Vallée is one of my family name, my father's. Lately, he has been ill and was operated in early 2011. Despite a few anxieties, everything went well, and I am glad he's back to normal.
Still, I would lie if I said it did not affect me.
So I decided that the long Easter weekend would be an occasion for me to spend time with my dad doing what we both love: photography. He's been photographing since the 60s, way before I was born, and he's had a darkroom at home ever since.
That's where I learned how to process films and paper, back in the days where "analog photography" was still just "photography."
Being limited to Medium Format, my dad has always eyed LF for the movements, the larger negatives, and perhaps the Ansel Adams cred. I solved his depth of field envy with a wideangle lens (58mm on a 6x7 Rapid-Omega) a while ago, but I think there was still some itch with LF.
Rental provided me with a Horseman 8x10 monorail, a lens, a badass Manfrotto tripod, and five double dark slides. I got myself some film from an online vendor, and my father's darkroom would take care of the rest. The camera case took the entire trunk of the car.
My girlfriend and I arrived at my parents' on Friday afternoon, around 3. I unpacked the gear, made a quick LF 101 lesson to my dad (I had the previous evening to figure out the beast's quirks), and we left the ladies chatting while we went for the last remaining hours of daylight across the countryside.
I already had this first shot in mind. It's a tiny valley in the middle of a cow pasture, maybe the height of a two storey building. We had to cross the road, the deep ditch on its side, then go under the wire fence, walk half a mile in mud, me with the camera, my dad with the tripod, until we found our vantage point. Let me tell you that there's a reason why they invented "field" cameras: so that you can setup in a field without worrying constantly about where to lay the camera aside for a moment while you place the tripod!
I had found the spot, but my dad got the framing, so I consider this photo to be a little more his than mine, by a hair. Between our departure from the house and the first shutter click, it took a whole hour of lugging, walking, setting up, composing, metering, darksliding out, exposing, darksliding in, and making a second one for safety.
Demanding, but we had never felt so sure of our shot. There was no "maybe another one a little more to the left...". No. This was it, and it was that! The composition, the angle of light, the shadows, even the Zone of the snow in the shade, because of the orange filter! All of that was into place and at the moment of pressing the shutter, all was said and done. I had never felt so complete, taking a photo.
We did a few more that day (see the next ones in the gallery) until the very last second of daylight, when the sun set behind the hills. The day after, rain carried away all remaining patches of snow, and we took a break. Two days later, we finished the box of 25 sheets with some portraits, a still life, and then on to processing. We had the time to process everything and make RC proofs.
I left about half of the negatives to my father (security shots are useful!) and kept the others, such as this one. Back home, I ordered some Lodima G2 from Michael Smith, and setup my contact printing frame. My halogen light, bereft from its UV filter, gave me exposures around 15 seconds, as quick as enlarging paper! Then I processed in Ansco 130, stop, and Kodak plain hypo fixer (sodium thiosulfate). I toned the prints very lightly in Kodak Rapid Selenium toner, just to remove the olive cast. I don't find Lodima fully toned to be very interesting, so I stuck to a neutral chocolate tone.
Obviously, you can't see the tone here since it's a crappy grayscale scan.
I think some of my shots could have benefitted from G3, so I'll have to find some.
I sent some prints to my dad this weekend, so he could have his own silver chloride contact prints from an 8x10 negative, all made by hand over the course of a single holiday. When we parted, I joked that he completed successfully his LF workshop, but I thought likewise too. Shooting LF is really an activity well suited to working as a team. The weight, size, and amount of things to look for render two pairs of hand, and two sets of eyes a useful thing.
What's more, when I look at those picture, I really see the work my dad and I did together, without a particular concern on who exactly did what. We're two Vallée intertwined in the picture of a third.
