More than juniper (2021)
— There's that well-known Ansel Adams quote, that the negative is the composer's score and the print the final performance, which seems to suggest an interplay between the various stages of an image's creation. Today, for us film photographers, this interplay has been made considerably more easy through using hybrid workflows of various kinds. For instance, early in Adams's The Print he shows an image called "Merced River, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park" and describes his thought process when sacrificing detail in a part of shaded forest. He had to do that in order to retain texture in some distant clouds.
During the 20+ years I have worked with a hybrid workflow the digital tools have improved considerably. Recent versions of Photoshop, for instance, give a level of detailed control that are impossible in the darkroom. This, coupled with the enormous capacity of high-end scanners to draw out every last bit of image information from the film, allows us to tweak very small parts of an image in order to realise that thing which is a bit preposterously called "vision".
This image is nothing special. It's certainly no Adams print. But there is the same sort of interplay between its component parts as Adams alluded to exists between the negative itself (and the choices the photographer makes in order to expose it) and a final print.
For instance, there's a foreground and a background. Which is the more important? Spontaneously one would probably say the foreground, in the shape of the small juniper bush. It dominates not only by virtue of its clear greens, but by its spiky texture which is reinforced by the way it has been rendered very sharp in post. But is the background – the blurry curtain of orange-red – a second fiddle only or does it provide more than just a soft background against which the juniper may shine?
Try to imagine a version of this image where the orange-red curtain had been brighter, where its luminosity had matched that of the juniper. What had been lost then? I would say the contrast between the two would have been the victim. The juniper would not have stood out as clearly, even with all those pointy needles at hand. Doesn't this mean that the blurry curtain or, to use a theatre analogy, those minor actors or extras who do not take up as much space on stage as the selfish main actor or primadonna, actually carry the performance? Aren't they the enablers?
And if we look a bit further we see other parts of the images that also help that curtain's blur and lower luminosity bring out the juniper's act. The link to Adams's decision-making process in exposing Merced River is clear here – there is detail in even the darkest shadow areas around and behind that curtain. Such is the power of the hybrid workflow today. It allows us to show image detail in the very darkest areas of an image on an emulsion as narrow as transparency film.
••• More than juniper (2021)
Hasselblad 203FE
Carl Zeiss 80 Planar
Fuji Provia 100
___________________
philipus.eth || philipus.com
@philipdygeus ••• @philipdygeus.too
The Hasselblad Film Gallery ••• Leica & Film Friends
#120film #Mediumformat #HasselbladFlextightX1 #Hasselblad #Hasselblad203FE #KodakEktar100 #tree #longexposure #6x6 #squareformat #nature #instagram #fiftyshades_of_nature #pretty_shotz #film_is_photography #grainisgreat #shotonfilm #filmisnotdead #lovefilm #nograinnoglory #gotland #visby #sweden #sverige #destinationgotland #juniper #autumn
More than juniper (2021)
— There's that well-known Ansel Adams quote, that the negative is the composer's score and the print the final performance, which seems to suggest an interplay between the various stages of an image's creation. Today, for us film photographers, this interplay has been made considerably more easy through using hybrid workflows of various kinds. For instance, early in Adams's The Print he shows an image called "Merced River, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park" and describes his thought process when sacrificing detail in a part of shaded forest. He had to do that in order to retain texture in some distant clouds.
During the 20+ years I have worked with a hybrid workflow the digital tools have improved considerably. Recent versions of Photoshop, for instance, give a level of detailed control that are impossible in the darkroom. This, coupled with the enormous capacity of high-end scanners to draw out every last bit of image information from the film, allows us to tweak very small parts of an image in order to realise that thing which is a bit preposterously called "vision".
This image is nothing special. It's certainly no Adams print. But there is the same sort of interplay between its component parts as Adams alluded to exists between the negative itself (and the choices the photographer makes in order to expose it) and a final print.
For instance, there's a foreground and a background. Which is the more important? Spontaneously one would probably say the foreground, in the shape of the small juniper bush. It dominates not only by virtue of its clear greens, but by its spiky texture which is reinforced by the way it has been rendered very sharp in post. But is the background – the blurry curtain of orange-red – a second fiddle only or does it provide more than just a soft background against which the juniper may shine?
Try to imagine a version of this image where the orange-red curtain had been brighter, where its luminosity had matched that of the juniper. What had been lost then? I would say the contrast between the two would have been the victim. The juniper would not have stood out as clearly, even with all those pointy needles at hand. Doesn't this mean that the blurry curtain or, to use a theatre analogy, those minor actors or extras who do not take up as much space on stage as the selfish main actor or primadonna, actually carry the performance? Aren't they the enablers?
And if we look a bit further we see other parts of the images that also help that curtain's blur and lower luminosity bring out the juniper's act. The link to Adams's decision-making process in exposing Merced River is clear here – there is detail in even the darkest shadow areas around and behind that curtain. Such is the power of the hybrid workflow today. It allows us to show image detail in the very darkest areas of an image on an emulsion as narrow as transparency film.
••• More than juniper (2021)
Hasselblad 203FE
Carl Zeiss 80 Planar
Fuji Provia 100
___________________
philipus.eth || philipus.com
@philipdygeus ••• @philipdygeus.too
The Hasselblad Film Gallery ••• Leica & Film Friends
#120film #Mediumformat #HasselbladFlextightX1 #Hasselblad #Hasselblad203FE #KodakEktar100 #tree #longexposure #6x6 #squareformat #nature #instagram #fiftyshades_of_nature #pretty_shotz #film_is_photography #grainisgreat #shotonfilm #filmisnotdead #lovefilm #nograinnoglory #gotland #visby #sweden #sverige #destinationgotland #juniper #autumn