Exploring US 377

Delta 100

I have been doing a series of day drives over the past few months.  Take the 4x5 and some black and white film and do a day drive along US 377.  This is the road that runs southwest out of Fort Worth.  It quickly gets one away from town and into some rolling hills.  There are some remnants of the prairie here as well as many ranches, farms, rivers and other tidbits of Americana.

Each morning I would leave home early, usually by 0530 so I could be out someplace for sunrise.  Being on location early is not as important in black and white photography as it is in color, but old habits die hard.

HP5+

My general plan for these type of days is to select a sunrise spot, spend daybreak and the golden hour there and then just drive looking for subjects.  Side road here, Farm to Market road there.  The only commonality was being generally along US 377.  From Fort Worth to Stephenville I pass by some limestone hills, the Brazos River, the Paluxy River, and many off the beaten path places.

I am in no hurry.

In normal times I would make it to a good BBQ or Taco stand around noon.  There are not normal times......

I pack a lunch.

I drive and photograph.  I stop no places with people.  I am socially distanced.
On my first of these day drives I took Ilford Delta 100 and Fujichrome Velvia.  After finishing the Delta 100 I went with a box of Ilford HP5+, a film I have never used before.  Over the course of three or four drives I finished up the Delta and one box of HP5+. 

Delta 100

Since I do not develop my own film and I cannot "read" a negative, I send off all my black and white film to DR5 Chrome.  They process black and white negative film into a positive chrome.  I get a an image that looks great on a light table and scans well.  The images you see here the ones they processed.

As a landscape photographer I am generally looking for natural landscapes.  That led me to a spot along the Brazos River and it led me to spots along the Paluxy River too.  I also was looking for trees.  Somehow that was something of a theme with these drives.  I know a few lone trees and I found a few more.  With the ranching country in the area I can occasionally find them among a field of grass.  In particular a good live oak out alone makes an interesting subject.  You see a few of them here.

Then there are also the old bridges, churches and ranches.  I occasionally make stops in places like that as they seem to make good monochrome subjects.

Each day I was out was a little different.  I had rain, cloudy, clear, windy, and a mix of the above.  I would have my morning location and then drive and look.  And look.  I drove some roads I know and also some roads I have never been on.  A side road here or there always looping back toward US 377.  Each day was different although I did visit a couple of places twice hoping for different light.

Here are a few images from the day.

HP5+

Bluffs Along the River

A favorite subject for me locally as a photographer are the rivers that run across North Texas.  The Red, Trinity and Brazos Rivers (plus their tributaries) give me some good natural areas to photograph.

This is a spot on a all but unknown little river that feeds into the Brazos.  I wade down the river to find locations to photograph.  I chase fall color here and I even photograph the Milky Way from here(although not with the 4x5).

On an clear winter morning, I left home in the dark and took both my large format kit as well as my Sony A7R.  I was hoping I might get a glimpse of the stars and moon to photograph with the high ISO capable digital and then as the light came up switch over to film for landscapes.

The pack was pretty heavy since I had my full 4x5 kit, a digital camera and two tripods.  I had my hip-waders on and had to make my way through a wooded area to reach the river.  Then wade down the river in the dark.  BTW, I never suggest people do things like this.  I know this river and with a rocky bed I have been to many times in the daylight I am comfortable wading it in the dark.  Water levels were low and only a couple of areas were more than knee deep.

Standing there in the water feeling the cold water pull past your legs in the dark while looking at the stars is something I call fun.

I only got in a few night images before darkness turned to blue hour and daylight.  I set up the 4x5 on a shallow ledge and went to work to get an image of the moon hanging over the river.

I had both Velvia 50 (color transparency film) as well as some Ilford Delta 100 (black and white negative film).  I was trying to shoot both films to gain more comfort with black and white.  I really think of myself as a much more natural color photographer.  However when Fuji announced the end of Quickloads I knew I would need to learn to load film holders, so I started using black and white to do some things differently.  I also loaded up a fridge with Quickloads.

As we sit here in 2020 I still have several boxes of them left.  On the other hand, the Efke 25 black and white film I had first taken too also got discontinued.  Now I am trying out Ilford and seeing if Delta 100 might become my new monochrome choice.


After photographing both a color and black and white shot, I moved up onto a dry ledge by the bluff and set up a second shot.  Again , I shot both films.

I have to send off my films to be processed.  Color E-6 goes to one lab and the black and white goes up to DR5 Chrome which sends me back a black and white chrome (positive).  I can then look at all my images on the light table.  I find it much easier and intuitive to work with positives rather than negatives.

Looking at them on the light table I like the river shot better in color and up on the ledge better in black and white.

As we get into summer I am thinking about going back and working this area again.  I have a new Rollei film to try and wonder what I might get here.

The Chisos from Desert Mountain Overlook

My most visited viewpoint in Big Bend is the Desert Mountain Overlook.  I stop here every day as this is the closest view to where I camp at Cottonwood.  It also has a several possible compositions in different directions.  It has a great view east to the Chisos that is good for sunrise as well as sunset.  Across the road are a couple of views west and south along the Rio Grande and the Sierra Ponce.  Those varied possibilities make it always a place worth checking out.  

