I'm just back from holidaying, with a neat collection of images pile in with the bills and junk fliers in my mail stack to review and comment on:
CCross- Watercourse – Neat use of a paper negative, and its slow speed characteristics. If you were in my part of Canada I know what you mean by a break in the spring rains; they really went on this year. I enjoy the bare hint of the paper negative margins in your contact print positive, and how you have chosen to tear the edges of the paper.
DaveMartiny – ‘Converging Big O’ = Mike Wilde’s title for this image. Or, as Buzz Lightyear would have said: ‘To infinity and beyond’. A nice low key image with lots of shadow detail, and enough with no detail to keep things interesting. The printing style with the thin white border aids in framing the image well.
George Nova Scotia – Cold Steel- An apt title for sure. There is a nice balance of content in the frame. There is a full tonal range from textureless white to fully black shadows in the print. I might like to see what a bit of texture in the snow would have looked like. A lower grade of contrast when printing might help that way, but I don’t know if doing so would have gutted the depth of black in the shadows.
HPulley – a bit young for coffee- a neat title for the image. I recall the scene well, for I think I was standing beside you when you took it. I was focusing on capturing the keen reader at the right edge of your image. The contrast is a bit strong for my tastes; it could just be the Ektar. I might have developed a bit less to ‘pull’ this scene, since it had plenty of contrast, and I think of Ektar as a contrasty slide film on the inside but wearing negative clothes kind of film. That or flash the print a bit to wind down the foreground brightness, but I know that is a pain to do with a lot of prints to crank out for one of these exchanges.
MattKing – Life Rafts - I enjoy the repeating pattern of the rafts on their overhead storage rails framing in the deck area, as well as the shadow cast by the railing. You have timed the shot well; the person standing is not caught in any shadow. The inclusion of people gives a nice sense of scale and draws your eye in. I appreciate the effort taken to tone this image, but don’t really see how it has helped in building density in any strong shadows.
Rst – Patio Torches – It is nice to pair the image with your description of the scene as ‘still sleeping Heidelberg’. The shallow DOF, throwing the background softly out of focus, combined with the smooth even morning light illuminating the scene works very well. The gentle warming of the print tone also suits the image, as does the matt paper finish.
