Normally my Saturday downtown walks start at Center and 7th in downtown Calgary and I head south-west. Yesterday I decided to head to Prince’s Island Park and see what the view is like from the north end of downtown. I saw a lot of trees, water, and recent building developments. This time, under advice from Jim Kitchen, I brought a little view finder with me. I was much more picky with the image I was aiming for using a viewfinder and it helped to prevent me from setting up the camera in a spot that would be a waste of time. In the end I only took two photographs with this one being my choice to show after the day’s work.
I’ve been finding two things handy for very unexpected reasons. The large imaging circle of large format lenses helps great for shifts and tilts but they’re also great for the mechanical vignetting caused by stacking multiple filters. I found myself stacking 3 filters at once for these shots. If I were to do so with a lens designed for 35mm I would see vignetting. The faster ISO 400 film is good for indoors but it’s also good when stacking filters as well. I was able to keep my exposures less than a second because of the faster film speed. The negatives are so massive that I could perform all the adjustments I wanted in lightroom/photoshop and the grain still doesn’t show through.
The large resolution of 4×5 is something I’m beginning to take for granted. It’s not as exciting any more to be able to zoom in on a building and make out the bricks that were used to construct it. I’m starting to take that as something that should be inherent in the work I aim to produce. I want to share what I see when I go for these walks and the ultra resolution of the large format is doing a good job at it.
I can’t wait until I print some of these at a good size, however. Both Ansel Adams and David Hockney spoke about how the eye moves over an image, scanning in the vista in pieces and not one entire impression. I feel I need to print these photographs large enough so that the viewer can do just that and spot all the little nuances of the scenery that a low resolution image cannot provide. I’m preparing work for a little show at Untitled Art Society where I can hopefully address some of these concerns I have. We’ll see if I’m successful in any way when that time comes. The show will run from October 7th-9th with an opening reception on the 9th. See you there!
I’m also going to document my film development process and post more detailed pictures of the exterior & interior of the shack I’ve converted into a darkroom. I think the shack is something quite interesting on it’s own. That will be a post for the future.
Update: I thought I should share a crop from the above photograph. This was cropped at 100% then shrunk down to fit the width of the blog post.
Alleyways in an urban setting always have interesting things to photograph and the damp surfaces in the alleyway between 7th and 8th Ave downtown Calgary made things very photogenic. It’s that dank, dirty atmosphere that I find in an alley that’s such a fascinating subject.
I’m really beginning to like this Zeiss 35mm lens. It hasn’t come off my camera since the second day after purchasing it. It’s the perfect walk-around lens.
I’ve tried out Photomatix 3.2 to process HDR images of some of the photographs from yesterday’s shoot at the Calgary Brewery. It’s much easier to push the microcontrast further than Adobe’s HDR Merge can with Photomatix, if that’s the image you’re going for.
I often enjoy being the passenger of a vehicle rather than the driver because I get see so much more during the trip. Shooting from a car doesn’t always yield good results. Actually it almost never yields good results but when I was going through my photograph catalog I found this snapshot of downtown Calgary from across the Bow River that was not too bad.
I shot some photos in the old abandoned brewery in Calgary, Canada and I plan on another visit in the not-to-distant future. My exposures were up to 3 minutes long and sometimes even that wasn’t enough. I made the mistake of not bringing a flashlight either, which made it even more suspenseful to creep through the building, wary of stepping through holes in grating or falling off the edge of a platform.
It was surprising to see the lights turned on in some of the rooms and some switches were even labeled “Leave” with arrows pointed to them. I made sure I stayed away from the area of the brewery that’s been turned into a self-storage facility because there are cameras and security at that end.
The acoustics were amazing. When adjusting my tripod the sounds would resonate along the steel walkways throughout the entire building. I could hear pigeons everywhere and everything had a reverberation against steel and cement. There were doors that were made of 6 inch thick solid steel on hinges so well made they opened with no effort. I really hope they don’t tear down this building and maybe instead offer tours of the facilities. The old Calgary Brewing & Malt company dates back to the 1800′s.
ISO 160, F3.5, 1/60 sec
Oh my god the colour! I have never shot pictures with such deep and rich colour before with my 5D. So far I’m quite pleased with my purchase of the Canon EF 85mm 1.8 prime lens. It has contrast and sharpness that I have never shot with before and the depth of field is like butter with 8 rounded aperture blades and the ability to shoot at F1.8 while retaining most of it’s center sharpness.
However, when shooting at F1.8 on a lens of this reach, you have a very narrow margin of focus. My Canon 5D classic had no trouble focusing, however, with this fast lens. Even when focusing on a single AF point, it was fast and smooth. I’m still losing shots, however, due to my own mistake on focusing on incorrect points or simply shooting at too low of an aperture.
I was present at Dade’s grand opening in Calgary. They needed an event photographer so I took up the task. They’re a great space with fine art and fine furniture. Darcy and Greg are beautiful people both inside and out and I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to shoot their great event!
I walked 68 blocks yesterday. I walked along 11th avenue, 17th avenue, and through the residential area in between. The bright sunny day is a situation I haven’t photographed before. I found myself attracted to architecture again, especially big shiny architecture that reflected the beautiful cloudy sky.
