Standing Proud

This image has been a while in the making. After reviewing my  attempts at winter landscapes, I went out to try to do some things differently. I loaded a pack, took the first sunny day off work, and headed out to Cowee Creek where I knew I’d have moderate snow, free-standing trees, and a dramatic backdrop lit by the low afternoon sun. The film was exposed in February of 2014, processed by DR5 in May, and mounted in February of 2015.

To try to force the back of foreground tree trunk out of the shadows, I used a couple of Vivitar 285 flashes. One weak one firing forward (and slightly right) from just below the camera, and a stronger one coming from the far left.

While I think my concepts were correct, I fell short in the execution. This was the last roll of the day. It is a tested characteristic of my camera that the shutter timings start to drift at low voltages. By the time this roll was exposed, the batteries in the TL120 were failing in the cold and the right side was under exposed.