Arizona Treks

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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.

Entries in night (2)

Friday

May072010

Adventures in Printing

Friday, May 7, 2010 at 2:21PM

FrontYard-03.jpg?fileId=6836621 This photo has been used with a post before right after it was made. I did a print of it and was never really happy with the print. So I showed it to a couple of people to ask about how to do a better print and then put it aside until this week. I decided to go ahead and print it and have been struggling with getting a print that I am happy with. Trying not to accept a GE print (good enough). This is one I plan to show at the finals next week and all I strive to be proud of all that the work I show. So the dynamic range is quite high and getting some texture in the highlights and shadows is tough. After making 5 prints at different settings then looking at them after they were dry, none were satisfactory and I was unable to tell which one used which settings. So i began going at a slower pace, make a print, wash and dry it, look at it and decide what to try next. It is very close now and I think with a couple more I can get a print that I will be proud to show. I am going to try to dilute the developer a little more and increase the contrast on the enlarger. Hopefully that will pull the overall contrast in where I want it. Other things to try would be a water bath, but there is not really any room in the sink to do that, so diluted developer is the next best option.

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Nighttime Storm -- How it was done

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 4:08PM

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.

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