Alan Brock
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 p.1 #1 · Zion National Park (4x5) | |
Congratulations to Alan Brock for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 7 votes - View Previous Winners
I recently returned from a fall trip to Zion National Park. It was my second time visiting this park, and my first time using only 4x5. The night before, as I was packing my gear, my wife said, " Are you sure you don't want to take the digital camera?" Gotta love the vote of confidence! However, I will admit I was a bit nervous leaving all digital gear (except a GoPro and iPhone) behind. I've been shooting landscapes exclusively on 4x5 for almost 8 months now, but all the locations have been within a few hours of my house. If I messed up, I could easily reshoot. Zion is nearly 2000 miles away, and I had quite a bit of money in plane tickets and a hotel room. Yikes!
However, there were almost no bad surprises when the film returned...and what an AMAZING trip it was! I met a few other large format photographers while I was there and it was nice to chat with them. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire 9 days. I spent most of my time in the Narrows as my sole goal for the trip was one good shot from there. I believe I accomplished my goal. I hope you enjoy the images!
Image 1: 90mm, f/45, 2:30 Fuji Velvia 50, polarizer. One of my favorites from the trip. I initially thought I had severely underexposed this image and was pleasantly surprised when I got the film back. My tripod is sitting in about 2.5 feet of water, and I was even deeper. It was here I discovered my dry pants had a hole just above the knee...
Image 2: 180mm, f/45, 3:32 Fuji Velvia 50, polarizer.
Image 3: 90mm, f/45, 5:30 Kodak Ektar 100, polarizer. Just your normal Subway shot, but I wasn't going to hike all that way with all that gear and not show anything. Also, on the way there at Archangel Falls, there was an 8X10, 2 4x5's, and a RED Dragon. I'm fairly confident that combination of cameras will never be seen again! Shooting Subway itself was an interesting experience as we really had to talk someone out of throwing THREE trash bags full of leaves in the water! Thankfully, he held off...
Image 4: 90mm, f/45, 3:32 Kodak Ektar 100, polarizer. This image almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown. The first day I shot it, I unknowingly had a cracked dark slide. The edge of the slide caught the film as I was reinserting it, and the film popped out. I always shoot doubles, but I really didn't want to count on a single exposure. I returned the next day and reshot. However, as I was breaking down my camera, I rechecked my composition and noticed the ENTIRE image on the ground glass was blurry! What if all my shots for the entire trip were like that?! Some serious anxiety set in. I returned a 3rd day 2 hours before the light, composed, and quadruple checked my focus. Everything looked good and I made my shots. As I rechecked the composition, I exhaled under the dark cloth and fogged my ground glass...causing everything to be blurry. I felt like an idiot for all the worry I had the day before! Finally, I'm amazed at how many people see a tripod, set up right beside it, and shoot...even when the light is not good yet. No less than 5 people did this as I was over to the side waiting for the glow.
Image 5: 90mm, f/45, 14:00, Fuji Velvia 50, polarizer. This was kind of an experiment just to see what Velvia would look like after a 14 minute exposure. When I tripped the shutter, I stood by my camera for about 5 minutes, but got bored and hiked upstream a bit. As I was returning it occurred to me that I had no idea where my dark slide was. I closed the shutter and looked frantically around for it...only to realize that I had never pulled it in the first place. Nearly a quarter of an hour exposure with the dark slide still in place. Yup. I of course reshot.
EDIT: Replaced #3. Finally got rid of a blue/cyan color cast.
Edited on Nov 21, 2014 at 04:11 PM · View previous versions
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you got my vote.