Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Need to photograph

Do you feel too the absolute need to photograph things? Just to hear the shutter go off and know that you have an image in the roll of film?

I do.  Not just occasionally.  Often.

This shot was part of a "challenge" in the Rangefinderforum some time ago.  It was the month of February, and we were supposed to find "Shadows" around us.  Shadows?  In February?  I found them, and photographed them with one of my M6TTL bodies and my Hexanon 35mm.  Of course, the end result is a crop; from what I recall, the frame was quite larger.  And the film was the nice Kodak chromogenic BW400CN... or was other type?

One of my early rolls of Scala yielded this image of one of my neighbors's street lamp.  Since I was mortally afraid of pushing it, I had to contend with the ISO 200 rating of the film and shot this image in the bitter cold of December, early in the evening, with one M6TTL and a Summicron 50mm.



This image is something I like coming back to ever since I photographed it first in Ilford SFX and my M6TTL with the trusty Hexanon.  Once in B&W, I needed it in color.  Once in color, I needed it under a different light.  I've been shooting the same image for so long that I could make a history of that corner at this point.  This version was shot in Velvia, shortly after a snowstorm, probably in 2005.  Scanning it was a pain, because I couldn't help getting those blue tones on the snow.  However, after examining the slide... yes, those corners ARE blue in the original slide.

Is it normal to have the compulsion of taking a photo just because?  Probably not, but then, who would object to it when it does give you nice shots more often than not?


2 comments:

taffer said...

Ahh the shadows project... I remember it very well :) Seems that eons have passed by and in the end it's not that far away...
Nice shots ! And nice read about how sometimes you keep getting back to a scene until you finally know what you want to get from it. And sometimes nature is kind enough to let you have it !

Francisco Solares-Larrave said...

Somewhere in a computer I have a shot for another project: the famous RED. Remember that one? Thanks for posting!