So as I said before I was going to coat new papers and coat them lighter. I am much happier with these results. I finally got back to paper white. Strangely enough these are actually taking a longer to expose to get into a good contrast. Overall I am much happier with these out comes. I took the time to make duplicates and make darker printsin order to try and coffee tone again.
I am working hard on these images. I am a little disappointed that I am not getting the highlights to paper white. I have a feeling I have over coated the paper given that eh shadows seem to be well toned in a deep blue.
I am working with an approximately 1 min 30 sec solar exposure time. This still seems brief to me but if i go farther everything ends up way to dark. I have thought about increasing the density of my negatives but I am feeling that I will start clipping the highlights.
Oh well new paper has been coated much thinner and we will see what happens.
So these are some photos I took this spring in washing state with all the flower fields in bloom. Considering that I was shooting from a car window kind of on the fly the seem to be decent images. I really wish there was time to take and create an HDR image of these I really think that gathering more detail in the bright flowers and more contrast in the sky would have created a much better image.
I guess this is somewhat of a lesson in dealing with circumstances. I feel the photos are well exposed but having a broader range may have helped a lot in the final images.
In submitting to the Funes Digital Arts Competition I have attempted to choose three very different images of what i have been working on most recently. I am quite fond of my work inspired by Sally Mann and my vision of this piece is a small print probably 4×5, i feel it should be examined closely inspected. The landscape piece is because I feel its a strong piece that speaks to both recycling, the desert and the ability of nature to reclaim things that are left to her. Finally some of the work I have done with my inspiration by Penelope Umbrico, i am very happy with this project and it is reminding me to look back on it and explore it again.
Missing the afternoon shoot with class I went out on a cool cloudy morning for a shoot at the elfin forrest. Overall I feel this was a successful shoot and enjoyed my morning at the preserve. I do with the lighting had been a little better that day.
So I started thinking tonight that I was unable to go out and shoot this weekend, but I stated in the previous post that i felt some of what i enjoyed about Simoneau Guillaume’s work were things I felt i would need to do in post processing. So I started working on the post process. I went into some images i shot in Arizona almost a year ago that after shooting I kind of imported and ignored and have slowly been picking my way through them since.
I decided the red rocks and landscape of Sedona Arizona would go well for this project of light blasted saturated images. I felt that i wanted to re create the c-type print look. The c-type print was what most of our child hood memories were printed on, the prints are contrasty and hyperstaturated. So I went with it, after achieving a clean look in lightroom i moved to analogefex pro, to try and achieve this look. I thought there might be something close in the presets yet there really was not, i decided to get a saturated preset and moved in deeper adding light leaks on my own and making them different for each image. Guillaume did not have use any vignette in his images, but I felt these images needed to be darker on the edges.
I have been working with light for a long time. I have been comfortable working in many situations for a long time. However sometimes I forget how amazing the “Golden Hour” can bee, it seems to make every thing fall into place, my golden hour photos however i did choose to go with black and white, I feel that the lighting speaks volumes in gray scale and also the images i was photographing wer of Joshua Tree National Park which overall color wise is fairly beige and I am of the belief that if color does not add to the image it does not need to be included. The golden hour led to long deep shadows and a beautifully rendered sky. I am enamored with these images and hope every one enjoys them as much as I do.
I have actually learned a few things I had forgotten while shooting these images. The golden hour is truly worth its weight in gold, it actually makes the image stronger to start with, you almost only need to worry about exposure and composition. The long shadows and strong highlights make for very rich images.
Joshua Tree National Park also helps in creating images every time you turn around in the park there is a new image that only needs to be framed and exposed. I actually think this is one of the most scenic parks in the United States and one that is severally over looked because it is a desert, which is truly fine with me, i would actually hate to have this wonderful place as over photographed as Yosemite or the Sequoias. I find Joshua Trees also very photogenic are their own, and are not at all ugly though many seems to think so.
Jerry Slough Photography 