A Photographer's view

I recently photographed a company profile for APC. Most of the images were the 'regular' type without much excitement, but this is one I had some fun with. The employee is fabricating a custom trailer receiver. As a safety reminder, don't look directly at the arc, it can cause permanent vision loss.

I've been testing for an upcoming shoot. I need the highest resolution for large prints and decided to return to my film roots and shoot "large format" -- for the non photographers, this is with those antique looking cameras with accordian style bellows and the big sheets of film. I use the more common 4"x5" format, which yields very high resolution images capable of printing extremely high quality images over 60" long.

Here's a web-sized copy of my image from Sunday's shoot. The same Corvette shot at the same location, at the same time:

Here's an enlargement of the wheel. Check out the detail. This was a 40 megapixel scan. For true fine art work, I will be scanning at 240 megapixels. That's 6x the resolution of this image:

For comparison, here is a similar digital image. Notice the less rich colors lack of visual impact:

 Here are my test images from today's Corvette practice shoot. It was extremely windy, so I was limited in my lighting selection. I had originally planned to use foamcore to reflect the sunlight onto the shadowed side of the car, but that wasn't possible with the 30mph winds on the top of that parking garage. So, I decided to use my strobes and add some fill. Two sitting on the ground, just out of camera range. They're set to 1/4 for these shots, so when I made images on Velvia with my 4x5, I just had to turn them up two stops and drop the shutter speed two stops. 

I don't normally include test images in my blog, but this was something you may find interesting. As you all know, I have a luxury/exotic shoot coming up in a few weeks and won't have the ability to bring big lights to the shoot. I want to get some images on my 4x5, so have painted myself into a bit of a corner. Large format film requires lots of light. Especially when shooting slow film emulsions, such as my Fujichrome Velvia preference.  So, I need to do a bit of  testing and double testing with digital. Here was my first attempt to 'paint with light' using an SB24. I shot at 1.8 power, keeping the flash ~4 feet from the automobile. I overlapped the flashes by shooting roughly 3 under the bumper, 3 at the grille, 6 on the hood, 2 on the roof, two behind the car to light the far edge, 6 down the lower side of the car, 4 across the windows of the car, 1 on the a-pillar, and another flash on the near corner.  ISO 200, f/11.  This will translate to full power flash pops @ f/16 on the large format ISO 50.

This week, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Dr. Kevin Fitzsimmons of the University of Arizona. He is working on a fish farming research project. The basics of the project are that we can farm fish in the desert with pre-irrigation water, then the effluent runs into the fields and fertilizes the crops. Their test controls were very impressive, and I walked out of there wondering why every famer doesn't start doing this. Find the full article next week at azbiz.com

Also of note, is that this contact sheet is how I submit my images to the paper. They respond with which ones they plan to publish, and I send the full-res copies with proper exif information to the art department. It's kind of cool... and easy... for me to go ahead and post the contact sheet here to give you a good idea of what I was able to get on the assignment.  As a paper assignemnt, I'm sure you realize the tight deadlines and lack of preparation that takes place. I have great respect for the best photojournalists that create artful and documenting images. It's very difficult to do this consistently.  Images like these will never make it to my portfolio, but they are an example of what I can do under the circumstances.