Metering is everything...the gray scale matters

The hardest thing in the world in my not so humble it to shoot "snow".  Even on an overcast day the gray scale covers the gamut from complete black to absolute white.  Ansel Adams was a master at capturing the gray scale with his "Zone System".  It was all an issue of deciding what was the magical 18% gray and metering to ensure he had detail across the board, then developing the negatives to ensure it happened.  The Zone system in short was one where after you shot the film to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights.

This image was from my archives and dates back to November 1975.  I was then very much into Adams and his zone system.  I metered off an 18% gray card  that came with my Kodak Professional Photographers Photoguide.  I still carry it today to meter off of in extreme situations when I am shooting on film.  (Yes, I still do my own B&W silver work AND I refuse to call it "analog photography" like some hipsters I know).

So what about the world of digital photography?  You can still use the zone system.  You set your ISO on your camera and use manual settings.  The setting will come from the exposure details given to you from a handheld meter focused on a gray card.  Use the recommended exposure settings from that reading and et voila you are working in the zone system in the digital world.  If you are not sure how to set your DSLR on manual, you can always set it to bracket shots 1 stop apart and shoot of the cameras average meter in semi-auto mode.

Enjoy "Ozark Farm". The original was shot on Tri-X, developed in D76.  The negative was scanned to positive with an Epson V600 Photo scanner.  It does click to embiggin.

Georgia O'keeffe was a hero of mine...

Can you see her influence on my work? I love the erotic feel to flowers when shot up close and personal. Of course the water drops are just icing on the cake, call it floral porn.

I shot these on Tri-X at its normal speed after a rain storm the other day. The resulting negatives were scanned, low res versions for publication here for easier loading, but still high enough quality to get a sense of the real image.

back in the silver saddle again

Did it. Yesterday I loaded up on film and the stuff to process it myself.

Until they were gone I didn't realize how much I had become dependent upon things like auto-metering, exposure and focus. Silly me it took me a few times to get back into remembering to meter each spot, decide what will be a "neutral" 18% gray (recall am a zone system kinda guy) then proceed to frame and focus.

Yes, focus what a chore that turned out to be given my aging up close vision and slight breeze moving things up close in and out of range. I may check focus points in my DSLR and even switch to manual focus often to zone in on one particular spot but its not often I have to resort to that. When I do the DSLR has built in diopters that correct my vision so its not even a major problem.

Doing my own lab work came back very quickly. Funny how one never forgets the agitation routine nor smell of things. I must admit I love the heady aroma of a freshly cracked open can of film, I think I can pass however on the odors from the chemicals themselves.

Enjoy a few from yesterdays test run. Note the water drops on the rose, that pure floral porn! It was shot on Tri-X, iso 400, developed in D-76. I must admit I do love the shades of gray it can record much better than what digital does. Doesn't appear to lose much if anything in the process of scanning to digitize them.

Mixing chems like a mad scientist and a poem

OK, I finally did it. I found the chemicals I needed in a store in Pasadena. They don't carry the biggest selection and a lot is non-Kodak but they at least they carried my favorite "D-76" developer still. I was mixing like a mad scientist in my kitchen all I needed to do my first roll of B&W in I don't know how many years.

While mixing the chemicals I was rousting through my box of tanks and stuff and found a recipe box full of interesting stuff for developing film as well as this nifty poem that I had copied from somewhere along the line of my meanders. It is as follows:

I take to my darkroom out of affection for others.

There I make friends with the world again.

There I learn to look away, to focus on infinity.

There I play god with film, paper, chemicals and lenses.

There, in the dark, I begin to see.

Not sure why it moved me enough to type up on a 3X5 index card all those years ago when I started the reference kit in a recipe box. Its still appropriate for the digital age to a degree though we likely can remove the part about seeing in the dark, and change it up to somehow include the PC.

All that aside I got myself set up to start shooting and doing my own B&W film again. Opted for the ever faithful Tri-X Professional because I've always loved its visible grain structure and ability to capture stuff in low lighting. I even drug out my ancient, and I do mean ancient 35MM camera that is absent any form of a bell or whistle, even the built in meter died while in storage. No loss as I rarely used it and more heavily relied upon a spot meter which I still have that works quite well.

Man the torpedoes and launch the "Zone System" film photography here I come. Again.

A little Black and White work from the Soulard Market

I remember this shoot quite well. The assignment was for a publications class I took at SIU-C. We were to take documentary type portraits for a "Sunday" type publication. Rather than opt for local to the school photo ops I decided to have a little road trip and go to the Soulard Farmers Market in St Louis.

The Soulard Market is the oldest continuously operating farmers market west of the Mississippi River. It was set up near the banks of the river in 1838 and has operated on that spot since its inception. A little more history HERE.

I kept pretty detailed records back in the day so I know a bit about these images. They were shot on Kodak's Tri-X pan film at its normal ISO of 400 and developed in D-76. I've kept them sleeved in archival pages since they were processed so they are nearly as good as the day I developed them. Even the "contact sheets" that were for each page are attached still after all these years so my life is so much easier picking which strip to scan.

Some trends go back ages...

I have a new scanner and among the tasks I have for it is to take my old B&W and archive them all digitally.

One of the things I've noticed in my early work was an affinity for natural lighting, even low level for all the drama one can get from the images shot under such conditions. Also noted that I did a lot of very moody black and white work both indoors and outdoors.

These images are of some family members that cooperated with me and my experimentation back in the day. Both are very natural portraits that I am still very pleased with many years after the fact.

Interesting for me also was my propensity to not only store them for safe keeping back then, but I also noted the basics such as film used. In this case these were shot in good old Tri-X Pan at ASA (we call it iso now) 400, no pushing was done.