF, I moved to LF 4X5.  Almost everything I do now is large format B&W.  I am working to improve my technical and artistic skills constantly.  Living in Phoenix, I have access to some very good photographers who are willing to help and teach.  I am on a journey exploring photography, the US, and myself to some extent.  Along with my wife Mary, we are traveling the US together, cameras follow us everywhere and as we travel, this BLOG is updated.  It is very much a journal of my journey with ramblings about everything from the photograph I took while traveling, to the ah-ha moments when something new is grasped.

The old masters work is enthralling to me and I spend a lot of time looking at their work as well as most other work I have access to.  

 

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Entries in light (3)

Monday
Mar082010

Nighttime Storm

DateMonday, March 8, 2010 at 6:32AM

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.

AuthorArizona Treks | Comment1 Comment |
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Thursday
Dec032009

When Will I Ever Learn?

DateThursday, December 3, 2009 at 9:07PM

The wonders of creativity will never cease to amaze me.  This image has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now.  It took some time to figure out some of the details, but this is essentially what I have been seeing.  I took some time today to work in the studio.  This one had to be born but I thought, "just 1 set and them move on to the textures project".  After the first set, roses started dancing around in my head as part of the setup.  So off I go to our friendly neighborhood florist to buy some flowers.  She usually has some older flowers she will sell me for a reduced price or sometimes even at no cost.  So I picked up a dozen small roses and 3 others.  Back home and several new photos were made using one of the roses.  

The bottom line is, the idea began to grow and take on a life of it's own, as these things are want to do.  So rather than a quicks set, it was an all day affair.  But there is some good work that came of it.

The how was the interesting part.  The image above was made using 2 lights, basically on opposite sides.  Onr was a reflector with a diffuser on it, the other was a soft-box.  The soft-box was used to soften the shadows and it was balanced so no secondary shadows were shown.  I used the 120mm macro lens.  But was unable to get the desired depth of field (DOF) when framing it like I wanted.  I moved the camera back until the desired DOF was found at f/22 and shot it there then cropped to get the desired composition.

The photo below was shot with 3 lights.  The first 2 were like in the photo above, but I added a small (100WS) slave strobe with a snoot on it to illuminate the blooms on the roses.  It also was shot at f/22.  The light setup actually would only provide enough light for f/22.

On some of the shots I stopped down a bit more and had to remove the diffuser from the light with the reflector before I could get enough light.

 Considering finals are in < 2 weeks, these will probably be a part of the finals.

In looking at the necessary crops, the new enlarger will not do them without modifications.  So now, do I modify it or use the old enlarger.  Tough choice.

AuthorArizona Treks | CommentPost a Comment |
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Sunday
Sep272009

First 8X10 Etc.

DateSunday, September 27, 2009 at 7:55PM

For several weeks I have been working to get the enlarger column raised.  One attempt was a flaming failure but finally I was able to get someone to do it according to my design and it seems to be in pretty good shape.  I still need to check and adjust the alignment but it is assembled and with a 135mm lens I can print 4X5 negatives at 16X20 and do some nice crops on 11X14.  It is getting there.  I just need to find a good 135mm lens.  Looking for a Rodenstock Rodegon, I have an Omagron which can be used for now.

The tank for the 8X10 was received on Friday.  Today I finally was able to make the time to develop the first 2 sheets.  The image above is the first 8X10 negative I made.  The first few shot were actually similar to 4X5s.  It is a bit different and this is showing me some of the differences between the 2 formats.  I hope to get 2 more sheets loaded in the tank tonight and possibly developed. 

I did a little more work with the cloth today.  Quite a bit different than the others, but built on what was learned form the others.  Possibly will be able to post those before we leave.

I had an interesting conversation with someone a short time ago.  The conversation was concerning my health issues.  I have been trying to keep mention of those to a minimum here.  It is my thinking that my health struggles is not the reason you read this so I try to keep it low-key.   If you wish to know what is going on, let me know and I will be more forthright about it.

Tomorrow we bring the trailer here to stage it for the trip.  This should be a very good trip.

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