mercredi 19 janvier 2005

Freezing Water Capture it with Fast Film I didn't want to mix colour images with black-and-white ones in yesterday's weblog although I mentioned monochrome film usage for the subject. On looking through my files and many boxes of prints I was surprised by the high number of mono illustrations I've printed up over the years for book, newspaper, magazine and photo library use. Before you question the reference to mono prints and a picture library I should mention that even in this day and age of instant digital colour capture and electronic image downloading to a picture desk within a minute or two of exposure there's still a good market for traditional black-and-white images at agencies such as the Collections Picture Library whom I've regularly supplied for a few years. In fact Collections may be doing a long time service for posterity by encouraging, hanging on to and promoting black-and-white photography at a time when many other established repositories of similar material, especially national newspapers, have long since consigned their decades of historical image files to the rubbish tip. So I couldn't pass on to another subject without including a few more water images which I like... and which have sold a few times... which makes me like them all the more! The main image has sold previously to illustrate various themes including "Cruising in the Aegean Sea"... which is far from the truth as it was taken overlooking the artificial lake at Clwedog, near Llanidloes in Powys, created as part of the flood defences to protect nearby towns from the unpredictability of the Welsh weather and the River Severn. Using a long lens (the 500mm Reflex-Nikkor... again) compressed the distance between the sparkling waves and isolated the silhouetted yacht. Surprisingly this subject works better in black-and-white than colour even though the boat was carrying deep red sails. The second panoramic image was made on a Hasselblad X-Pan producing a negative 65mm long, or about 80% longer than a standard 35mm negative. With most subjects the standard 45mm f/4 lens on the X-Pan copes superbly but shooting into the sun à la contre jour without the expensive graduated centre filter creates problems because a 45mm lens covering the extended format (in reality medium format) is the equivalent of a 25mm lens with the regular 35mm format. And as luck has it my favourite shot from all that I have taken with the X-Pan is of a contre jour scene... a Police Patrol jet-ski, at Aberdovey in West Wales, creating a serpentine wake as it powers out of the harbour towards the wide and treacherous estuary. The third monochrome image of an inshore power boat at the UK hosted Bristol Grand Prix is not a particular favourite as I have many similar ones... but it illustrates water frozen in action. Taken with a very odd set-up both slow and unwieldy to use... a Leica M4/P fitted with a Visoflex III reflex-viewer, plus goodness knows what adaptor ring holding a Leitz 400mm f/5.6 Telyt telephoto lens supported by a Leicavit shoulder stock and trigger connected by cable release to the shutter release on the camera. (I know that's a very odd sentence in English to write but it was an odd set-up to photograph with as well!). The advantage of the system was its relatively light weight... I don't have the figures but I remember standing near the well-known sports photo pro Leo Mason who was carrying a 400mm f/2.8 lens in addition to a neck full, shoulder full and bag full of other equipment (can't remember whether it was Canon or Nikon) but even on a monopod that lens appeared to be staggeringly heavy. OK, the f/5.6 Leitz Telyt produced a dim viewfinder image compared to the rival f/2.8 monster... but the pin-sharp and smooth toned image quality from the Leitz optic shows just what very old lenses can still do. All the above black-and-white images were made with fast ISO 400 films... the sailing boat on Agfapan Professional 400 developed in Agfa Rodinal, the jet-ski on Ilford HP5 Plus developed in Kodak Xtol and the power boat on Ilford XP-1 chromogenic film processed in standard C-41 colour chemistry. All were straight forward to print, except for the contre jour Hasselblad X-Pan shot which was hardly unexpected. The X-Pan shot on HP5 Plus shows remarkably little grain also... again hardly unexpected when the full width of the negative printed on 10 x 8 inch paper is only a magnification factor of about x3.6. With a Hasselblad X-Pan and it's superb Fuji lenses I have to ask myself if is there any need for slow or medium speed film? On the original print I can clearly count a dozen wind turbines on the far hills beyond the estuary... and they're only 0.5mm tall on the print! Perhaps I'll write about more images from that superb camera tomorrow... watch this space! 8:57:18 PM    comment []