The Old Rock Church in Bosque County.I photograph this old church a couple of times a year. It is one I have featured in the blog before too. Alone on a hill with a live oak tree it is certainly an appealing subject.So, here it is again.I was set up using my 75mm lens to include all of the tree and the church framed under the branches.
Being swift or quick is not really a large format thing. Slow and precise is more like it. But when I was photographing in the Fort Worth Stockyards near the ruins of the old Swift plant I could not resist working swift into an image.The camera is set up with the 210mm lens and is all twisted up to photograph a window with very shallow DOF.
A good tripod is a must for large format photography. It is good for most any photographer, but when one starts playing around with a view camera they take on a whole new importance.Most any tripod can hold a plastic DSLR with kit lens. It takes a beast of a tripod to work with an 8x10. Ok, maybe not a beast, but you need a solid support. That means no cheapies. Quality and solid support costs.Here is mine in action. It is a Gitzo 1325 with a Kirk BH-1 ballhead. It is one rock solid combo. Take a look at the pose we have here.Vertical camera with alot of extension for macro work. The Arca is bulky and weighs a fair amount. There is no extension on the legs, they are set to minimum height with no extra angle.This aint moving.
Out in the Fort Worth Stockyards things were looking down. At the bricks that is.Love the brick streets they still have in the 'yards. Make a great photograph.Most of the bricks were made about an hour from here in Thurber. Thurber was big company town-brickworks and coal mine. It had 16,000 residents. Nothing left but a smokestack today.Here I am isolating a few bricks for an image.You might also notice the extra long rail. I never got the extension so I just use both of my 30cm rails for this type of closeup work. The tripod holds them both easy. This is a solid setup.
