Photography – Page 14 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

The Olde West

Living in California meant traveling across country to move. We did this when I was 12, and I did it as an adult in my 30s.

Driving through the vast reaches of this country always amazes me. First, it is just BIG. Open miles of open land, a house or ranch or roadside attraction.. Huge mountains seen across miles. Winding roads where dust behind you flies in a cloud as you bump along, looking for rocks and holes. Freeways, local highways, dusty country lanes – this is what I enjoy when I travel. This fall we plan a trip across northern Nevada and into Utah, when the weather is cooler, and perhaps we will even enjoy colored leaves at the higher altitudes.

Awhile back I loaded up one of my old cameras – a Voigtlander Bessa RF 6×9 with a Heliar lens, ca. 1935 – with Ilford Ortho 80 Plus film. I forgot about it until I opened the back of the camera and slapped it shut as quickly as possible. As the camera only gets 8 pictures per roll, I lost a few – like 3. One image was too dark for use. But, the remaining 4, while not great, were fun to manipulate in post.

The Ilford film had just been released, so I bought a few rolls to test out. In my 35mm film camera, it worked beautifully, but my exposures were marginal in the 6×9 at best. I worked on them a lot to bring in discernible contrast – most were over-exposed. The lens on the camera is a beautiful Heliar, but my guestimates with 80 speed film were too high. As well, I used no filter since I don’t own one to use with the lens. So, above, a test shot to look at contrast – white flowers on dark green foliage. I created a preset in On1 Camera Raw that I liked; it brings out the details but doesn’t create too much contrast.

This photo makes me think of old dirt roads and stagecoaches jouncing along – like you see in 50s movies! The image got a light leak, but the details of the distant mountain – Mount Clef – and cacti are worth a look

Again, more detail and a bit of LR dodge-and -burn. This is the dried landscape nearby. When the winters are wet – which ours was not this year – the grasses and mustard can grow up to 8 feet. Easy to get lost in, but don’t – stick to the paths or ticks and other critters will get you.

Backcountry is beautiful and dangerous. I remember turning back here – a rattler was basking in the sun. That’s another good reason to walk where you can see ahead of you!

So, a bit of my West with my old camera and newer film and technology. The Voigtlander did not let me down, nor did the film. I am looking forward to taking this camera with me up to Morro Bay next week – along with more modern cameras – and out to Nevada and Utah. More Olde West to come!

Thoughts on Photographic Creativity

The day after we came back from our jaunt to Monterey I spent editing negatives I had processed while I was there. I scanned them and imported them into Lightroom. The film was Lomography’s Metropolis in 35mm, and I found it interesting to use, rather enjoying the colors it produces. Chances are I will order some more. For the most part, I did little editing in post as I liked what i saw, but a few had weird schmutz on them, probably bubbles that got trapped as the film was developed. Spot removal!

The process of editing images makes me look at them more closely. I worked hard to make some good pictures, and overall I was pleased with the roll. After a day of gardening and cleaning and just organizing life after the chaos of 4 days away, I sat down and just blobbed by watching various YouTube videos. They all seemed to be ones on photography. They included Ted Forbes’ channel and his “assignment” of a month using one lens length. I also watched Frederik Trovatten’s “Shoot Like . . .” series on Vivan Maier, Robert Frank, and Joel Meyerowitz. Totally by accident I came across a video about the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi.

Up front, I have never really “gotten” photography as an artform for myself. Watching Ishiuchi, I did. She explained her first three series and it made me think about photography as a theme to express emotions by focusing on one thing. That is about as easy a way to explain it. Watching Forbes’ video on one lens length helped me focus (sorry for the pun! Not!) on emotion – which one? – and one lens. Narrowing things down here. Trovatten’s vidoes provided interesting insights on how or why or what various photographers do and did.

Creativity is something that is difficult to find at times – that is, being creative and producing an artwork that is satisfying to me on many levels. These include emotional, intellectual, and proficiency of whatever medium I am using. In general, I can take a decent photo, but I have never been what I would consider to be a creative photographer. I don’t set up still lives or seek out a theme to explore. I like the technical things, such as exposure factors and what I want to see in an image, but I don’t “do” a series of anything. I love landscapes, but the heat limits my wanderings. The pandemic curtails too much travel or traveling with a chauffeur to do a safari.

Yesterday’s video watching pulled a lot of things together for me in the area of making photos. Theme, single lens length, mastery. While I plan to continue to try my daily painting, I am also going to begin a month-long study of image making with a single lens length. The lens will be a 35mm. The Fuji X100V is a fixed lens length at 23mm and a 1.5 crop factor, equating 35mm. I have a 35mm series E lens for my Nikon film cameras. It will also work on my Nikon Df full frame. There is a lot of choice here with what I have. The theme that catches me the most is one that has intrigued me the most over the past several months: my neighborhood at night.

I live in the suburbs. It is a nice neighborhood with nice people, curving streets, greenery, a park with a creek. Nearby is a college. A small strip mall is within walking distance. I consider all these to be within the parameters of My Neighborhood.

I went out last night with this thought in mind, using the X100V, iso set at its highest and the rest on automatic. Everything was done handheld. I will need a tripod. I will need to use flash at times. This will be a great way to dig into the menus of the X00V as well as learn how to use it on a deeper level. And I will need to dig out a tripod and a shutter release cable. These same things will need to be applied to my film cameras and other digital critters.

