It happens sometimes. Not every time, but often enough that the pleasure compensates the pain.
I opened the developing tank and unspooled the film to hang it up to dry. It was shot under varying conditions with a simple meterless camera. All the frames look consistently exposed. A good start.
Then I scanned them, and a little song started in my heart. One frame was an experiment based on something I heard on the Studio C41 podcast. They were talking about large format photography and exposure, and it relates exactly to what I have been thinking about. The point of the discussion was to meter and expose for the shadows and let the film latitude and a compensating developer take care of the highlights. Basically – overexpose.
I had exposed for the shadow cast by a sunlit willow tree and the scan shows loads of detail in the shadows and luminous highlights. You can colour me happy. I’m not a great fan of landscapes, but I had been shooting some while we were in Anglesey. Those pictures made me happy too – black wiggly trees on white sand. This is what it’s all about. As the man said “I enjoy photography because it makes me sad and I hate the outcome, said no one ever”.
At the end of the roll were a few frames I had shot with a new lens. New to me: it was made in the seventies. A couple of shots of stuff at infinity and a few taken as close as I could get and showing plenty of background. Very interesting, and another wee thrill for my jaded senses. The out of focus areas look rather interesting, and very different to the lens I used for the willow tree and landscapes. So interesting, that I want to see what it will do to colours. So onto the digital camera it goes, so that I can get immediate feedback.
Very interesting again. Very smooth backgrounds when close, tending towards a bit of swirly when further away. I need to try this on some portraits as the vignetting looks ideal. Plus it made me play with the digital SLR, which has been a bit neglected of late. I remembered that it has a feature of being able to take multiple exposures and merge them into a single shot, adjusting the total exposure. So I got the manual out and had a go. So that’s a new trick in the bag for when the right time comes along. The camera is an older generation digital, so suffers from noise when you use high ISO. So what I’m thinking is to shoot night skies by combining a series of longer exposures at lower ISO. This might also average-out the noise.
Happiness: enjoying what you have done and being excited to do more. Yay!
So, knowing that I used to be Beaker in a former life, this is how I interpret the title of this post. Enjoy.
Fup Duck Photography 