i._g.

I find I've got more information recorded on the film, like detail in shadows and detail in highlights.

 

I guess you can expose at 400 and get beautiful results, but if you make a mistake and underexpose, you lose shadows (if you overexpose it's not that bad). By exposing at lower EI, I leave myself some room for error on both directions...

I'd go with Tmax 3200 in <whatever> instead of Tri-X if you want EI 800 and higher.

 

I'd go with Tri-x for EI 400 and lower (down to EI 200 below which I would use something else).

 

But I wouldn't do the shooting you describe with film I'm not used to.

I think if you want to increase contrast, you'll have to use an EI HIGHER than 400 and develop more than what you would develop for EI 400.

 

That's not my favorite way of using this film, but if higher contrast is what you're looking for... (I use EI 200 and develop for 9 minutes in D76 1+1 at 20 deg centigrade)

I have never used a color film in my Leica so I can't compare.

 

But I've yet to see a black and white print from a desaturated color negative or slide (or digital, for that matter) that looks as good as a well crafted print from a black and white negative. *

 

Once the end result of an alternate and more practical process reaches the level of what can be done with Tri-X and good fiber paper, I'll consider other options. Factor in price as well...

 

By the way, I prefer manipulating my contact prints than original slides. I don't have to be as careful because if I ruin a contact print, I can do another one.

 

* Note that I've seen marvelous digital prints on B&W photo paper (wet development) of the moon pictures, scanned from the original hasselbald negatives (with a scanner that certainly costs many times the price of my car) and printed using a machine that I imagine costs more than my house...

Others already said, but I think you should not use a single piece of equipment in such a situation with which you're not already familiar, know how to handle, know what kind of result it produces and know that it works for you.

 

What I would do is considering the equipment (camera, lens, film, shooting style, flash/no flash, tripod/no tripod, manual focus/AF etc) you're already familiar with and knowing what you can and can't deliver with it, tell the couple what are the things you could and couldn't do for them.

 

Good luck anyway ;-)

Jim, I used a rangefinder to focus the hasselblad.

Is that ok then for this forum?

Hasselblad 80mm, Death Valley.<div></div>

...........<div></div>

Speed was drastically reduced...

Thanks Jason for the translation. You did a very good job!

 

When I wrote the original text in french (slightly different on some points but you clearly got the spirit of it) is when I decided to make the presentation french-only, the idea of trying to produce something similar in english was unbearable... ;-)

 

I think each person views these pictures differently. I got some very personal comments from viewers of these pictures (admittedly, only from people I know in the real world and to whom I sent the link). Each one finds different things and relates to different pictures.

 

The opening and closing ones were put there in purpose. I feel the first one summarizes quite well the subject, and the last two have a lot of drama (some on photo.net suggested that these pictures should be at the end of a presentation when I uploaded them). There's no real order in the rest of the presentation, it's more or less chronological (pure lazyness).

 

Anyway, these pictures are meant to be seen printed and not on a screen, so the presentation is not the end result, it's just a convenient way of sharing.

I just want to add that although I happily thank people who tell me they like my work/pictures, I'm also <b>very happy</b> when people tell me they don't like what I do, if they can tell why.

<p>

I know it's not always easy to criticize things, it feels better to "be nice" and to tell everybody they've done a great job, or say nothing when we don't like the work (just look at the top rated images on this site). But getting "negative" feedback is very important as well, and in practice, the feedback is not negative at all, it helps.

<p>

So thanks Cameron for your feedback. I can understand your point of view about monotony and even sympathize... Be it only because in my series of 37 I find a few of the pics stronger than the rest, maybe there are 5 that I find strong, so in a way the remaining 32 are weaker and possibly somewhat monotoneous...

<p>

Asking for feedback in this forum yields much more interesting results than when using one's gallery here in photo.net.

<p>

Thanks folks.

Erik, yes all these pictures were shot in France. Actually they were all made in the south half of France. I heard this 'habit' (or however one may call it) is not as popular in the north half (and I happen to live in the south half ;-).

 

I have more information on these pics (GPS coordinates for example). I didn't feel this would add anything to the presentation as again, it's not a documentary work about these memorials I was trying to do. For those who understand the comments in french, they are about how I feel looking at the picture or the place, they don't give 'real' details about the memorial.

 

G. and Cameron your comments express the way each of you feels and are both interesting and useful. I don't even feel a contradiction there, just a difference (of course I'm tempted to agree more with G. but who could blame me for that? ;-)

 

I don't find Dave's presentation "chatty" either. Apart from its evident photographic merit, I think his work could be a very useful tool for researchers on these memorials, as it gives information about each site. My wife is an anthropologist and as I was starting this series, she asked me to bring back more information about each site than was visible on the photos, like if there's a mention of a name or a date. Also, since I took these pictures, some of the sites disappeared or changed. I know of some sites that had a life span of no more than 3 days! This could be interesting information too.

Thanks Beau. I was aware of that work, somebody pointed me to it a while ago.

 

I think it is different in that the presentation you point to documents the memorials themselves, while my approach is more reflective on my/ourselves, taking these memorials almost as an excuse to reflect on the wider subject of death and memory. At least that's my goal, I don't know if I reach it (or if I reach it for everybody).

 

Trevor, I had a few shots similar to yours but then I removed those where the reference to the road was not apparent, in one way or another (visible, suggested by a sign or another object...). Actually I was a bit sad about some of those because they were good... ;-) I also removed for consistency anything that wasn't 35mm (I had a couple of nice square MF ones).

 

Alex, I got the "painful viewing" comment from several persons. I don't feel this way but I've been too involved in the making of these pictures, obviously. Maybe it's a sign they're working, as I felt bizarre sometimes spending whole days driving and shooting these places...

 

Thank you all for the time and comments.

