Fern Leaves

I'm not really much of a 'closeup' or 'macro' photographer. So I don't really have many tips on doing it right, but I do know this. Your depth of field is WAY shallower than what you are used to or expecting. Now that can be good or bad depending on what kind of composition you have in mind. A small aperture (f/22 or higher) is still going to give a pretty deep focus. For this photo of a fern on my patio, I wanted a shallow DOF and some good contrast to accentuate the texture of the leaves. If the DOF were too deep, then the texture of the leaves would get lost in the overall jumble of leaves not just of the fern itself, but also those in the background. I shot this at f/5.6 on my large format Speed Graphic, so I got a very shallow DOF. I probably could have gone with f/8 and still had a pleasing composition, but I'm glad I didn't. For contrast, I added a green filter to the lens. This had the effect of brightening up the green of the leaves and darkening the reddish brown stems.


Like I said, I shot this with my Graflex Speed Graphic. I set it up about 18 inches from the fern and extended the bellows about 3 inches past the infinity stops. I didn't measure the focal length I came up with. Focusing is always a bit of a challenge (my eyes are old), but my dark cloth and 10x loupe help a lot. This was shot on Kodak Tri-X 320 at iso 320. I exposed for 1/10th of a second as metered (no compensation for filter or bellows extension). I developed the film in Adox Adonal (Rodinal) diluted 1+50 for 15 minutes. I agitated the tank (Paterson tank with MOD54) initially for 30 sec and then 4 gentle inversions every minute. The grain came out quite fine given these conditions and that it was probably a few degrees warmer than the recommended temp of 20C. This is a credit to the latitude and tolerance of this film. I really love Tri-X. It is hard to mess it up.

Pushing Through

I have had this idea for a photo essay or series for a while. This photo is the first in the series. It is called Pushing Through I. The subjects of the series are plants that push through the holes and cracks in humanity's infrastructure. It is a metaphor for many things. A couple that come to my mind when I think about this photo are the persistence of life in general. There have been mass extinctions in the history of our planet, yet there is always some scrap of life that manages to survive. Recently, I saw a short film about the Nazi concentration camps and the genocide that happened there. Yet even in the face of that evil, horrific holocaust, there was a remnant of Jews who stayed alive, both in the camps and outside, hiding in attics and cellars. The life of an entire race squeezed through the cracks of hatred and violence. It is really about hope. I think I will work on this series with all of my cameras and see what sort of eclectic mix I can come up with. I hope you enjoy seeing it develop as much as I do.

Taken with Yashica Mat 124G on Lomography X-pro 200 film. Shot at 100 and developed in Unicolor C-41 chemistry using standard times and agitation.

Ortho Still Life

Nothing super exciting in this photo. It was taken with my 1951 Speed Graphic press camera. I used the Optar 135mm lens set at f/5.6 (note the shallow depth of field). The interesting thing about this photo is that the red parts of the apple on the right are very dark. This is what you would normally see with a green filter, however in this case I just used Kodak CSG (Clinic Select Green) x-ray film (see X-Ray Vision). This film is orthochromatic which means that it is 'blind' to certain parts of the visual spectrum. In the case of 'Green' x-ray film, it is more sensitive to green light and less to red light. There is also 'Blue' x-ray film which is more sensitive to blue and less sensitive to red (yes, red gets shafted in both cases). These sensitivities have to do with the intended use of x-ray film, which is to take x-rays (surprise!). The film holders have a fluorescent screen in them which fluoresces a certain color (blue or green) when the x-rays hit it. That shortens the exposure time and thus lowers the dose of x-rays the patient gets.

I took some portraits recently with both x-ray and panchromatic film just to see the difference with skin tones. I'll put those up as soon as I get them developed. Until then, drop a comment about how you are using x-ray film or 4x5 cameras or anything interesting you are doing in your photography.

Cheers!