Spring Sky

Spring time in Texas means four things: Wind, Bluebonnets, Thunderstorms, and Tornados. Luckily the last one is still the rarest.  Now for the photographer it also usually means clouds. 

Last spring, I went out with a pack full of gear to a local park to see what kind of flowers I might find.  It was past bluebonnet season but I still had hopes for some.  What I was really treated to was some great clouds moving across the sky at sunrise.

So I shifted gears from flowers to clouds and set up this image. of the hills in the park with the great morning light.  In the early soft light I photographed the softer colors of the sky, the moon, and a trail running through the park.  After a couple of images and the light warmed up, I switched over to a black and white shot to capture the scene in monochrome.

The different look each one has is great although I like them both at the the same time.  One of the things I do notice on looking at the results is the wonderful colors and glow that Velvia has.  There is always colors in the early mooring and classic Velvia 50 always impresses me.

I miss that film.

Urban Wilds

Finding landscape images in town can be a challenge.  The urban setting most people live in keeps getting bigger and finding nature and specifically nature you can photograph and just get the nature part of is tougher.  Luckily it is still there if you know where to look.  

I know of several good local parks where I have found views and scenes that lack the trapping of modern society and I can just photograph nature.  Here is one of my locations in Trinity Park.  Right across the river from downtown Fort Worth is a great urban park that follows the river for a ways.  Much of the park is set up for the "modern" visitor with playgrounds and picnic tables, but there is also some areas where the tress grow thick and small streams run through them.

Here is a view that is right off of the bike path where it crosses one of those small streams.  It is a great view and I set it up specifically to photograph the creek in black and white.

Taken with the 75mm lens and Efke 25 processed in DR-5.

West Fork Falls

Another view of the falls on the West Fork.  After taking the image in the last post I got in closer for more of a profile view of the falls.  I really wanted to compress the scene as best I could so I went with a bonus lens I have-the old Bausch and Lomb Rapid Rectilinear. 

This is 80+ years old that a buddy found and gave me.  The shutter only partially works.  It will not stop down, so you have to shoot wide open.  The speeds are inaccurate at best, but if you need a 2 second or four second exposure, those are easy to do by just counting. It is also a convertible lens, meaning I can remove one element to double the focal length.

So with on element removed this is about a 300mm lens which makes it my longest.  Now when I go this long that means I also have to have my extra rail and my standard sized bellows as my normal rail and the bag bellows I normally use are too short for this.

With the right set up I am able to bring in my view of the falls to make the water a center piece of my image and not just a small element.

The sky is overcast and I have no problem making it a long exposure to get it right.


One morning and two images/compositions in about 15 minutes.  You know in large format, that is a pretty good day!

Great Falls of the West Fork

The Great Falls of the West Fork of the Trinity River are a little visited spot in Fort Worth.  Hidden under steep bluff in an old park one can find this fantastic 10 foot river spanning waterfall.

It has been one of my favorite places to photograph over the last year.  This was a late winter day when the clouds were thick and I was not even sure if there would be a sunrise.  It seemed like a good day to take out the 4x5 and shoot some film.  

I arrived onsite early in the morning and started picking out a spot for the camera.  I framed up an image with the 210mm lens for a slightly longer than normal view.  Put on my 2 stop grad ND filter to allow for the sky.  Took a meter reading.  It would be a long shot, factor in reciprocity and it was roughly a minute in the dim light.

Decided to go with color and grabbed some Velvia 100F.

Made the image.

Then did a longer exposure with Efke 25 B+W film.

Several weeks went by until the the film was processed.  After looking at them both, I decided the color version, as muted as it was, made the better image.

Open Range-Tarrant County

The open range of Tarrant County. Not too far outside the city limits but still in Tarrant County one can find ranches, creeks, and a landscape much like a hundred years ago.

I have been driving the roads west of town a lot this summer and have made several stops at this location on the side of the road.

I like the open range view.

Here is the setup one clear morning-actually the same morning we missed the eclipse.

To see what the best image of this area looked like check out my WildernessPhotographer travels blog linked to the right.

Too Late

A few weeks ago there was a lunar eclipse. I had marked the time as being right around sunrise and I decided to meet several friends with the hope of photographing it.

We had a suitable location planned with a great clear western view where we hoped the eclipsed moon would be close to the horizon.

That Saturday dawned mostly clear and we thought we were in for a treat. We arrived at our location early enough but only saw the moon sinking into a cloud on the horizon.

Drat. We missed it.

Well never one to let that spoil a morning we stayed until sunrise and managed to make a few images of the dawn. Here is one with rolling hills and grasslands. It was not the preplanned image but still turned out to be a nice little morning. So I guess being too late sometimes aint so bad.

Downtown at Sunrise

Downtown Fort Worth and the Trinity River as seen from the Lancaster Street bridge.

On a day that looked like the making for a nice morning sunrise I grabbed the 4x5 and headed to Trinity Park. Walked up the bridge onto Lancaster. Then proceeded to set up with a view of the river and downtown.

