My wife doesn't understand me!

[steve_feldman]

But all of you on this forum will.

 

After 20 years of "advanced amature" photography. Class after class

taken. Passed a few. Experimentations done. Fingernails a nice golden

brown. Reading endless volumns of esoteric lore. Plotting curves till

I plotz.

 

I think I finally got it. The Zone System, that is.

 

I was lining up on a "open shade" scene that my spot meter read 3

stops from dark to light. Pretty flat huh? Zones IV, V, & VI. I

placed the darkest area to Zone III. This placed the weak hightlight

area to Zone V. Flat. Flat. Flat. So I developed this 4x5 film to

N+2. My goal was to coax this measely Zone V to Zone VII. Well, I'll

be hornswaggled and a blue-nosed gopher! It worked! Printed perfectly

on a grade 2 paper. Full tonal range.

 

Same thing, only in reverse happened in another scene. My figuring

said that I needed a N-1 development. Did so. Printed perfectly on a

grade 2 paper. Again a full tonal range.

 

I am amazed.

 

Now if only I was more "Artistic". Oh well. Maybe in another 20 years.

 

Had to tell someone - My wife only said, "That's nice."

[brooks short]

Steve,

 

Congratulations ! Your wife is right, the Zone System is "nice". Even if you are off by a little bit in your development, shadow placement etc, your negs will be so much better and easier to print now that you are "Master of Your Domain" #8^)

 

Good Job !

[steve_feldman]

Brooks,

 

Thanks very much. I kinda like the appelation, "Master of My Domain".

 

"Hey Honey, can I call myself the Master of My Domain?"

 

. . . .

 

. . . .

 

"Yea, sure." (-Honey)

[neil_poulsen1]

Good printing is important. But, it's the negative that really counts.

 

And, the zone system need not be applied to get a full tonal range. It can also be used to emphasize high or low values alone in a print.

[jorge_gasteazoro4]

Getting a good negative after applying all you learned is almost as good as seeing the print appear on the tray......but not quite as good as sex...so keep your wife happy and we will cheer for you here.....congrats....:-))))

[dan_smith]

And she never will. Bet you don't get too excited when she finds marjorum or saffron helps pop something in a recipe either?

[eugene_singer]

Steve, I know where you are coming from. Buy her a camera of her own. Take her out on a shoot with you. Let her help you with the actual shot, not just schlepping the gear. Help her learn the tricks with her camera. Make sure she gets some good shots. Life will be much more pleasant. It took me three wifes to learn that lesson.

[brooks short]

Good point Eugene.

 

My wife and I do landscape photography for fun. For years I would shoot LF B/W and she would shoot 35mm color trans. A year ago she decided she wanted to shoot B/W. I taught her the Zone System, gave her my Hasselblad system with 3 film backs and develope her film for her. She makes her own fiber-based prints.

 

Now when we go on our photo safaries, we shoot together. Usually we'll wander our own seperate ways because we shoot different stuff and we keep in touch by radio. Other times we'll be together. At the end of the day we have conversations like: "Man, I was getting a lot of N-1 development." or she'll tell me that she couldn't decide whether she needed a N+1 or N+2 on that last scene. So she'll shoot both. When I ask her why she didn't just choose one interpretation of the scene, she'll say "I don't know. I'm not a strong swimmer"

 

She's come a long way in just one year and really enjoys photography much more than when she just shot 35mm color and bracketed her exp. all the time.

[steve_feldman]

Thanks, guys, for all of the encouragement. I knew that you'd understand.

 

BTW, the wife does have a 35mm P & S. Neither one of us understand all of the bells and whistles. She said a person would need a PhD to use it. So I put a label on the shutter button marked "PhD". She said, "What's that for?" . . . . .

 

Wait for it. . . . .

 

. . . . .

 

. . . . .

 

"Push here dummy."

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Just kidding dear.

[dick roadnight cotswolds]

Do you not think that the most important thing about photography is being in the right place at the right time... with a camera?

 

Perhaps, next time you spend all week in the dark room, someone could take pity on your poor wife and take her out for a glass of someting?

[brooks short]

I think that there are two important factors that contribute to making "great" phoographs. One is being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes that can be planned for and sometimes it happens just by luck.

 

The second is having some technical control of the photographic craft. For B/W work, the Zone System, offers a great deal of photographic control and allows you to reproduce the tones of the scene or creatively alter them to fit your visualization. Not a bad thing.

 

And it doesn't take a week in the darkroom to do the testing. You can do it in a day if you like.

 

So yeah, being there is one thing...knowing what to do when you're there is something else entirely.

[Troll]

You just THINK that your wife doesn't understand you. She reads you like a book. Anything you think that you're getting away with is gonna cost you. Big Time! Get used to it. It is in the nature of things.

[chris_jordan3]

I think of photography as being like bear hunting. To kill a bear, two things have to happen: first, you must have a bear gun, loaded and cocked, aimed, with your finger on the trigger; and second, exactly in the direction that your gun is pointed, there must be a bear!

 

~cj

[edward_collins]

Every artist at some point struggles with the idea that no one else understands their work. So your accomplishment is "Artistic," Steve.