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September 09, 2017

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Exposing/Composing for Landscape

Despite all the celluloid and digital records I've made of Zion National Park since 1980, I’ve never had a moment where I could say that’s a keeper. I believe that is because all attempts to replicate fail on so many levels compared to Zion's contextual impact on just being there. For me there’s little point in pulling out a print to look at Watchman, the Narrows, or Angels’ Landing when the real thing is a short drive away. But that doesn’t stop me from photographing it. I've shot 5x7, 2x2, 6x4.5, 35mm and many digital formats, leaving my work wanting until I realized that photographing Zion was not a product of my camera, it was a product of my eye and how I see into contrast. The depth of the canyon, up to three thousand feet (over 900 meters), and its north-south orientation make exposures within the canyon that include any kind of vista or sky difficult because of the exposure range. Cloudy mid-day skies help even contrast, diminish shadow inten...

Slumming with an iPhone

Having a steady diet of medium format cameras from Hasselblad to Mamiya, shooting anything less felt like I wasn't taking the craft seriously. Shooting in 35mm I felt compensated a bit with the heft of a pair of Nikon F3s and an array of fixed focal length lenses. Neither format suited well the glove box or tank bag. They seem to prefer (or how I justified it given the investment) Pelican cases and Magliners to get there. But as the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. An imaging generation ago that meant an Olympus XA, the size and shape of a two-week old bar of Irish Spring that shot 35mm loads with a 2.8 aperture and 35mm focal length. Images were incredibly sharp with Zuiko ground glass in arguably the smallest full-frame 35mm camera ever made. Today the XA's only drawbacks are you can't text nor can you pay for your Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte with it. Okay, and you can't upload your Camera+ app-enhanced pics to Facebook either. ...

Exposure

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