53. Black and White - June 15-21, 2014
Kevin-
For the Black and White theme I decided to take a quite traditional approach. No, not as traditional as exposing a roll of Kodak Panatomic-X ASA (ISO) 32 film, developing it in a darkroom in Kodak HC-110 Developer, and then making a print using a Beseler 23C enlarger. I mean traditional in the sense of a landscape scene depicted in the way I might have shot it back in the film days if I still had one of my film Nikon SLRs.
So I drove out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, in Chaska, MN. This is a 1,137-acre site owned by the University of Minnesota, and first established in 1907. Inside there are areas where thousands of different plants, flowers and trees on on display. There is a three mile drive though the arboretum which takes you to many different areas and scenes. While there I spotted this distant barn and silo. I actually wasn’t certain if it was a part of the arboretum, or simply visible while on the drive. I stopped, walked and photographed it from a number of angles and places, and when I got back home I looked it up on Google Maps and found that it is indeed a part of the arboretum property.
This image was shot with my Nikon D4s. The exposure was f/16 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 100, so the camera was tripod mounted of course. The lens was my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 set to 200mm. I used a polarizing filter to make the clouds stand out as much as possible, plus a soft, split neutral-density filter to darken the skies on a day that was quickly turning from blue skies to overcast. Since in my black and white darkroom days I would have used Ilford variable contrast paper and plenty of burning and dodging I did the same thing here via Lightroom. Shortly after this image was taken the days of intense rain we experienced began.
For the Black and White theme I decided to take a quite traditional approach. No, not as traditional as exposing a roll of Kodak Panatomic-X ASA (ISO) 32 film, developing it in a darkroom in Kodak HC-110 Developer, and then making a print using a Beseler 23C enlarger. I mean traditional in the sense of a landscape scene depicted in the way I might have shot it back in the film days if I still had one of my film Nikon SLRs.
So I drove out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, in Chaska, MN. This is a 1,137-acre site owned by the University of Minnesota, and first established in 1907. Inside there are areas where thousands of different plants, flowers and trees on on display. There is a three mile drive though the arboretum which takes you to many different areas and scenes. While there I spotted this distant barn and silo. I actually wasn’t certain if it was a part of the arboretum, or simply visible while on the drive. I stopped, walked and photographed it from a number of angles and places, and when I got back home I looked it up on Google Maps and found that it is indeed a part of the arboretum property.
This image was shot with my Nikon D4s. The exposure was f/16 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 100, so the camera was tripod mounted of course. The lens was my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 set to 200mm. I used a polarizing filter to make the clouds stand out as much as possible, plus a soft, split neutral-density filter to darken the skies on a day that was quickly turning from blue skies to overcast. Since in my black and white darkroom days I would have used Ilford variable contrast paper and plenty of burning and dodging I did the same thing here via Lightroom. Shortly after this image was taken the days of intense rain we experienced began.
Byron-
I decided to combine this weeks theme with a technique I was "itchin" to try. I decided to make this photo look like a photo that was taken in 1950. I would further pretend that I found this photo in my attic and found it unremarkable. Why would I want this photo to be unremarkable? Because, that means I was able to pull off a trick that nobody noticed.
First I went online and searched for a vintage looking building. I found it in Waverly, MN. Erl & I then drove to Waverly. It happened to be possibly the only nice day (weather wise) this week for shooting this photo. It's kind of cool how the 2 old phone trucks happened to be parked in front of the building. That's the trick. The 2 old phone trucks came along with me. They are each about 6" long. I painted a piece of Masonite with Grey primer and I left all the scratches and scuff marks. It makes it look more like a street. I setup a table across the street from the old building, put the masonite on top, put the cars on the far edge of the masonite. Through the camera I adjusted the position and slid the masonite around until it lined up with the curb. It's important to have deep depth of field so everything would be in focus. I also shot fairly wide. Shooting this way also replicates common cameras of the day (small apertures, medium wide angle). The camera has to be on a tripod to make exposure variations easier. I hope you enjoy this picture, it was fun to make.
I decided to combine this weeks theme with a technique I was "itchin" to try. I decided to make this photo look like a photo that was taken in 1950. I would further pretend that I found this photo in my attic and found it unremarkable. Why would I want this photo to be unremarkable? Because, that means I was able to pull off a trick that nobody noticed.
First I went online and searched for a vintage looking building. I found it in Waverly, MN. Erl & I then drove to Waverly. It happened to be possibly the only nice day (weather wise) this week for shooting this photo. It's kind of cool how the 2 old phone trucks happened to be parked in front of the building. That's the trick. The 2 old phone trucks came along with me. They are each about 6" long. I painted a piece of Masonite with Grey primer and I left all the scratches and scuff marks. It makes it look more like a street. I setup a table across the street from the old building, put the masonite on top, put the cars on the far edge of the masonite. Through the camera I adjusted the position and slid the masonite around until it lined up with the curb. It's important to have deep depth of field so everything would be in focus. I also shot fairly wide. Shooting this way also replicates common cameras of the day (small apertures, medium wide angle). The camera has to be on a tripod to make exposure variations easier. I hope you enjoy this picture, it was fun to make.
Deron-
Bad luck, mate. I captured this photo in Cabazon, Ca, coming home from working in Palm Springs. I saw the train rumbling down the tracks heading west, so I drove ahead of it, took the next exit and got on the frontage road between the tracks and the 10 fwy. I initially thought I'd be shooting just the train, but as I trudged through the scrub brush to the train tracks, I noticed that I wasn't alone... kind of. This poor coyote must have been walking on the tracks, while wearing his head phones, or something. He doesn't look like he's been there too long, but if you look closely, you can see, through the gash in his side, that his ribs have been picked clean. As an animal lover it was tough to shoot, but as a WPOTM photographer I had to shoot it.
