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+

Santa Elena in Black and White

Here is a third posting from my mornings at Santa Elena Canyon.  This is one in monochrome from the overlook.  I finally was able to get my film processed.  This image was done on Efke 25 black and white film that was processed by DR-5 into a black and white chrome.


There is nothing quite like a chrome and a black and white chrome is also something special.  Getting a box of processed images is a bit like being a kid again.


You can compare the color version from the same location from my 5/10 posting.

Red Rock Country

Arches National Park.  Blue sky.  Some feathery clouds.  Bright red sandstone.

Let's go black and white.  Yes, black and white.  In the mid day light I was not sure how the colors would work out on Velvia, but thought the black and white could work and work well.

I had my trusty Efke 25loaded and ready to go.  I saw this scene and thought it had potential.

I framed up the red cliffs with the Fujinon 125mm so I could fill most of the frame with the rocks.  Used rise to keep the perspective right.

It looked good on the ground glass and I used one sheet.  This was it.  I got the exposure pretty good and it looked great on the light table.  I did not know it when I took it but it was a good shot.

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

Caprock Canyons

I was out at Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas panhandle on a cloudy, rainy day. What great conditions for black and white!

Actually this whole summer has been a black and white event for me with my b+w to color film ratio about 8:1. It has allowed me to do much more daytime photography where my color work is always around the edge of the day. That makes it ideal for the long days of summer.

I am looking forward to fall and some fall color, which will tilt me back toward color and then winter may see me shift again to more black and white.

A New Beginning

I did something this month I thought was almost unthinkable a few months back......I learned to load a traditional film holder.

I have used nothing but Fuji Quickloads since I started in large format photography. A Quickload holder and a couple boxes of Velvia Quickloads were all I needed or ever wanted. When I heard earlier this year of the demise of Quickloads, I was numb from loss. After going through sadness and anger I gave fate a chance. A friend loaned me a conventional holder and I got a 10 sheet box of Acros to practice with. I loaded up two sheets and went out and shot them. Then two more. Then two more. Until finally the box was gone. It takes a while to even use a box of 10 sheets when you only have one holder. After using them all, I had thee sheets processed. I was not sure what to expect and was quite pleased when they were all decent. Hey- I did it and did not ruin the film!

It was not so bad after all.

So I went and bought a few holders of my own. On top of that I decided to try something else new too. I have enough Velvia Quickloads in the fridge to last me many months so I decided to use B+W film in the conventional holders. Why not start something new with this new skill?

I ordered 100 sheets of Efke 25 and am ready to start down a new path in large format. It is exciting and very much a new beginning to be out chasing the B+W landscape (on top of still chasing the grand landscape in color).

The image here is from one of those days with just one holder. I was out at the Great Falls of the Clear Fork of the Trinity and made a total of two images (with one holder, thats all you get!). This is the set up for one of them.

On the Lost Mesa

Photographing on the Lost Mesa of southern New Mexico, while watching the shadows stretch across the landscape at sunset.

This is one of those locations that is so hard to do justice in a photograph. Rolling grasslands cannot really be captured well in any single image. These solitary mountains popping out of the open range are scenic and have fascinated me for years but on a clear day like this are still difficult to photograph.

I made this image in black and white since that is how I was picturing this scene working best. I might even make it into a panoramic and just leave in the mountains and the thin line of clouds.

W.W.A.D.

W.W.A.D. What Would Ansel Do?

It is a beautiful September morning in Colorado. The sky is blue. The clouds go from orange to pink to white. The aspen are yellow, green, or even reddish. Colors are everywhere. Bright, bold, vivid colors. It is autumn after all and colors abound. Everything about the setting screams color. I naturally reach for a box of Velvia with color like this.

But what would Ansel do if he were here? Well, Ansel being Ansel, he would probably still take a black and white negative and come away with a print that was so sharp, deep, and glowing, that it would make you want to give up trying to ever make an image here yourself.

I like black and white images, but I am really a color photographer. I sometimes dabble in monochrome but my work and images are mainly color. Still I often take some black and white film with me on a trip-just in case. However, Colorado in autumn is not one of those trips that jump to mind for it, so I did not bring any.

So as I pondered what Ansel would do with a scene like this I flipped a switch on the digital camera to B+W and took a couple of quick images and surprise! They looked pretty good. So while, I did not have black and white film to use in the 4x5, I had "black and white" pixels I could use in a little digital camera. So I made a few images with the thought of working these into monochrome.

When I got back home to my computer I tried working with a few images and did a little Photoshopping out the color. I liked what I saw. I found that monochrome can make a great "fall image". Actually, the wonders of modern computer programming allow you to do a lot of neat things with images that would take ages in the darkroom to learn. I am able to take an image to monochrome and tweak it with a lot of darkroom like techniques and get a very respectable black and white, or sepia, or other type of traditional look.

As I worked with this image, I was quite pleased with the qualities I was able to find in the monochrome world. The quality of the sky, the definition in the peaks, the glow of the aspens. It was all there. It was autumn in black and white.

Maybe that is exactly what Ansel would have done.