What were you thinking?

[Joe O'Hara]

Good idea for a thread, Gregg.

I don't consider this to be necessarily the best photograph I have made, but the circumstances
under which it was made are special to me.

I was working at Tuckerton Bay in NJ at low tide. This is a salt marsh area that is readily accessible
without a boat. When I arrived, I made a mental note of this little pond but passed on to make
some other pictures. By and by the tide started to come in, and the wind picked up, and I did not
want to be stranded out there in knee-deep mud, so I started hiking back. I saw this pond again,
and I passed it by.

After a few more steps, I had this strong feeling that I should turn back and look at it again. And
at that time, the wind had created these beautiful ripples on the water. I set up my camera and made
the picture. I do not generally record technical details, but I believe that I used my 210mm lens,
a little bit of tilt, and gave the negative normal development.

As I think of it, the pond spoke to me, and I made a photograph of it. I think that this is the first time
that something like that had happened to me.

I find this happens to me from time to time now, when I am paying attention.

[pdmoylan]

Good idea for a thread, Gregg.

I don't consider this to be necessarily the best photograph I have made, but the circumstances
under which it was made are special to me.

I was working at Tuckerton Bay in NJ at low tide. This is a salt marsh area that is readily accessible
without a boat. When I arrived, I made a mental note of this little pond but passed on to make
some other pictures. By and by the tide started to come in, and the wind picked up, and I did not
want to be stranded out there in knee-deep mud, so I started hiking back. I saw this pond again,
and I passed it by.

After a few more steps, I had this strong feeling that I should turn back and look at it again. And
at that time, the wind had created these beautiful ripples on the water. I set up my camera and made
the picture. I do not generally record technical details, but I believe that I used my 210mm lens,
a little bit of tilt, and gave the negative normal development.

As I think of it, the pond spoke to me, and I made a photograph of it. I think that this is the first time
that something like that had happened to me.

I find this happens to me from time to time now, when I am paying attention.

Joe, you captured the light and ripples very nicely. Well done.

BTW, for years I have spent much time photographing Tuckerton bay and the NJ pinelands. I will be in the Tom's River area the first weekend of October and if you are interested I would be happy to get together. I have several targeted locations nearby and in the pines, while Tuckerton would be an easy outing as well.

pm me.

Cheers,

PDM

[Joe O'Hara]

Sounds great PDM. I've never worked in the Toms River area. Send me a PM when it gets closer.

[Maris Rusis]

This site has recurring posts called The Photograph Explained http://largeformatphotography.com.au/. The articles range between quirky and didactic.

[Arne Croell]

Here is another one of mine, made 15 years ago in White Sands NM, New Mexico.The image was taken on July 31, 1999 at 7:30pm. The camera was a Technikardan 45 with Apo-Sironar S 150mm, no filter, f/32, 1/4s. The film was TMAX 100 developed in TMAX RS 1+9 to N contrast. f/32 was needed for the depth of field - tilt was not useable since the Yucca plant is directly in front of the mountain range. A the time I was driving from Huntsville, AL to Tucson, AZ for a conference and added a few vacation days on the way. I spent a whole (hot!) day of photography in the dunes of White Sands on that last day of July. It was a quite productive and successful day, 3 more images from that day can be seen at the beginning of this gallery on my web site: http://www.arnecroell.com/p922955438. White Sands is located between two mountain ranges, the San Andres mountains to the West, visible in this image, and the Sacramento mountains to the East. During the day, while I was wandering through the dunes, big thunderclouds appeared over both mountain ranges (one set can be seen in the 1st image of that gallery mentioned above), but did not reach over the basin, so the dunes were in sunshine most of the time. This changed in the evening, when the storms over both ranges combined rather rapidly, at least that was the way it looked. When that happened, it was a combination of seeing the picture potential, hunting for a nice Yucca plant for the foreground and at the same time estimating when the (sand) storm would hit me, 5 minutes at maximum. This was surely one of my fastest camera setups. There was no more sunshine on the dunes, resulting in rather flat light on the foreground, so I decided to not do a minus development for the overall contrast but stay with N (in retrospect, N+1 might have been even better). Some ripples in the sand are visible in the foreground, at least in the print. I was able to make two exposures, then I had to pack the camera in a hurry, and a few seconds after that the sandstorm hit (the rain part never reached me). At the time, I had my very first GPS with me, so I hit the return button to get me straight to the car (about 20min) instead of backtracking, which saved me quite some time. Printing is somewhat challenging, the basic exposure as well as the dodging and burning steps have to be just right. I usually need one or two trial runs each time I print it, although I have the print recipe written down in detail. Originally, I printed the image on Kodak Polymax FA ( I miss that paper!), recently I switched to Adox MCC 110 (the scan shown below was from the MCC 110 version) and Adox Variotone.