Old Things,Farms,Barns,Buildings, Plus

[Merg Ross]

First, the crop as suggested (at least my interpretation):
atalaya3_mr2 by Peter Lewin, on Flickr

And a second, tighter crop concentrating more on the two windows:
atalaya3_mr1 by Peter Lewin, on Flickr

And again, thanks, Merg, for your suggestions, and any other comments on either the originals or the crops appreciated.

Thanks Peter for playing the crop game. The first (top) is close to what I had in mind; the second works well too. What do you think?

Best,
Merg

[Michael Kadillak]

Thank you to everyone that took the time to leave a comment.

Michael: Yes, I made a lot of exposures of the building with a few different formats, films and cropping, and you are right, the lower section doesn't really belong (or at least doesn't add much) in this black and white version, in color it's a different story. Below is one version from the same negative.

I had considered this a work in progress, I made the 140 mile each way trip a dozen or so times (five times in two weeks at one point!) from about 1988 until 1993, when I turned the corner to where I should have seen the building and it was gone, burnered to the ground. I felt like there was something more to capture there, at least I was willing to try.

Fortunately it sounds as though you have a number of quality negatives to remember this magnificent structure with. Many times the liability insurance for structural failure falls upon a local landowner as the business enterprise is long sense gone. The owners have to deal with this risk the best way they can and it can be a real challenge. Sometimes the wood gets repurposed which takes many fine not at risk structures out of play and sometimes someone steps up and brings the structures back to life. Other times they go up in smoke. Outside of FairPlay, Colorado up Nine Mile Creek I saw a family in the process of rebuilding a delapidated mine frame and side building and bringing it back to life but that is a rare thing these days. Enjoyed the image!

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Super cool.

[MichaelPRyan]

Minnesota Zephyr, Stillwater, MN
Deardorff V10, 8X10 Ilford FP4
Pyrocat HD, Platinum

[Sfroza]

Wonderful tone and texture. Perfect.

[Peter Lewin]

Thanks Peter for playing the crop game. The first (top) is close to what I had in mind; the second works well too. What do you think?
Best, Merg

Merg, Thanks again for taking an interest. Unfortunately I still find the lighting too flat and dull for me to be satisfied with the image, regardless of cropping; the weather was uncooperative. I would love to go back, but it is either an 11-hour drive from home, or a fairly expensive flight. However, on to the crops. I actually prefer either the original, or the closest crop. The view is from the exterior back of the structure, I don't think most tourists go back there. What attracted me were the forms, the cylindrical portion (left of image) and the rectangular section (right of image). For me, including the sections you suggested cropping gives a better sense of the volumes. Alternatively, the closest crop accentuates the forms of the windows; the metalwork was designed by Anna Hyatt Huntingdon, who besides being married to the billionaire who built Atalaya for her, was a famous sculptor at the time. I resisted taking a picture of a single window because that image has been made by others, and I try not to duplicate. I think looking at the various croppings was a good exercise, because it made me think about the "why I made the image I did" in more detail, since my original process is more intuitive, simply looking at the ground glass and trying various angles and distances before exposing the sheet.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Minnesota Zephyr, Stillwater, MN
Deardorff V10, 8X10 Ilford FP4
Pyrocat HD, Platinum

This is really good!

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Abandoned gas station along I-10 in California, west of the AZ border. Shot with Tmax100, 75mm Nikkor, f/4.5@f/16 (should have used like f/32), Chamonix 45H-1, Red25A and polarizer. I seriously underexposed this shot, by like 2 stops for sure. The negative was so thin it didn't really look like it had anything on it. Scanned with Epson V850, Vuescan, rgb brightness to .8 (scanned as 48bitrgb slide and output as 48bitrgb at 6000dpi) I used swing, but I missed it I think (depth of field was too shallow at f/16) I contrastwise bleached this negative then developed in 2-bath pyrocat. Since I didn't think there was much to this negative, I didn't bother using a clean optical mylar when I wet mounted it. Had plenty of scratches to remove and a lot of pinholes or something. Also some swirl marks and such (use sp445 and haven't had much luck lately with that thing) The sign is overexposed, but that is most likely from when I converted it. Not a wallhanger, but it shows there is potential for returning to this area once I get my developing technique refined. Scanned at 6000dpi. I like the detail, but not sure I like the grain detail as well in the sky. I may return to 4200 or 4500dpi as zero in on my final scan dpi.

Anyway, thought I would post up as it works to bleach and use pyrocat. Does it buy anything? Who knows? Definitely need to purchase a centerspot for this 75mm Nikkor, the vignetting really is apparent in a lot of the shots I take, like this one.

[IMG]20181016_0206_Working_201081125 by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Pali K]

Absolutely gorgeous images SCM, Michael, and Steven!

Pali

[Merg Ross]

Merg, Thanks again for taking an interest. Unfortunately I still find the lighting too flat and dull for me to be satisfied with the image, regardless of cropping; the weather was uncooperative. I would love to go back, but it is either an 11-hour drive from home, or a fairly expensive flight. However, on to the crops. I actually prefer either the original, or the closest crop. The view is from the exterior back of the structure, I don't think most tourists go back there. What attracted me were the forms, the cylindrical portion (left of image) and the rectangular section (right of image). For me, including the sections you suggested cropping gives a better sense of the volumes. Alternatively, the closest crop accentuates the forms of the windows; the metalwork was designed by Anna Hyatt Huntingdon, who besides being married to the billionaire who built Atalaya for her, was a famous sculptor at the time. I resisted taking a picture of a single window because that image has been made by others, and I try not to duplicate. I think looking at the various croppings was a good exercise, because it made me think about the "why I made the image I did" in more detail, since my original process is more intuitive, simply looking at the ground glass and trying various angles and distances before exposing the sheet.

Peter, thanks for the feedback and interesting history. The original wins for all good reasons. Intuition prevails; nothing wrong with that!

Cheers,
Merg