Photographing glaciers in black and white

[Pere Casals]

Velvia for glaciers, Pere? ....

Yes, of course, I've digitally processed dozens of Velvia shots of a certain artist portraying Laponia in winter.

Velvia is amazing for high mountain photography, glaciers, etc.




Flickr has some Velvia shots in the Svalbard island that our OP is to visit, look:



https://www.flickr.com/photos/95882862@N06/8754807748

You can find many snowy, mountain and glacier velvia shots in flickr:






Single problem... a monitor is not able to portray all beauty Velvia captures !!!!

Velvia almost is never easy to shot, and some shots require a drum or an X as we may need to underexpose many areas to not burn the highlights, also we may need to wait for the good illumination, but velvia rocks for frozen water, delivering a unique look.

[Drew Wiley]

Ah, Pere, do what you like. The repro range of Velvia doesn't leave much of anything in the shadows. That fact is blatantly apparent in enlargements. I frequently had one or two holders of Velvia with me; but E100G was far more versatile, and Provia acceptable. And when you try dig too deep into the shadows of Velvia you end up with that horrible blue crossover. Now I use Ektar, which has more latitude than any chrome film and doesn't go bland like most color neg films, though it has idiosyncrasies of its own. In this area a "Flicker" is a species of woodpecker.

[Pere Casals]

Ah, Pere, do what you like.

Drew, it's not what I like, Velvia is the (unsurpased) gold standard for mountain/glacier color photography. Just google Khumbu Glacier Velvia.

https://www.google.es/search?q=Khumb...w=1745&bih=903

[mmerig]

Drew, it's not what I like, Velvia is the (unsurpased) gold standard for mountain/glacier color photography. Just google Khumbu Glacier Velvia.

https://www.google.es/search?q=Khumb...w=1745&bih=903

I get the same links if I use "Khumbu Glacier Provia", and nothing about Velvia in the few links I looked at.

[Pere Casals]

I get the same links if I use "Khumbu Glacier Provia", and nothing about Velvia in the few links I looked at.

Yes, better searching in flickr himalaya, or paine with velvia or provia

Or reviewing prominent altitude photograpers of the kodachrome and velvia eras

Today most is done digital, but to me the slides are unchallenged...

Velvia ( vs provia) shifts the yellows to orange, in special the 50, nice when sun is low

[Drew Wiley]

Don't mean to be impolite, Pere, but I've provided camera gear & film for some of the most difficult climbs ever done in the Khumbu, Andes, high Arctic etc. Film era of course. Since the sponsors of those expeditions were counting on chromes capable of use in ad campaigns afterwards, Velvia would be a big no-no. Repro usage is not like Flikr or a home slide show. It's hard enough just to get climbers to change out cold batteries at reasonable intervals. Extreme climbers hung out at my house quite a bit, and I heard plenty of camera and sponsor horror stories. My nephew lived with me around the time he did the most difficult climb in Paine ever, and with the extreme temps for twenty days on that wall, he was lucky any of the shots was suitable for a feature article and magazine cover. If it had been Velvia it would have been hopeless. Making big prints is even more demanding. One well known climber was always blaming this or that lab when all of a sudden big patches of raw black showed up in his enlarged shots. They were there all along, but just weren't as annoying in tiny little Natl Geo pages as viewed big. He never learned; but then, he never set foot in a darkroom. A light box was his main tool. Scanners couldn't do it either. It just wasn't there. I'd shoot Velvia from time to time cause I know how to precisely use a spotmeter, but it's really a straightjacket of a film with no wiggle room. At one time I did articles and shots for a well-known architectural glossy magazine. Even under those controlled lighting situations with 4X5 film, the editors rejected Velvia shots. Just too hard to work with.

[Steve Goldstein]

As the original poster, I'm somewhat amused at how my question relating to photographing glaciers in black-and-white (it's even in the title!) has turned into a flame war about color film...

[Drew Wiley]

No flame war, Steve. It's the same problem, just exaggerated when it comes to color versus b&w film. It's all about controlling the contrast. I've been doing this kind of photography more than 50 years. Some places one can never get to again; and even if you could, lighting is rarely the same. Yes, we still have our memories; but I like to embody those memories into prints capable of communicating the exquisiteness of the light with others, whether the medium is monochrome or color. If people like to share scenes on the web via Flickr or whatever, that's fine. But one certainly doesn't need to lug around a view camera and spend a lot of money and time on film to do that sort of thing. But if serious printmaking is involved, you want versatile shots with sufficient information in the scale for your intended purpose. It's darn easy to blow out either the highlights or shadows in sunlit ice scenes. Not every black and white film does it well; and in color, one has to be even more circumspect. Of course, we can't win em all. Last Sept the sun came out in the middle of the night, the moon wasn't up yet, and myriads of little stars were perfectly reflected on a huge slab of granite almost mirror-like from glacial polish. Wonderful to see, but no digital camera can pick up that kind of barely visible spectacle without turning it into undifferentiated pixel gravel; and any kind of long exposure would have simply created star trails on rock. So for me at least, the experience itself is more important than any shot; but if I'm going to take the trouble to haul anything from 70 to 90 pounds through the mountains for days on end, I want the shots to count (no more 90-pounders for me as this age, however!). Enjoy your trip!

[Greg Y]

Steve, Landscape, and particularly mountains are my chief photographic subject. I always use a yellow or orange filter. FP4+, Tri-X or TMY-2, depending on the format, & the light & if i'm photographing from a helicopter or from the ground][/url]unnamed-7 by , on Flickr
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[Pere Casals]

I've provided camera gear & film for some of the most difficult climbs ever done in the Khumbu, Andes, high Arctic etc. Film era of course.

Drew, an alpinist had to use what he was able to control in order document the adventure, but altitude photographers were using mainly Kodachrome and later Velvia/Provia to make books. Do you really need a list of altitude books make with velvia ?

Now I've one in my hands by Galen Rowell, (a californian), he was killed (2002) in an airplane accident.

Wikipedia says:

"His main media choice was color slide film, beginning with Kodachrome in the 1970s and 1980s and Fuji Velvia following its introduction in 1990.

Rowell conceived a technical approach of extending the dynamic range to be captured on film. He developed a set of graduated neutral density filters and had them produced by Singh-Ray, a filter manufacturer.[7] They were sold under his name and became a standard for dealing with high contrast scenes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Rowell

I may show many examples of high mountain photographers with color work made with slides... to me that was the main tool of choice for that subject.

I always use a yellow or orange filter.

I guess this was mainly to darken sky, was it not ?