I discovered this lovely view nearby our house while “geocaching” some time back. Yes, I know my tastes are strange.
Late afternoon, available light exposure of 1 second on an older roll of original FUJI Astia film (maybe, I believe, marked on slide mount. Not Astia100F.), at f32, with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. This is the original slide, and I really like the color response of this film better than the newer Astias.
Ektachrome 200 (I think, check slide mount notation). A little over exposed, handheld with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.
Old Rag Mountain is about a five hour hike in the foothills of the Shenandoah (8.5 miles), north of Charlottesville. Here’s a picture of my betrothed Michele as we near the summit, with the ridge along which we climbed in the background. In some places, the trail involves some surprisingly challenging rock-scrambling (I would jest, “we forgot our ropes!”).
Ektachrome 200 (I think, check slide mount notation). A little under exposed, handheld with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.
This is the view from the summit at Old Rag Mt., again looking back from the way we came. Off in the distance, you can see the rocks upon which the earlier image was made – notice the other hikers there? Getting from there to the summit took about a half hour. It was crowded and hot when we did this hike in the summer of 2010. I rather like the under-exposure in this view, as it gives detail to the sky.
This is a digital “dupe” made by Gammatech from a file I sent them. The file for each of these images was about 2500 x 2000 pixels, about 1200 pixels per inch. I had them “print” eight stereo pairs like this onto an 8×10 inch transparency. They offered two resolutions for this, “8k” and “16k.” I asked them to print my file at “16k” because my file had a resolution around 12k. I might try doing it onto 70mm film next time – the cost is about the same either way. This imagery was obtained and processed digitally. Cameras: twin rig Canon D60 (6MP DSLR) with 28mm lenses, stereobase for this view about 9 inches.
Using a multiple exposure technique, buildings are rendered magically translucent, revealing the structure beneath the facade, and the foundation beneath the structure. Images were obtained over a period spanning 12 to 18 months, each time from a platform carefully repositioned, so that the camera(s) would be in exactly the same spot, matching position, direction and orientation in six axes. From about 2007 to 2010, I recorded the construction of a half-dozen buildings like this in and around Charlottesville. With its requirement for extreme accuracy, digital post-processing was almost as much work as the photography itself!
The Giant Wheel at the Evergreen State Fair, now in LED!
The outfit that provides the rides for the Evergreen State Fair and Central Washington Fair is Butler Entertainment. This year they’ve outfitted their Giant Wheel with LEDs. I prefer the incandescent lights, but I know the LEDs will save a lot of energy. And the LEDs look pretty cool in my time-lapse movies. On film they can have nice patterns (or some with nauseating color) but they often look like big TV sets.
The rides always look (to me) like some great engine of science fiction when captured on film, and of course people should be mesmerized by it. So I’m glad the fellow on the left is doing his part.
Shallow DOF in a long exposure at night.
Normally I don’t think to use shallow depth of field for my stereoscopic photos but I’ve been inspired by the work of my friend Frank Roberto. It was very late, around midnight after the Evergreen State Fair was closed, that I took this shot. It was obviously a long exposure — it came out looking like noon! I miscalculated the light as I didn’t expect it to be this bright but I was pleasantly surprised to see it.
Shot with TL-120 at f2.8 using Velvia 50. Shutter unrecorded.
Captured at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, Washington, August 2011.
Last year there were fireworks at the Evergreen State Fair and I didn’t know about it until it was happening. I was in a rotten spot to capture them and it all ended in tears.
This year I got the dates for the fireworks beforehand and guesstimated some good spots for shooting.
The sunrise at Poipu beach on Kauai, a short walk from our rental house.
I have long wanted to use a graduated neutral density filter with my MF photography. The problem is aligning a couple of filters on different cameras. On the TL-120, I wouldn’t be able to mount 2 filter holders side-by-side — there isn’t enough room. You could use screw on filters but then you’re limited by where you can frame the image. Problems, problems, problems.
At some point I realized that there was an extra large square filter size called X-PRO that would fit over both lenses of the TL-120. I found a used filter holder and had it modified to fit on the TL-120 and also came up with a system for positioning the filter (because when you frame the shot through the viewing lens the filter is in the wrong position and needs to be lowered precisely to take the shot).
I found an outfit in the UK that claimed to have Lee ND grad filters in X-PRO size. This was a little confusing to me because on their website Lee has no mention that they make such filters. But after several emails back and forth to the UK and assurances that the filters were real I pulled the trigger. I picked up 1, 2, and 3 stop hard-edged filters.
I don’t remember which filters I used in this shot but it was probably 2 of them, dropping down the sky by 4 or 5 stops.
This was taken with the TL 120 south of San Antonio during the 2010 wildflower trek. Just two old cars waiting to be photographed for the umteenth time.
What you don’t see is me literally hanging over the fence trying to get as close to the cars as possible. That is when I wish I had zoom lenses! Too many Texans have shotguns that they aren’t afraid to use when you trespass. Oh wait, that was in Virginia when a guy came out with his shotgun because I was on his property :), long time ago and another story………
Shot hand 
held with the sputnik using available light. Seems they have the same kind of sky conditions that we have in Texas 🙂
I wanted a different kind of mount so I got out my scrapbooking/card making stuff and cut the mount. I would like to know what you think of it. To mount I simply put the mask on the spicer jig I use and taped the chips to the black mask. Then inserted the mask into the frame.
The year 2010 in Texas had the best display of wildflowers I have ever seen. Unlike this year (2011) which produced virtually no wildflowers due to the severe drought which we are still experiencing along with triple digit daily temps.
This image was taken near Poteet which is south of San Antonio on some little country road. I realize the sky detracts from the image but there isn’t much I can do about that except to crop it out but I wanted the old rusty chair and the house to be included. This was shot with the TL 120, hand held.
Some people say the interior of the Ammansville painted church is the color of cotton candy. Others say it is the color of Pepto-Bismol. Any way you look at it, the church is a pale, rosy pink. Legend has it that an unknown itinerant artist painted the walls of Saint John. Upon completion of the work, he vanished, never to be seen again.
The present Saint John’s is the third church to be built on the property. The first church was destroyed by a hurricane in 1909. The second church burned to the ground eight years after the first one was destroyed by a hurricane. A person recalled in a phone interview working in the fields and seeing the black smoke come up from the direction of the church. Everyone dropped their farm equipment and raced to the church. Folks were able to save some of the statues, but the rest of the building was lost to the fire, which was so hot even the church bells melted. With two churches destroyed in such a short time, one would think the community of Ammansville would have given up. Yet, they began the process of planning and rebuilding almost immediately after the fire. The third church was completed in 1919.