macgregor_anderson

interesting composition though the crop on the bottom is maybe a little tight for my taste. Nice control of the flash, very nice tones. I like the DOF on the background, but a touch sharper focus on the lower face would have been nice. Not sure how easily you could have accomplished that without bringing the background too much into focus, which would be far worse. Nice combination of edgy and dreamy.

thanks very much. It was a nasty fire...over 100,000 acres burned and the largest in the country for a time. I live about 10 miles from it, and was very saddened by it all, though of course these things happen.

I actually found the distorition caused by the wide angle to work for

me in this composition. Nice to take a break from the 4x5 b/w stuff

anyhow. Comments welcome

completely alive, this shot. And I like the color here too, despite a strong bias towards b/w. I find the light coming in from the right side of the frame, maybe 1/3 of the way down, at an angle towards center a little strong. This is fine tuning...not a criticism in the negative sense. I have to tip my hat to you, spotting this movement in something so organic and steady is just extremely fine photography.

It's a very pure image, simple, perfectly done I think. I also think it takes a great eye to find and compose an image like this. I find the frame very distracting. I'd like to see this set simply against a black board. Otherwise, congrats. It reminds me to look more closely at my surroundings.

Evan, I think this one looks a bit better at about 16x20. I tried dodging heavily to bring him out, but it looks unnatural as I'm sure you can imagine. He's relegated to a supporting role in the photo...I didn't expose for him, I exposed for the landscape around him, best I could.

J Kim, it's a lot of fun. I've got a pretty fancy 645 medium format I got some time back along with a D100. I bought cheap when I got the large format stuff (had to) and it's been a good lesson in working with the tools that please you most, regarless of cost. I still use the other cameras when they are called for, but if I'm setting out for a day of taking pics, the large format is really all I want to do. I'm trying color soon.

Vic, thanks for the comments. I have not fooled around much with my developer other than a try some time back with Acutol on some 645 stuff, forget why. I've been trying to stay consistent in some areas so I don't confuse myself too much with all the variables. This really is a scanning/sharpening issue. The 16x20s I've done with HP5 and D76 have only just barely shown some grain, and my FP4 to my eye looks pretty much grainless.

 

I'm at the stage where I will start trying some other developers, and that will be my first. Thanks so much for the suggestion.

Marcelo, I respect your approach towards cloning, and share the same basic feeling though I do sometimes use the function. I was actually considering it as part of my crop idea, but I don't feel strongly at all that this needs anything done to it. I love the picture, tried to give it a 6 aesthetics 7 originality but the system told me I had already rated, would I like to replace the rating. I did replace the rating but it still doesn't show up for some reason.

It may be yet another flower picture but it is quite a bit different from most here. Very intelligent use of depth of field. Very precise.

 

I love the idea and really find the image interesting. I might center it more by cropping a bit from the right (sorry, crop comments are not in style I know). The little gap between petals in the lower right along the bottom edge is a little distracting. But those two suggestions are just me trying to be helpful, I think it's a really cool shot!

Thanks Salvatore for your insight on the crop. And Gilbert, thank you as well. Really made me laugh. I have several things going for me cloudwise. First, I live under half an hour from this location and most of the other shots I take. I have a lot of free time right now (read unemployed) so I can bounce up there any time I want. Finally, the geography here is perfect. That shot is looking West, and all of that famous Oregon rain hits the Cascade range and you get a "rain shadow" So you are shooting from high desert conditions and watching the clouds roll at you and dump their remaining rain onto the mountains. Just ten or fifteen miles behind my camera here is dry as you can imagine...all sagebrush and juniper.

 

The hard part is that the trout like clouds too and so I have to decide between fishing and taking pics when this stuff rolls in.

Very nice lighting, great detail in the snow (upper left corner diagonal may be just a bit blown?). I like this in the abstract as well as upon closer inspection. The shadow on the lower right edge bothers me a little but that's nitpicking. It almost has a human form to it if that isn't pushing things too far :) Nice work.

Pete, thanks very much. This is uncropped 4x5 FP4 developed in D76 1:1. My scanning/sharpening process always pulls out a lot of grain like this. Fortunately, my LPL 4500 VCCE enlarger does not (it may even be too soft). Maybe I'll print an 8x10 and scan it later. Though this one will probably be 16x20 which in my experience with this film is virtually grainless.

 

As for the snow...I'm always struggling with that. But the negative is really not that dense there, and some burning in while printing should bring out some detail that was lost in the scan.

 

 

I've tried a few of those crops and I like them a lot too. The prints of these shots (haven't printed this one yet but similar ones) show some very nice low tonal values and good detail in the trees, so I like this crop for that reason. It doesn't show as well on the monitor I don't think, probably my poor scanning/photoshop skills.

 

Thanks for your comments!

Trying new films and filters and a bit of zone testing. I got a very

printable negative though my scanner still seems to block up the

highlights a little. Comments welcome. Any thoughts on alternative

framing of this? I like the mountain near dead center,want the

enough of the valley but also the clouds...

I'd have liked less depth of field. Having trouble getting that with

the view camera and the lenses I own. Comments welcome.

Fantastic light. The shoes are classic. Distracting and interesting at the same time.

 

I find the lines, a V running from the right side to a point at the notch in the trees, to be very powerful. The angle of the soldier's head is not such that he is looking that way. It would work as a concept even better if he were. But the feeling of a distant stare is still achieved without seeing the subject's eyes.

 

I'm really taken with this photo. The great lighting, the positioning of the soldier, the perfect exposure (almost nothing blown out, just the least bit of detail left in the area where he is standing...)

 

It's enough to make me enjoy the weird shoes and find a way to see them as an advantage.

 

Thanks

I don't like the collar either. But what could I do? I could erase it in photoshop but I don't like doing that.

 

My biggest regret was deciding to shoot this with a cheap digital point and shoot when I had my 35mm camera loaded with b/w film. This image does not look good bigger than a postcard.

 

Thank you for your comments.

We've had lousy weather here for a while. Found some decent light at

noon so I drove up to Green Ridge to get this head and shoulders shot

of Mt Jefferson. Comments welcome.

once again...I'm very very impressed. This is the kind of work one day I hope to pull off.

great tones all over except upper left and some of the sky needs some burning in I think. I'm not on my calibrated monitor so it might be me. Love the foreground tones and detail.

interesting composition but the completely blown highlights make me think different lighting would have helped

Evan, I can see where you are coming from on that. My thought was that the snow on the mountains was melting, filling the lake and draining out this creek. So continuous idea. The capture with the wide angle may not be ideal. This print is a lot better in 16x20 because of the guy rigging his gear up. He's got a classic fisherman expression with a smoke and a rough sort of expression. (very nice guy in fact, and happy to have me photograph).

 

The contrast is not what I'd like. It's a very flat grey negative and I should have developed a bit longer I think. I've fooled with higher contrast in the darkroom but I lose the fisherman. Lots of work to be done on this one, good learning experience.

Slightly different perspective from the last one. Flare was a

problem here. Printing is only possible for me in the wet darkroom

at 16x20 because of small dodging subject. So I scanned the neg and

tried my best to reproduce the print with my poor photoshop skills.

Comments welcome.

Figured I'd do some zone testing in the field today. Comments

welcome.