Stargazer

I have taken a couple series of photos of this sculpture that is nearby where I work. It is called Stargazer and it is outside the San Diego Technical Institute kind of tucked away off of any main roads where anyone might see it. I used my 1939 Voigtländer Bessa 6x9 camera and shot mostly abstract views of the sculpture. It is quite large and completely accessible, so I can walk around and under it to get different views and angles. Some of the photos are here.



This one was taken mid-day with a bright blue sky in the background. I tried not to get any land features in the frame that would distract from the composition. This also deprives the viewer of any sense of scale. I know what the sculpture looks like, so I know that it is about 35 feet tall and bright red, but that is all lost in the b/w photos. I took these on Acros 100 and developed them in Caffenol-CL. I did stand development, so the grain is exceedingly fine. I was shooting at f/8, but given the size of the subject and the size of the film, the depth of field is shallow-ish which lends more to the loss of scale.

After I looked at the b/w images for a while, I wanted to get some with the vibrance of the colors and contrast between the sculpture and the sky. Velvia RVP50 seemed the right choice. Everything lit by the sun looks amazing on Velvia 50. The scan obviously does not do the film justice, but you get the idea. Drop by my Flickr page and take a look at the complete set (more color images to come including one of the entire sculpture).



Thanks for stopping by.