Saturday, February 23, 2008

Darkroom binge - #४ of 5



Into Shadows


This turned out to be the 'pleasant surprise'(and real 'zinger'!) of the entire 4 day session.
Neither of the negs had caught my eye during previous times i'd sifted through proof sheets, but they did just that while I was looking for something else doing the previous prints.

I've always loved the *loooong* shadows there are in the desert at the ends of the day - that's why I took the frame of the empty landscape with the strong diagonal shadows.
I exposed this over the entire image area, but progressively held back the center - if I were to develop just that, the sides, top & bottom would be 100%, gradually lightening to about 30-15% in the middle.
I chose the dilapidated building to burn into the center ( yes, I reversed/flopped it) because it was the opposite of the desert space, in some ways ( but it was also very 'complimentary' in a weird way) - it was vertical, the space was horizontal, but there were strong shadows in both that connected, somehow. Positioning and composing was very important in this one - both the shadows, windows & door - but also the way the window frame at the right disappears with the cloud above it - smooth as silk.

Both negs were on the same roll, made in the Mojave preserve somewhere, with a Pentax 6x7, 55mm lense, w/ yellow filter.

For larger views of the montage, and contributing frames go to:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/Beachblog_DkRmXmas/4_IntoShadows.html