So begins The Neighborhood at Night.

Escape!

I would say that for the most of the last 6 weeks the weather has been crap. In the 90s-100s F is way too hot. We have low humidity here, so the heat doesn’t drain you as it does when it is high, but day after day, week after week, of heat, is not fun. Throw some smoke and foul air in there, and welcome to what I think is becoming the new normal. California is burning. Colorado is burning. I guess we are not raking the forests enough . . .

Yesterday, though, was the first cool day in a long time. It was overcast and rather dreary because the sky is just a single shade of grey instead of the single shade of blue. When the overcast burns off, there are clouds to be seen, and they are such a delight! I headed out to a local open space area, Wildwood, taking my Instax Wide with me. I used it to shoot a select few images. I used my phone, too, to send some pictures off to friends. Everything is faded and dried up, but many plants adapted to the area sport bright colors though they are also fading for the winter.

There are a lot of fire roads running through Wildwood with trails leading off into more rugged terrain. I seldom venture into those areas unless with someone else. Safety first!

The prickly pear cacti (cactuses?) are laden with ripe fruit – the pears – and they are quite delicious to eat! Using leather gloves, twist the red pear off the paddle or use a knife. Pack it into a bag of some sort to take home. When you get home, turn on your flame thrower to burn off all the spikes. Take your knife and slice – tasty! Some local markets carry the pears, as well as the paddles. The paddles are also tasty and edible, and once their spikes are removed, slice them up and then cook them. Cooked prickly pear paddles are called napales.

Photographing these critters can be a challenge as there are other cactus around, and none are pleasant to fall into.

The road curves around a hill and this is the view you get. Mount Clef is part of a ridge that forms the northern part of my city, separating the Conejo Valley from the Santa Rosa Valley.

This is an name-unknown shrub which borders trails and roads through Wildwood.

I hiked about another mile and then turned around. I always like to see where I have been and look at the same things from a different viewpoint.

Here, the Mount Clef ridge moving east.

Back on my road, looking south toward the Santa Monica mountains. The day is later, the sun lower, backlighting mountains and trees

The Instax Wide doesn’t perform well at times, but this little tree’s silhouette is so expressive – the twists of the branches against the sky always catch me when I walk past. Below you can see what the Instax missed and the the phone camera caught.

And home I went.

Daffa-chrome

I just got back my first roll of E6-processed Kodak Ektachrome 100. Oh, yum! This is a lovely film. I will let the images speak for themselves. Nikon N90S and Nikon 28-85 f2.8 Macro. Old stuff with a new film – go figure!

Gonna Keep It! (or, The Beast Can Stay)

Awhile ago I decided to move more into the medium format world of film photography. I have a Yashica D TLR (6×6) and a number of 6×6 folders from varying years, a 1930s 6×9 Voigtlander folding rangefinder, and now have a Mamiya 645 (6×4.5) and, the latest, a Pentax 6×7 beast with a 135mm f4 macro lens. This last one is the subject of today’s commentary. You can google it, as well as read about it here on Wikipedia. It’s not something to take lightly – it’s quite the weapon!

Okay! First, as the name implies, it takes a 6×7 size negative, which is big, big, big. Not as big as a 6×9, but still bigger than a 35mm by a lot. Here is a good article on the size comparisons, complete with images.

I would imagine that, as with digital, the larger the negative, the more important the quality of the image – focus, sharpness, and so on. Of course, film is not digital and has its own personality, but it still needs to meet certain criteria, I am sure.

The first roll of film I ran through the camera was basically a disaster. 3 out of 10 images were there, and all were under-exposed. For Portra 400 film, they were trash. This made me wonder about the camera – does it work, are there problems? Having read about the camera and the trickiness of loading the roll of film, I gave it another try with two more rolls. The first three photos below are the first roll.

The one above was worked on in post, just to see if anything could be done with it. Not much could be to save it from its ugly self. The ones below are SOOS (scanner), and they are really awful, too.

To make the decision to keep or return the camera meant I needed to do some photography in a very controlled environment. I needed to check the aperture and exposure factors. Out came the tripod and the light meter. Bracketing and moving things around. I took about 20 pictures in about that much time – maybe longer – and documented what I did. In doing so, I learned a bit more about the camera and the lens, as well as had a rather scientific bit of testing.

The effort was worth it, and I think that this beastie is going to be fun, and a challenge to my normal scatter gun approach to things. Below are the results, taken using Lomography 100 Color Negative film (120), with some cropping and touching up in post. I didn’t check for spots, come to think of it, so I may need to do that, too. I did clean the negatives before scanning, and used Digital Ice in the scanner . . .

Altogether, very pleased with this camera and the lens. Lomo 100 did a fine job. It’s doing quite well for a camera that dates from ca. 1969 (older than my husband!). I think I want to get a waist-level view finder for it and probably some shorter lenses. The Yashica TLR is a waist-level viewfinder camera, and I really enjoy that; hence, a waist-level viewfinder for the Pentax, and perhaps the Mamiya. Unlike all my other medium format cameras, the Mamiya and the Pentax allow for lens changes and other bits that the Yashica and the folding cameras do not have. That is for the future, though, as I think this camera has a lot to teach me in the meantime.