Bad luck, mate. I captured this photo in Cabazon, Ca, coming home from working in Palm Springs. I saw the train rumbling down the tracks heading west, so I drove ahead of it, took the next exit and got on the frontage road between the tracks and the 10 fwy. I initially thought I'd be shooting just the train, but as I trudged through the scrub brush to the train tracks, I noticed that I wasn't alone... kind of. This poor coyote must have been walking on the tracks, while wearing his head phones, or something. He doesn't look like he's been there too long, but if you look closely, you can see, through the gash in his side, that his ribs have been picked clean. As an animal lover it was tough to shoot, but as a WPOTM photographer I had to shoot it.
Paul-
This is the first idea that came to me and I decided to run with it despite a score of notions that might have made my submission more of a challenge (or more interesting to look at). I suppose part of the reason for capturing this ubiquitous thing is my wish to submit a pictorial tribute to black and white crayons.
I’ll explain.
Like the rest of you*, I grew up playing with crayons. My mom once even got me the BIG box they sold that had 64 colors and a sharpener built in to the side. Pretty neat. But as I scribbled and drew, I found the two colors I virtually ignored were black and white. They seemed less like “colors”—compared to turquoise, copper, periwinkle, crimson, etc.—and more like monochromatic afterthoughts. They were boring couple inhabiting the coloring box neighborhood. The peons of the palette. (And who on earth used white anyway? It looked anemic on white coloring paper.) So, dear black and white Crayola crayons, this is your moment in the sun…or studio lights. This is my restitution to you for being bedazzled by your gaudy-colored cousins. Please forgive me.
* Kevin and Byron may be exceptions. The former was push processing Panatomic X at age 6, and the latter was reverse engineering reel-to-reels at 7.
Our Story So Far… Though scandal, distain and a badge of ruinous character amid the gentry would be the very least of her problems should she be discovered, Lady Melinda Throckmorton could not withstand the siren call of smoldering desire and fairly ran through the October night—petticoats flying—to the stables of Blythemouth Manor…there to surrender to the passions of a forbidden tryst she and Lord Neville has arranged a fortnight ago beneath the bells of Hofmann Abbey. And there, amid the urgent rustle of crinoline and satin breeches, the two lovers—espied only by an indifferent raven and Neville’s horse (Tempest)—murmured in each other’s ears the words only the foolishly smitten may speak: “Olympus E500; 14-45mm zoom lens; shot at 14mm; 1/30 sec. at f4; ISO 100, the camera is mounted on a tripod.”
This is the first idea that came to me and I decided to run with it despite a score of notions that might have made my submission more of a challenge (or more interesting to look at). I suppose part of the reason for capturing this ubiquitous thing is my wish to submit a pictorial tribute to black and white crayons.
I’ll explain.
Like the rest of you*, I grew up playing with crayons. My mom once even got me the BIG box they sold that had 64 colors and a sharpener built in to the side. Pretty neat. But as I scribbled and drew, I found the two colors I virtually ignored were black and white. They seemed less like “colors”—compared to turquoise, copper, periwinkle, crimson, etc.—and more like monochromatic afterthoughts. They were boring couple inhabiting the coloring box neighborhood. The peons of the palette. (And who on earth used white anyway? It looked anemic on white coloring paper.) So, dear black and white Crayola crayons, this is your moment in the sun…or studio lights. This is my restitution to you for being bedazzled by your gaudy-colored cousins. Please forgive me.
* Kevin and Byron may be exceptions. The former was push processing Panatomic X at age 6, and the latter was reverse engineering reel-to-reels at 7.
Our Story So Far… Though scandal, distain and a badge of ruinous character amid the gentry would be the very least of her problems should she be discovered, Lady Melinda Throckmorton could not withstand the siren call of smoldering desire and fairly ran through the October night—petticoats flying—to the stables of Blythemouth Manor…there to surrender to the passions of a forbidden tryst she and Lord Neville has arranged a fortnight ago beneath the bells of Hofmann Abbey. And there, amid the urgent rustle of crinoline and satin breeches, the two lovers—espied only by an indifferent raven and Neville’s horse (Tempest)—murmured in each other’s ears the words only the foolishly smitten may speak: “Olympus E500; 14-45mm zoom lens; shot at 14mm; 1/30 sec. at f4; ISO 100, the camera is mounted on a tripod.”
Jerry-
Guess I have a thing for leaves - this batch was discovered while walking Sam the old dog (Mr. Relax) earlier this week. I turned up the contrast a little bit in photoshop, so it wasn't all gray on gray. On my led type monitor it looks really nice, but on the family pc with a high mile/well worn lcd monitor its very gray. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it. Usually I take photos of leaves in the fall with all the bright colors but this shot is more restrained. D5200 on a tripod, 55mm Micro-Nikkor, iso 400, 1/4 second at f16. Light coming in from the open garage door. Black garbage bag for a background.
Guess I have a thing for leaves - this batch was discovered while walking Sam the old dog (Mr. Relax) earlier this week. I turned up the contrast a little bit in photoshop, so it wasn't all gray on gray. On my led type monitor it looks really nice, but on the family pc with a high mile/well worn lcd monitor its very gray. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it. Usually I take photos of leaves in the fall with all the bright colors but this shot is more restrained. D5200 on a tripod, 55mm Micro-Nikkor, iso 400, 1/4 second at f16. Light coming in from the open garage door. Black garbage bag for a background.