I've put online a presentation of recent photos of roadside memorials,

a subject I've been working on for the last months.

I'd like to hear your opinions/critique on these pics.

<p>

The link to this forum is that all pics were shot with a Leica M6 TTL

and a Summicron ASPH 35/2 lens ;-)

<p>

The pictures are visible at <a

href="http://ilaaan.free.fr/LDP/">http://ilaaan.free.fr/LDP/</a>

(the presentation is in french, but a picture should (more or less)

speak for itself...)

<p>

Thanks for your help,<br>

Ilan

What are the moral laws that are binding on ordinary people?

I'm not sure immediate feedback helps learning. Learning is about time, about meditating on one's mistakes and not immediately pressing the delete button and starting again.

Here to stay?

 

Nothing digital stayed for very long until now, why would things change? Already the CDR that was such a huge storage seems ridiculous compared to DVDs... And DVD's are ridiculous too, they can only store 20 minutes of raw DV data...

 

Not too long ago (15 years) a 1Go drive was BIG as a whole department storage area at the university... Now a windows recovery partition on new laptops needs more than this.

 

Rewriting digital files every five years is the only option to prevent support deterioration AND obsolescence.

 

What I like about negatives/slides/etc., is that human evolution is much slower, so I guess my grandchildren and their grandchildren will still have the tools to look at negatives (and even print/scan them!).

I didn't read the article, but what is sad about all the digital snapshots of today, is that very few grandchildren will be able to see them in 30 or 50 years.

 

I wonder how many digital photo consumers (as opposed to real amateurs - and even real amateurs) take the time to burn copies of pictures on lasting supports and copy them every 5 years or so before the support deteriorates...

 

I've got so many floppy disks (Apple II format) that I can't read, I wonder if the data is still on them after all this time. And some vinyl records as well.

In other words, for me the rating system is so fundamentally broken that I see no reason for changing it, it will remain broken. I just more or less ignore that aspect of photo.net and use the rest.

Augusto,

 

My 'journey' through photo.net had several phases. First when I arrived and I looked at the popular and highly rated photos, I thought to myself that I must be missing something, because a certain kind of photography was 'on top' and I could not understand why. I slowly understood that the positionning of a photo in the gallery had more to do with the friends of the photographer than the photo itself (this culminated with the expulsion of Anna/Valter - email me if you missed it).

 

Completely understanding this reduced my frustration at seeing the low exposure my own pictures had. First I cared, and I was upset with the ratings I got, but then I understood it was not only because of the pictures themselves. Now I don't care anymore, really. I'd rather have one interesting comment than 50 good ratings.

 

I'm not sure the rating system helped me find the 'good pictures' in photo.net. Usually I find much better stuff by browsing randomly, following a member's comments or ratings on other pictures to see where he went. Over time, I found some people whose style I like and whose comments or ratings I follow more often, that's how I find interesting pictures.

 

Even if there was no 'mate rating' phenomenom going on, the gallery would not be the ideal place to find good photos. It would be the place to find photos that cater to the average taste of people on this site. It would be to photography what Britney Spears is to music...

 

Not much.

"<i>PN's rating system has its downsides, but on average, chances are that an image rated high deserves it along with its right to persist</i>".

<p>

I agree with the first half of your statement (up to <i>but on average</i>) but in my opinion the second half is pure bullshit.

We could also rate a member's rating of another member's favorites, in order to keep the system fair down to the second level (what you suggest only introduces one level of fairness). We have to decide how many rating levels we consider before we percolate the scores up to decide the weight of a member's ratings on another member's <b>pictures</b>... ;-)

<p>

But then, it could be so much fun rating another member's favorites etc., that we can stop rating pictures altoghether...

Yes...

 

That's why I overexpose the film (rate a 400 film at 200) and develop less to limit the highlights from blowing away completely.

 

After printing a dozen or two rolls shot that way now, I have no problems with the tonal range they have, but a slight problem with where the tones (midtones) fall... This of course depends on the type of paper used for printing.

 

I'm done with the working prints of all these shots and I'm very soon moving to 'real' prints on high quality FB paper (Bergger multicontrast neutral tone). I hope this paper will work fine for my way of exposing and processing the film. If it doesn't (or if it requires too much work for getting prints the way I like them), I'm going to try doing things differently, maybe overexposing a bit less or finding something else...

 

I guess this is what finding a good film/exposure/development/paper/developer combination is all about, right?... ;-)

Stuart,

 

What you suggest is exposing at max EI, i.e. shadows are almost as transparent as film base.

 

I find this has at least two drawbacks:

 

- There is very little error margin in one direction. If you set your exposure and development process to these parameters and if you slightly underexpose, you lose detail (if you slightly overexpose, it's not that bad). Why not settle on a more error-forgiving point? That's what I'm doing right now.

 

- If I have to mask something close to frame edge and in the process I mask part of the frame edge, it will show (assuming a full frame print with the black border). Not a major annoyance, but still...

I'm not familiar with Jobo. I use Paterson System 4+ tanks (and used another brand in the past, can't remember the name, but it had the same problem).

 

The problem is the upper reel not being totally immersed because of some of the liquid being trapped in the mechanism of the tank (the thing that allows liquids to be poured in/out while light stays out). You can see you had this problem with 35mm films when there are streaks on the frames that correspond to the spacing of the sprocket holes on the lower and upper part of the film. Usually only one film in a batch will show this (if it does), and it will be the top film in the tank.

 

What I do now is always put more liquid in the tank than recommended for the number of reels I put in. I add about 1/2 to 3/4 of the liquid required for one reel, and this solved my problem. (note this is especially important for developer)

 

Side effect is that in an n-reel tank, I put a maximum of n-1 reels.

 

This is intended as a recommendation for a 4 reel tank instead of a 2 reel... ;-)