aplumpton

Thanks, Brian.

 

I was lucky as the little girl (daughter of a photographer friend) was in a pensive mood during a picnic with her family beneath the apple blossoms. She made the photo and was quite uaware of my presence most of the time. The print here is a bit dark (the shadows), and it is better when I print it a bit lighter (the Konica IR film is naturally a bit contrasty and hard to tame, but gives nice tones in the vegetation. Too bad it is no longer made).

 

I like very much your own people shots.

If the student on the far left didn't have an M meter attached to his M3, I would hazard a guess and say he was HCB. Happy looking bunch.

Shows good originality of vision, but if I were you, I would return to the Castle and try several similar and different compositions, especially to explore further your good idea and to avoid the bell ringer's hands being mixed up with the ladder, and perhaps to alter the position of the disk shaped object to the left. The disk adds strength and mystery to the image, but you should try other compositions.

 

Lots of great potential as an image (with interesting mechanical forms in the background as well). Nice perception of the force required by the ringer, by the positin of his body. I would also try black and white. Have fun (let us see any alternative images you might try) and thanks for your vision.

Error in details. The camera was a Leica M8 with Visoflex and 65mm Elmar lens; 160 ISO, B&W setting, exposure reading off grey card.

C Peter, thank you. It was taken outside the monastery in the village of Lagrasse in Languedoc, France, very roughly 50 Km west of Carcassone. I believe the monastery construction followed the presence of the crusaders under Simon de Montfort, when they were intent on eliminating the Cathar religion in that area (and Simon in acquiring new lands).

 

You can just barely make out a 4 or 5 foot stone wall top in the background. As a backlit shot, I tried different exposures with my 4 MP point and shoot digital (Kyocera L4V) at maximum resolution (jpeg fine in this case) and low ISO (100) in order to miimise noise. The lens is normally at f2.8 at the normal lens angle I chose (about equal to a 40 or 50mm lens in 35mm), but I cannot tell you the shutter speed as the screen on the back of the camera, which would allow me to check that, has now gone black (too expensive to repair). I presume it was about 1/250th or 1/500th of a second. At any rate, easily fast enough to allow me to get away with handholding in this case.

 

I would have preferred my Leica M4-P for this one, but it was loaded with Pan-F black and white film. The lighting was fortunate, as we were in the monastery garden only briefly that afternoon. The wall and background was in shade and dark enough not to register very much. I did have to point the camera somewhat selectively to avoid adjacent brighter backgrounds.

Love it!

Nice shot. Good use of low angle with animals.

I really like this, it's abstract nature, it's composition and it's chromatic simplicity. But what is really good is the perceived tension between the elements. Thanks.

Alessandro, did you use digital or film? The highlights are really burned out in this reproduction. Is that what you wanted? If it has been Photoshopped I would suggest it might benefit from a more gradual tobal scale. Otherwise a quite nice effort, if somewhat clich