Your Best Photograph

[David R Munson]

Favorite is a tricky thing to figure out. I honestly don't know which of my shots I would call my favorite. I've got a few in mind, so I'll just make some general statements about how I got them.



By and large, my best/favorite images all just sort of happen. By this I mean that they are not premeditated. When I see the photograph, something clicks in my mind and I just shoot it. I don't consciously think about the technical aspect of it at all. My brain sort of takes over and makes the meter reading, sets the camera, hits the shutter. Shooting LF this is a bit more drawn out than when shooting MF or 35mm, but the principle is the same. Honestly, a lot of the time it seems like the harder I have to consciously try to see or make the image, the less likely I actually am to end up with the sort of image I want. If there isn't a moment of convergence when everything comes together and it just happens, boom, in one continuous action, my hit rate drops considerably.



For the sake of this thread, let me use this photograph as an example. I had been out riding with my friend Kevan, and we ended up just sort of dicking around at these big salt piles by the lake at around 2:00 AM. Big empty parking lot, bright sodium-vapor lights overhead. I had my camera in my bag and decided to see what I could do with what I had there. In about ten minutes, I shot two rolls of film, one of the shots being this one. Everything in that period was without rational motivation behind it. I just made exposures as the compositions appeared to me in rapid succession. To put it into more aggravatingly vague terminology, I was in a very sweet photographic groove. I had my Nikon on aperture priority and shot everything with a 24mm lens. Every one of those shots was specifically not deliberate. If anything, I suppose I could say that in that particular state of mind, I can't help but to make the images that I see.

[Stephen Willard]

For today I like ...







and then maybe tomorrow I will like







And no I do not do digital nor use any filters.

[Daniel Geiger]

Three chanterrelle type mushrooms in curled bunch of live oak (Quercus agrifolia) leaves. The mushroom is not pristine, but it is clearly alive. The three mushrooms open their cones in three different directions. Just looks right and self centered.

Took it with AS 4x5, Nikor-T360, a bit of front tilt, Lee 81B (it was in shade), Provia 100F, f/32, 16 seconds. Was my first shot with exposure longer than 1s. Wanted to check my exposure calculation with a polaroid, and realized that when you need exposure check most (moderately long exposures), reciprocity failure of polaroid is making it all but useless. Never used polaroid again.

Scanned it on a Epson 4990, minimal spotting in PS, printed it on a R1800 13x19 inches (one of my first prints on an inkjet) and could not believe the lack of grain. WOW! So that's what all those folks on the LF-forum are going on about.

Anything to be done differently? Watch out for the poison oak. But the shot was well worth a few skin blotches.

[Leonard Metcalf]

This is one of my favorite photographs (yes it changes daily even hourly). It was taken with a Linhof Technica III (Circa 1950) with a Nikkor 135mm W 5.6 lens. Don't remember the apeture or shutter speed. The film was Kodak T400CN. The tripod was a Gitzo with a Linhof head. The light was difused as it was late afternoon. I had been taking colour photographs of the canyons of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area for many years, and had decided that I needed some more black and white photographs. This was one of the first of the series of Black and Whites. I have published it widely as a poster and a post card, it was rather sucessful at marketing my work. It continues to sell well as a photograph.

We had decided to go canyoning the previous night at some un-god-ly hour around the pool table in no fit state. I had a spot I wanted to take my camera too. We didn't get up till late so we walked into the canyon exit late in the afternoon, with hangovers in tow. As we were donning wetsuits, people finishing the canyon looked at us as though we were a touch crazy. The swim up stream was cold in the late afternoon, against the grain of most traditional canyoners. Yet the cold water cleared my head. We were alone as we left the others behind. The pelican case acted as floatation inside my pack. This canyon is a tributary to the main canyon. I only took three photographs that afternoon. I was so cold I was shivering. On the way out the sun set, and luckily a full moon graced our presence, and showed us the way out up the long hill, so torches were not necessary. The walk out is just as memorable as the swim in. While the photograph taking is now faded into a cold faded memory.

The first print of this was very disapointing (there was no detail in any of the central section of the photograph), yet my freinds encouraged me as they thought it was a keeper. I didn't have a darkroom at the time and relied on professional photographic services. I had it drum scanned and then the photograph came alive. The largest print I have of it is 3 x 4 meters. It still makes me smile when I look at it, and on each viewing I see more and more faces, hence its tittle: "Faces in the Canyon"

[Ole Tjugen]

So far it's this one. That picture was an important contribution to getting the Loen Gathering started this September - I posted it on a couple of forums, and people wanted to come. We didn't get quite the same weather, though...

But I always know that the next one is going to be even better!

[Walt Calahan]

Which is your favorite child?

George, I simply can't answer your question.

I love them all, except the crappy ones.

HA!

[Dmitri S. Orlov]

Just mine..http://www.iemrams.spb.ru:8101/english/raznoeen/or-lifecirc.htm

[darr]

OK my dear LF Guys, here's a "babe shot" coming at you!



Because I spent a career in portraiture, I found it tiring to spend the time to make pictures of my own family. I did however buy a "mommy camera" for my purse for those sudden occasions when our only child, Thomas, was at elementary school, vacation events, etc. The picture above was taken 17 years ago on Thomas' first birthday only because my sister had sent the tux and made a personal request for a portrait of him wearing it. I am so glad she did!
Thomas will be heading off to college soon as a meteorology major with hopes of becoming a Hurricane Hunter in the Air Force. We have had an 11x14" framed canvas print of this portrait hanging in our bedroom for at least 16 years now. If you look closely, you can see his faint blue diaper. For my sister's print I made it disappear, but for me, it will always remain visible. It is my personal best for obviously "mommy" reasons.

Hasselblad 500CM, 150 mm, VPS 120, studio strobes, white paper

[Kirk Gittings]

I don't know if it is my best, that is probably for someone else to decide, but this one of my favourites. It is on the cover of my new book. It was taken at Pueblo Alto in 1982 in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico for my first book Chaco Body.

Lightening is very hard to shoot in the daytime. If you wait till you see it to trip the shutter you will miss it. So you have to anticipate. It is perhaps the pinnacle of pre-visualization. Anyway, I shot twelve negatives (1/2 second f/22, Tri-X orange filter), all that I had and packed up and ran for it as this storm broke over me. Stupidly I ran down a sandstone arroyo and almost got caught in the worse flash flood I have ever seen with huge boulders washing down past me. Between the fash flood and the anticipation of making a really memorable image it was quite exhilarating. Two of the negatives had lightening, one was way off to the side of the ruin and this one, which has become quite well known. To this day I feel very blessed to have made this image. I doubt that the web will do it justice.

[David Karp]

Kirk,

Glad you are still around to make more!