Started with a 210mm but then dug out the old RR and tried it at both 160 and 320 settings. I am amazed that this old lens not only covers the 4x5 but is also not near as bad as I feared it might be. I was wondering if it would only be good for black and white but it surprises with color.

Swift

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.

Hitting the Bricks

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.

Stockyards

Here is the Arca set up photographing an old building in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards.

Something about the quality of the Stockyards that really wants to be photographed with a view camera.

Sure you can make more images snapping away with your DSLR but going slow and contemplating is good. Some numbers. I was here on Saturday with DSLR and took 250 images. I went back Sunday with the Arca and took 7. That's right-seven.

I have walked past this particular building without giving it much thought. Today it was my subject. I spent over two hours with this one building and made seven different images.

It is just a whole different way of working.

Finding Art

Finding art. Where is it? As a photographer we chase it. We try to make it. We seek vision.

Back in the warmer months I went looking for art at a place of art. The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth is a fantastic place. It hosts some wonderful exhibits by many of the masters. It in itself is also a masterpiece designed by Louis Kahn.

I enjoy walking around and through this building as much as the art. The design is just wonderful. It is peaceful and graceful. It is inviting.

It is a great subject to photograph.

Here is early one morning with the steps, an arch and my camera seeking art.

Christmas in Downtown

The Christmas season as seen on Main Street in Fort Worth. Here is Main Street with a view toward the courthouse. The lights of the city Christmas Tree shine in the ground glass.

Seasons Greetings!

The Low Trestle

At the location I often photograph the train trestles is a spot where the floodplain of the Trinity River is rather broad. As such the rail lines have extended low bridges that run across the floodplain. Here you can see two. Different styles from probably different eras of rail development.

From a photograph perspective it was a great place for the view camera. With the rail line running away from me I was able to use a small swing movement to put the whole trestle in focus instead of just the part close to me.

That selective focus is a neat feature. I can use it to pus everything in focus or I could use to put only a sliver of the image in focus. A simple yet powerful tool. Good reason to keep one of these cameras around.

The Green Banks of the Trinity

The green banks of the trinity River near downtown Fort Worth.

I wish I could be out west everyday, but on weeks when I cannot, I find locations around the area that I can make a decent image. This is in the aptly named Trinity Park that runs along the river near downtown.

I like the greens of late spring and the slow flow of the river.

I also like to photograph the city because of all the change. We seem to be a constant stage of growth and one day I'll look back and think how quaint it was back in 2008.

Trestle at Night

An old train trestle on the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth by night.

I had hopes of catching a great sunrise with the trestle and downtown but it was not to be. However as I was working on a star trail image I was able to get this image. The light on the camera is creative use of my trusty headlamp.

Downtown on the River

Here is downtown Fort Worth from along the Trinity River.

The two branches of the Trinity River meet right by downtown Fort Worth. The Clear Fork comes in from the southwest and the West Fork (pictured here) comes in from the northwest and they meet right at the bluff that Fort Worth was built on.

This view is about a half a mile up the West Fork from the bluff on a morning of cool blue light in the sky.

Early twilight on the Trinity River. I was out walking on the ledges of the river on a summer morning listening to the river running over the rocks.

As the first early light started to creep into the sky I started a long exposure to capture the hint of color and motion of the water.

The light levels were low and I think I went with a two minute exposure.

Fort Worth Dawn

Dawn along the Trinity Trail near downtown Fort Worth.

Cowtown has a nice downtown and a nicer systems of trails that follow the Trinity River for miles in several directions. A true urban greenbelt.

This view is of a small pond near the river and downtown. The large foreground building is the headquarters of Pier 1. The other buildings rise beyond.

This is a nice place to be in the early morning when the lights of the city and the twilight in the sky fill the scene with color. The reflections in the pond only make it better.

As a photographer it is also a nice place to have the front rise capability of the view camera to keep perspective and distortion under control.

Power Towers

Normally I prefer to photograph out in the lonesome landscapes of west Texas. When I am back in town I look still look to get out and photograph. I have found many "small" landscapes that you would not expect in a city environment.

On occasion I go beyond the landscape and photograph buildings or other objects of interest.

The big metal electric transmission towers have drawn my interest several times. On this morning the lights of the city were lighting up the fast moving, low hanging clouds. I thought the geometry of the towers and the color in the sky made a nice image.

It was not like being out at El Capitan but it was sure alot closer to some good Tex-Mex for breakfast.

Texas Tea

The oil patch is alive and well in the Lone Star State. Record prices for energy and new drilling techniques are allowing drilling even in town.

This rig is one of tens of dozens working around Fort Worth these days. The bonanza is natural gas (but Texas Tea sounded better as a title) in the Barnett shale. There is as much drilling going on here as anywhere.

I was out early one morning to photograph this rig and some old railroad trestles. Since it was dark and the rig was all lit up I went for that as a way to start the morning. The fast moving clouds only added to the image.