It also has a good view of the entire sky.  Meaning when I leave the campground every morning, I always drive here in the dark.  With a clear view of the sky I can judge what the clouds are and use that to help me decide my morning location.

There are several great possibilities within a 15 minute drive so by stopping here I can judge the light and then pick the best of several possible locations.  Sometimes that means driving a little, other times it means staying put.

This was an afternoon and it was a chance to photograph clouds over the Chisos in the afternoon light.  Again, that afternoon light offers a view with the Chisos front lit.  Add in some big sky clouds and you have a great shot.

This is very different from the morning view here with the back lit peaks that truly earn the name "Ghost Mountains". 

With the clouds like they were I went with both color and b+w, figuring each might be good.  The color was ok, but honestly the wider view I was able to make with my DSLR at 17mm was better.  However the b+w image had something the digital did not.

Here is that shot on Efke 25 with DR-5 processing.

Tule Mountain

One of the unique mountains on the west side of Big Bend National Park is Tule Mountain. It is a solitary flat topped peak near the west entrance to the park at Maverick.  Geologists will tell you that it is related to the Burro Mesa which is just east of it and that faulting and blocking caused the space between the two to fall.

The result is a peak that stands alone and makes a great subject for the camera.

After spending the middle part of the day west of the national park along the river in Big Bend Ranch State Park, I stopped near Tule in the afternoon to try an image.

Being the afternoon and having another location for sunset, I decided to just do a black and white image of Tule.

The view is looking south, so I put on a polarizer to see if it would help the clouds pop slightly.  I also used the orange filter to see if that might help darken the sky a little.

Otherwise, it was simply metering and adjusting the exposure for the two filters.

Here is the result on Efke 25 with the DR-5 process for a b+w chrome.

I made two exposures to allow for a little safety in case I was off and then it was pack up and go for a sunset location.

Santa Elena Canyon

Santa Elena Canyon is my favorite location in Big Bend National Park.  It is a location I visit every trip.  If you follow my WildernessPhotographer blog you have seen many entries about this amazing location.

After witnessing a spectacular sunrise where I did not even try to use the 4x5, I set up my tripod and the Arca-Swiss and decided to work with black and white.

The amazing light show of the sunrise not only ended but the clouds were rapidly fleeing the sky.  Some shadows were still sliding across the canyon and I hoped that monochrome was the way to.

I worked on two compositions.

First thith the canon centered and then with the canyon left and the the bulk of the Mesa de Anguila as the main subject.

Luckily the few clouds were making just the right amount of shadow and light.  I worked with Efke 25 and then had it processed by DR-5.

These are the best two.

West Side of Canyonlands

I spent a day driving along the western side of the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park.  There are several neat views that are not the famous ones that most people go to.  I took the Arca-Swiss and set about making a few images of the various views.  


This one canyon jumped out at me as it was rather narrow with some fairly close buttes and edges to give the canyon some depth.  I found many of the other views to be so vast that without something in the sky it becomes hard to get a great image.

There was a few clouds in the sky but not enough to make it worthy of being a big sky image.  I decided that this would work without it.  I set it up to be a black and white and went with the Efke 25 knowing I would get DR-5 processing.


Black and White works well in the daytime and I thought there might be some nice textures through the canyon depths.


After making that one I decided that there was even some potential for color too, so I took a shot with Velvia 100F.  I was not sure if the shadows would go solid black but I wanted to get that great red of the sandstone.

Walking Along Park Avenue

Walking along Park Avenue.  After spending almost a week up in Canyonlands, I moved over to Arches National Park to work on some of the areas there.  A nice walk with some great rock formations is Park Avenue.  It is about a mile and the road passes by either end.  So if you are not wanting to walk two miles (one of which would be up hill), you can get someone to drop you off at the top , walk down to the bottom and get picked up.

I parked at the bottom and started walking up hill.  I was scouting for potential sunrise locations and also using the opportunity to make some black and white images.

I had not gone far when I saw this scene. 

I liked the sandstone monuments.  I also liked the rocky stretch this trail was on.  I thought they both might make good images.

First I set up with the longer view and the sandstone bluffs.  Went with the 210mm to make the image more the rock formation.

Once I had that one, I went wider for the sweep of the rock leading up Park Avenue.

The film of choice was Efke 25 that I would get processed at DR-5 into a B+W chrome.  Most folks who do black and white use film and make negatives.  I use a standard B+W film but through the DR-5 process you get a black and white positive.  I find them outstanding.  I can "read" a positive much easier than a negative and there is always the wow factor from any chrome on a light table.

This is one of those locations where there are image possibilities everywhere and even when looking at both of these shots, I still cannot decide which one I like more.  The only "more" I really know is I want more time out in locations like this.

See more images from Utah on my website galleries:

Utah Gallery