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Thread: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

  1. #1
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    Quote Originally Posted by QT Luong View Post
    When I examine my transparencies under a loupe, I notice from time to time details which escaped me when I was looking at the scene.
    I recently re-read QT’s “A closer look at a large format photo” at the LF Home Page, and it occurred to me that it might be fun to share hidden details from deep, deep within our film – details that can impress us, or depress us.

    I’d enjoy seeing your discoveries, and hearing your stories…

    What I mean are the tiny, dramatic details that enjoy a secret life of their own – well beyond our initial awareness – until a careful (and often belated) inspection of the LF film brings them to our sudden attention, along with an unexpected response – “Well I’ll be, just look at that!”

    Details, I might add, that “aren’t there” in the field, but suddenly assert a meaningful presence when, later, you inspect the film under a loupe, or crop or spot scans in Photoshop. Or, maybe your curious viewer discovers them. Maybe these details “aren’t there” until he or she – nose against the print, transparency, or computer screen – searches between the grass blades, and discovers something tiny that strengthens your composition, weakens it, or adds a new, enduring dimension.

    What can you share?

    ----------
    Here’s an example – a Devil in the details. Unhappily, this devil is all too common in my “pristine” landscapes. The closer I look at shots like this, the more often I find him lurking … in the form of trash. This high-elevation mountain creek (Cascade Mtns, Wash. state) could scarcely be more remote. Not a road for miles. Yet here’s what I found in the creek-side debris – construction plywood!

    Perhaps there’s a Home Depot at the summit.

    Tachi 4x5
    Fuji A 240mm/9
    TMax-100 (in TMax rs)
    Epson 4990/Epson Scan
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Mountain creek.jpg  

  2. #2

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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    I only have a low resolution scan of this photo of the farmhouse we stay at in Northwest Scotland. It was one of my first LF photos (Neg. no. 005). I did a scan at max resolution on my Epson and was astonished to find that I could read the number plate on the car without effort. Then, when spotting the background, there seemed to be a large number of small white spots, only a few pixels, or a single pixel, in size. Out came the loupe, clearly to reveal that I what had been spotting out was not dust, but sheep.

  3. #3
    Vaughn's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    You will have to take my word about this because they are too small to show up on the screen -- though I see them on the prints.

    Two climbers, heading up El Capitan are somewhere in that circle. I took a previous image of this snag when it was in full sun, about 20 minutes to 30 minutes earlier. The small dots that are the climbers are further up in the second image (the one below).

  4. #4
    Downstairs
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    Do you remove Electric grid poles from your landscapes?
    Here is a T-pin doing it's job in a 4x5 TMX. I leave them in.




  5. #5
    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    "Blowup"

  6. #6

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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    My nephew recently told me a story along these lines (no photo-sorry). He comes from a hunting family, and they all go to the woods together- men, women and children- and make a big camp, for weeks at a time. The women cook and keep the camp, while the children play and explore, and the men go out and hunt. On the last day of the hunt, they made a photograph of all the family around a long table, under a large tree, where the butchered meat was laid out. When the photos were processed, they found a surprise; on a branch of the tree, over the heads of the campers/hunters, laid a very large Mountain Lion, its predator's eyes shining from the shadows.

  7. #7
    Land-Scapegrace Heroique's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay DeFehr View Post
    ...When the photos were processed, they found a surprise; on a branch of the tree, over the heads of the campers/hunters, laid a very large Mountain Lion, its predator's eyes shining from the shadows...
    Cougars in the tree, climbers on El Capitan, sheep in distant Scottish fields – very likely, I have plenty of these deep in my LF film too! Just a matter of looking closely to find them. Very closely. Or using a stronger loupe…

    Sometimes, I’ll find gigantic cities in the tiniest portion of my landscapes:

    The first image is a view from the Olympic Mountains – looking East across Puget Sound, to the Emerald City below. The scar on the mountain side is the FS road I traveled to get up here. On the horizon – about 50 miles distant – are the Cascade Mountains. Way-up high on those hazy-blue ridges is where I found the plywood (from the post above).

    And in the crop, center-left, is my favorite Seattle bar.

    Tachi 4x5
    Fuji A 240mm/9
    Fuji Tungsten-64 QuickLoad (w/ 85b filter)
    Epson 4990/Epson Scan
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Seattle view from Olympics.jpg   Seattle View from Olympics-crop.jpg  

  8. #8
    Louie Powell's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    There are two perspectives on every issue. Example:

    George Tice is known for his evocative urban landscapers of New Jersey.

    Tice jokes about the hours he spends spotting out cigarette butts.

  9. #9
    Photographer, Machinist, etc. Jeffrey Sipress's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    I love good detail as much as the next guy, but what does it have to do with the silly notion of a big man up in the sky?

  10. #10
    おせわに なります! Andrew O'Neill's Avatar
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    Re: God is in the details — or is it the Devil?

    Blow Up. Great movie. That's exactly what I was thinking about.

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