For the past year or so there’s been a hotel going up across the street from my studio. Though I swore some years ago that I was “done” with “clear buildings,” the proximity and thus convenience of this building stimulated me to make one last one. It’s the reason I bought a Sigma (DP-1 Merrill) camera: this last Clear Building will be shot with some decent resolution, so that I can make truly large prints.

That work has been digital and is ongoing. But on a recent early morning, I found the building looking quite attractive, complex and mysterious. I shot it with a Sputnik, shooting cha-cha to obtain a larger baseline – maybe 12 inches – to give it more depth and interest. I did not record exposures but I think I shot thirty seconds at f-11 onto Kodak E-200.
To obtain this exposure, I held the camera upside down against the door frame above my head, shimmed a bit with a bicycle cog under the front edge of the camera (I couldn’t bring a tripod on my bike). I took numerous pictures this way, bracketting my exposures.