Sun and Snow

In fairer seasons those perfect cloudless days can do as much to elevate my disposition as the next person. If such a day also so happens to be free from work obligations it might be the perfect time to do a bit of token work around the house followed by some less demanding social/recreational activity. Whatever that activity might consist of it probably won't involve throwing a tripod and bag of camera gear into the car and heading wherever fancy takes me. Those sojourns are usually reserved for days that promise more mood, more drama than harsh sun and empty skies are likely to deliver. A thunderstorm wouldn't be out of the question if I could keep the kit dry. I've avoided shooting in direct sun so much at times I wonder if I've undergone the photographic equivalent of going Goth.

That's the way of things over the past couple of years at any rate. In earlier times, not long after I had really started getting a handle on black and white and darkroom printing, it was more about detail and texture. My images tended to be more abstract and I printed them with a mind to achieving a full tonal range from near paper white to the deepest black that could be achieved. Back then skies didn't figure quite so prominently in what I was shooting and full sun just meant going out early or late enough to get some dramatic side lighting.

I haven't abandoned that approach really. It's just for the past couple of years I've been inspired by different things. Lately though it seems some of that old inspiration has been making a re-appearance and I think it's due in large part to snow.

I couldn't tell you the year this was taken other than it was sometime in the early to mid 90's, but somehow I recall the date was March 7th. It's a good example of the kind of work I was doing back then, both in the field and in the darkroom. I'll be a happy fellow once I feel I have back the kind of darkroom chops I had in those days. (Camera: Arca Swiss F line 4x5, Lens: 210mm f/5.6 Schneider Symmar-S, Film: Probaby T-Max 100 but don't quote me on that, Paper: Ilford MG-IV FB.)

Snow makes itself into new objects, creating forms of its own. It blankets the messy ground with a clean white canvas, ready to be painted with shadow, isolating objects that break above its surface. It can be specular, translucent or take on multiple textures. So many of its more photogenic aspects however require sun. Without it snow is often just a bland featureless cover hiding the landscape beneath.

 So it is that through the course of this particularly snow graced winter that the sun has again started to factor into my photography as more than just a source of dramatic back light for moody clouds. I've started to work with once more, even anticipate it.

At least that's how it's been to this point. We've moved on into March now. Last week temperatures got above freezing for the first time I think since December and since then has been wandering even higher above that mark with increasing regularity since. Winter may yet have an encore or two in store but it won't be long before snow cover is cleared out in a spring liquidation and I'm trading in my Kodiak boots for a pair of wellies. Bountiful as this winter has been photographically part of me is all too ready to get on with it. (And I must confess, it's the greater part.) Whether this rekindled working relationship with the sun in all of its unveiled glory continues when this happens, well... we'll just have to see.

This section of what is collectively known as Niagara Falls is one of only several hundred waterfalls across the planet to go by the name "Bridal Veil Falls". It baffles me how often it's failed to occur to anyone that as virtually any waterfall resembles a bride's veil that this isn't a particularly distinctive moniker. 

The out flow from the now defunct Canadian Niagara Power generating station. The water keeps flowing for free and the generators are still sitting there doing nothing - seems like a waste not to turn them on just because they're old.

I didn't notice until I decided to touch up a few dust spots the big blob of lens flare sitting in the branches towards the upper left like a big icy coconut that had somehow just grown there. 

Budget Time Travel: A Photographer's Guide

The surface of Lake Erie, February 2015. Perhaps if one were to visit this exact spot in another two million years or so it would look quite similar, with sand and rock standing in for the snow and ice seen here.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time you'll know I belong to that large group of photographers for whom location and subject are usually one and the same thing. In order to have some measure of variety in our work travel is a virtual requirement, though for myself and others with similar restrictions on time and finances this need not involve a globe trotting lifestyle.

As I was in the midst of shooting the images featured in today's episode, my mind as usual wandering a different landscape than my body, it occurred to me a photographer could bring similar variety to their portfolios if we could travel in time rather than space, zooming into the future and watching the landscape change around them. Seasons would pass before our hypothetical photographer's eyes, bringing a lifetime worth of change in only minutes. They might grab a few shots as whatever apocalypse eventually befalls us all passes by in time lapse quick time then watch as the forces of climate and geology transform the landscape, perhaps turning a sea-side vista into a desert.

White on white subject matter in not particularly contrasty light made for some pretty flat looking negatives. On the light table the last negative taken on a previous day on the left and the shot taken just previously to the above image above on the right, side by side on the same negative strip. Contrast is fairly easy to adjust in a scan but it should be interesting to see what it takes to print this in the darkroom.

I do travel through time of course - forward only at the rate of one minute per minute like everyone else. I might hope for epoch spanning powers, but alas yet another Christmas has come and gone and once again no Tardis under the tree for me. But if the ability to zoom back and forth through time still eludes me there are times and places where nature transforms a landscape so rapidly as to present the illusion of the passage of geological ages in the course of just days or weeks. Though such occasions often follow in the wake of floods, volcanic eruptions or other such disasters, the trigger may be as benign as a change of seasons. And if you're lucky enough to live by one of the Great Lakes, especially Lake Erie (the shallowest and therefore first to freeze) all it takes is the onset of a solid winter.

In a way this is really the third installment in an unplanned series that started with Embracing the Elements and A Follow Up Visit. The images are from my second follow-up visit made in the first week of February. The location once again is my usual lake shore stomping grounds which, somewhat ironically perhaps, was once the site of a popular summer resort. It's where I go when I don't have much time and don't feel inspired enough to look for something new to photograph.  As you can imagine, under normal circumstances it's getting hard to find anything fresh to photograph, but a winter like this transforms it into a whole new location. A few weeks of cold weather is all it takes to transform my sea side vista into a desert landscape so long as you don't mind the fact the ground is covered by snow instead of sand. (Actually, in a whipping wind with temperatures in the -15^oC neighbourhood, I did mind just a little.)

A shot from the Nikon F80 equipped with a Tamron SP 20-40mm lens and a yellow filter. I didn't have much choice about the filter as it, along with the red filter I attached the Mamiya's 50mm Sekor lens, wouldn't budge once I screwed it on until I got home and everything warmed back up. 

Equipment wise I brought my usual RB67 kit, this time bringing my Nikon F80 sporting a Tamron 20-40mm zoom as a side arm. Obviously I'm not using the Nikon enough as the roll of Ilford Delta 100 I managed to finish that day bore a few family photos that were obviously taken last summer. By the sound of things its built in auto-wind motor was obviously struggling in the cold, and doubly so on the rewind, but it soldiered on admirably and the resulting negatives were none the worse for it. The cold also affected the film back on the RB67 as the mechanism became sluggish resulting in its failure to register that the film had been wound meaning the double-exposure prevention had to be overridden. Of course this meant I had to pay careful attention to avoid double-exposures or accidentally skipping over frames. Not the easiest thing for me. As we've seen, my mind wanders.

There will probably be more winter photography to come over the remaining weeks. The replacement spot meter arrived today (see the previous post if you missed it) and I have some time off over the next couple of days to try it. I also have hopes that some of winter's more unique conditions will coincide with a time I'm free to get out there with a camera. It has to happen sooner or later. Still, if it so happens I don't squeeze off another shot until spring I can comfort myself with the thought that this year already winter isn't another season I let get away.