Hello from Humboldt County

[Ken Lee]

I like discussing this sort of thing ! Variations on a theme can be very illuminating.

Here is another variation:

[Ken Lee]

And one last one:

[Vaughn]

And here is one more...not too different than Ken's last one. If anyone is going to Yosemite, I'll draw them a map to this place and they take their own version of it. But it can't be in the Spring -- it is on an island on the Merced River and can't be reached during high water. It is visible from the main road -- not hard to find at all. In fact, keep an eye out to your right after entering the Park on Hwy140, just after you pass thru enterance station and the rock narrows -- you can't miss it. There is even a place to park.

The elements of the original photo are not too complex -- which probably lends itself to such multiple croppings. Paraphrasing Carleton Watkins when asked to explain why he picked a particular place to photograph from (he was testifying at a court case where his photo of a mine was used as evidence), he replied that he chose the best possible vantage point. I believe I did. But on a different day, perhaps I would have choosen a vertical along the lines of Ken's last cropping...perhaps stepping back just a little. I will return to this spot -- on the backside of these rocks has another possibilities -- a touch of wind on the day I was there (end of Feb 2005) did not allow me a photograph there -- but the light was very nice.

Ken...I do not fancy your long narrow cropping - perhaps if you took it a little farther and cropped out another third of the bottom...making it more of a 4"x10" image.

[Brian Ellis]

Since others were making so many improvements to your photograph I decided to make some of my own. I colorized it in Photoshop, then kicked the saturation way up so that it looks like Velvia only better (don't you just hate all those boring blacks and grays in the original?), replaced the rocks at the bottom with moving water (makes for a much more dynamic photo), and put some bright green leaves on the tree branches so the tree doesn't look so dead. Hope you don't mind but believe me, it looks much better with those improvements.

[Vaughn]

Thanks, Brian!!!!

I hate it when I run out of 8x10 Velvetta out in the field and have to fall back to the couple of B&W holders I keep in the trunk. Thank Zeus for PhotoShop! How did we ever mangle, I mean manage, our images before Digital?!

Just be sure to credit me when you put the print in your next show!

Actually I took it all in fun -- and somewhat interesting. An old photo professor of mine use to turn students' photos 180 degrees during critiques, much to the dismay of the students at first. A clever way to get the student away from the subject of the photo and looking at the compostition. I suppose it is one of the reasons why I like composing with the upside-down and reversed image on the ground glass.

Often a student will have a corner of his/her image too bright (a piece of sky, etc) -- but because they are concentrating on the center of the image they do not reconize the impact it has on the total image. So I'll cover the corner with my fingers , uncover it and cover it again...letting them see the entire image with and without it. Or I will do a little cropping like we have been doing here to show them the possibilities.

And we all are students...even masters of the craft continue to learn, or they would not be masters.

Vaughn

I just coated 8 sheets with platinum and palladium salts -- in a couple hours (about 1am) I'll start having fun printing some new negatives...Onwards Thru the Fog! I love this stuff!

[gregstidham]

Hi Vaughn,

We met a couple years ago. I was assisting a PhotoCentral workshop in the Redwoods with Geir and you took our group in for a discussion about Carbon Printing. It was a great talk and left the group with a lot of inspiration. I was one of two guys with LF at Moonstone Beach.

I still think about your beautiful prints from time to time. Thanks again.

[Vaughn]

[QUOTE=gregstidham;211387]Hi Vaughn,

We met a couple years ago. I was assisting a PhotoCentral workshop in the Redwoods with Geir and you took our group in for a discussion about Carbon Printing. It was a great talk and left the group with a lot of inspiration. I was one of two guys with LF at Moonstone Beach....QUOTE]

Hello Greg!

And if I remember right, not only did I get to talk about my work to a captured audience, I got treated to dinner that night. So I certainly made out like a bandit!

Geir and Kate brought another PhotoCentral workshop group up recently. The weather did not cooperate -- way too sunny! But it was a good time. I am hoping to give a carbon printing demo and workshop down at PhotoCentral sometime this year...still in the planning stages.

From your profile, you are in Toronto these days -- if you happen to run into a good friend and photographer there by the name of Elaine Ling, tell her that the tall hairy guy from Humboldt Country says hello! (I know there are a lot of us tall hairy guys running around here, but she'll know who it is!)

Vaughn