"The sky is very important....it can make or break a montage image...."
Yes!, definitely.
One recent example is from a blog entry a month or so ago:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/Beachblog_DkRmXmas3_PowersThatBe.html
Another one that has stuck in my mind has been the image above:
'Stairway(to..?)'
The sky is at the top, the abandoned motel facade, in the middle..
and the final montage at the bottom.
From a darkroom printing point of view, this initially looks simple -
just two elements: the sky & landscape that fills most of the top half...
And the foreground(shadows & staircase).. that slowly disappear into the distance/sky.
But often times what looks simple isn't so simple.
I still find it a lot easier to blend images in the darkroom.
Besides the fact that I can do it so much faster than I can do anything on a computer, it's just waaaay smoother, and a whole lot more fun than 'point & click'.
I started by exposing the 'decrepit/crumbling motel facade' from the bottom, up,...
until i got a bit above the curb......
then i burned in the rest(above the curb) thru the 'oh-so-simple' hole
in a black piece of paper.
For the sky, I put a black strip into my 'below the lense filter holder'...
(see my 'darkroom methods' pages:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/DarkRm2/index.html)
...that blended the sky/landscape out to '0' a little before the curb.
Additionally, I held back the center of the sky, so that the motel(burned into the center) would show thru.
Indeed, it did, and blended w/ the sky in ways i could not have forseen.
I like being surprised, I don't have any great desire to control everything in the print.
It's a bit like life in general, these days - don't think you have a handle on too much -
in no time flat, you will find out that is an illusion.
Larger views of the above images, and a few more thoughts/comments at:
www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_Skies_Montage
