Untitled

This is one of a series that I shot in the 18th century

underground mass grave in Paris, known as The Catacombs.

Believe it or not, I took these shots on 50 ISO slide film without a

flash in rooms illuminated by a 100 watt bulb as far away as 50

feet. The exposure, taken with a Gossen LunaPro, varied from

2.5 to 7 minutes at f3.5. Due to maximum reciprocity failure, all

the slides came out lime green. Fortunately, I was able to rescue

them with photoshop. The experience of being there wasn't

nearly as eerie as these photos suggest, but it was still a very

moving experience. I'd appreciate any comments/ratings. Thank

you and Carpe Diem.

What an interesting place. Your photos came out a lot better then the ones I took when I was there. Good job!

Interesting image, have you thought of converting it to b&w?

 

Btw Velvia has just brutal reciprocity failure characteristics.

 

This image feels both in your face and endless. The foreground skulls in the left half of the image are disturbingly close to the viewer, while in the right side of the image, the bone pile continues into infinity.

 

Since our recognition of bones comes more from identifying shape than from color, converting the image to B&W would emphasize the bone shapes by discarding the less important color information. Extracting just the blue channel would pull out the most detail. And cropping out the little light at the right edge strengthens the sense of the bones receding into an unknowable void.

The composition is right for me (I don't think the word "pleasant" would be good in this context). I think using a black and white film would help here, improving the dramaticity of the shadows.

Best picture in the skulls serie imo. The angle gives depth.

I'm not sure if you know French or not, however the last time I visited the Catacombs (around 8-9 years ago), they had a sign posted - warning that photographing open tombs such as this is sacrilegious. I was not aware of what the sign had said until someone translated it for me.

Interestingly enough, none of the photographs turned out that I had on that roll of film that day. Every photograph I took while down in the Catacombs ended up looking all smudged and smeared.

These images would also work in black and white, so no prob with the colour shifts. But it's great as it is! Except the little bright spot on the far right, i wonder why you've left that in. I also like the one with the cracked skull but this one is more impressive.

Dustin,

I don't speak French. However, a friend I was with asked the attendant at the door about photographing in the tomb. He said that flash photography was forbidden, as was touching the remains. This made sense to me. A camera flash in those dark halls would have temporarily blinded everyone, and disturbing the remains physically is an obvious no-no. Considering that the gift shop was selling poster sized photos, it seems that the current administrators are alright with photographs. I try to play by the rules, and I certainly wouldn't have taken them had I any indication that it would have been distrespectful.

Also, these are sharp only because they were taken on a tripod with very, very long exposures.