[SI] Steel, Glass, Concrete -comments

"Alan Browne" wrote:

Ken Nadvornick http://www.pbase.com/shootin/image/39221611

Hmm, more 'flat on' shots... Interesting shot. Has the elements but
I'm tempted to ask if the coke bottle was there or you added it.
The tones of the image are very nice. The large guardrail seems
silver looking. The light is well caught. The background is ugly and
cluttered but doesn't detract too badly. The 'newness' of the
construction really shows through. Tonal range is impressive. I
believe cropping the bottom to the lower bound of the concrete and
cropping the top out to top of the rail would have been stronger.

Yep, the Coke bottle was there. Minus the bottle, I'm struck by the
similarity of subject matter with your entry. I'm also struck by the
dissimilarity of the treatment of that subject matter. Yours as an exercise
in depth and perspective. Mine as again flatter, relying on tone and form.
We've previously sparred good-naturedly about this aspect of two- versus
three-dimensionality. But our respective entries for this mandate really
bring into focus for me the differences in the way we see things.
Fascinating.

I'm pleased to hear your impression of the guardrail appearing "silver
looking." That perception was a major goal of mine for this photograph, as
the metal is truly brand new. The original is a straight print on a #2
variable-contrast paper. No split printing. No dodging and/or burning. No
multiple contrast levels. (Although in retrospect I wish I had balanced the
right-hand portion - about one-third, or so - with the rest of the print.)
I have always tried to do as much tone, contrast control and framing as
possible at the point of exposure, thus making the darkroom printing portion
of creating a photo as simple as possible.

Regarding the cropping, at first I disagreed with you. Then I looked again
the next day and decided that I partially agreed. I think you are correct
in that it would have been better to remove the sky above the rail. There
is no meaningful contribution to the subject matter showing above that rail.
Below the concrete, however, I confess that I do like the (apparently)
brilliant white specs showing against the richly dark soil. While possibly
lost in these damned digital likenesses, in the original print this
juxtaposition is much more prominent and I feel helps to key the midtones
nicely.

Thanks for taking time to comment, Alan. I sense that the few who continue
to tackle that aspect of the SI are, in fact, the ones keeping it going. At
least through the (northern hemisphere) winter where it's often tougher for
many to get outside.

Ken

Alan Browne- wrote:
Tom Hudson wrote:

Might be fun to try doing a long exposure while filling the bottle up.
Think I'll try that later today. I'm curious as to how it would come out.


I'd try that where the splash pattern rolls in a continuous fashion,
curling and rolling back up... I hope you understand what I mean....

Yeah, didn't get much time to work on it, only had very diffuse
light-source that didn't pick out the water enough and the final images
were poor. Will try again when the opportunity arises.
Need a better low-light-level point source or two (pen-torches perhaps).

Tom

Subject: [SI] Steel, Glass, Concrete -comments
From: "Ken Nadvornick"
Date: Sat, Feb 5, 2005 8:35 PM
Message-id: 0DdNd.5667$uc.3250@trnddc02

"Alan Browne" wrote:

Ken Nadvornick http://www.pbase.com/shootin/image/39221611


Nice shot Ken! Good graphic design and a nice home-grown bit of Americana mood
to boot :-). Lovely black and white. I better stop myself now, this is coming
dangerously close to an unpaid critique ;-).

Tech details?

Answer to anticipated? question :-): And, no, sorry Alan/etc. :-(, not
interested in joining the shoot in but on occaision I might tip my
(invisible/non-existent) hat when necessary/see a good one.

Too bad the newsgroup won't fit onto a web page with the same ease (for me) as
a newsreader - then we could get ridd of that garbage troll for good! and get
back to some content...

Content? What's that?

Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":

http://members.aol.com/Lewisvisn/home.htm

Remove "nospam" to reply

***DUE TO SPAM, I NOW BLOCK ALL E-MAIL NOT ON MY LIST, TO BE ADDED TO MY LIST,
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"Lewis Lang" wrote:

Nice shot Ken! Good graphic design and a nice home-grown bit
of Americana mood to boot :-). Lovely black and white. I better
stop myself now, this is coming dangerously close to an unpaid
critique ;-).

Tech details?

Answer to anticipated? question :-): And, no, sorry Alan/etc. :-(,
not interested in joining the shoot in but on occaision I might tip
my (invisible/non-existent) hat when necessary/see a good one.

Hi Lewis,

Thanks for your generous remarks. You are very kind.

Having always been a fan of, and inspired by, the late correspondent Charles
Kuralt's "On The Road With..." series, your "Americana mood" observation is
especially meaningful to me.

The following technical data (this should also be displayed with the
submission) was recorded for this photo:

Subject, Location, Time/Date, Conditions
---------------------------------------------------------
Discarded Coca-Cola bottle on new Woods Creek bridge
Old Owen Road, Monroe, Washington, USA
12:09pm, Friday, January 28, 2005
Chilly, overcast, drizzly mid-winter afternoon

Camera, Lens, Exposure, Equipment/Technique
------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikon F2 35mm film camera, Nikon DP-1 meter prism
35-105mm f/3.5-4.5 AIS manual Nikkor zoom lens
1/125 sec at f/5.6, 35mm focal length
Handheld while dodging traffic, no filter

Film, Processing, Printing, Digitizing
--------------------------------------------------
Kodak Plus-X B&W film at ASA 64
Developed in Kodak D-76d (1+1) for 6 min at 68F/20C
Projected using 150mm f/5.6 Componon-S, Omega D5XL enlarger
Enlarged to 7x magnification, 21% left edge crop
Print size 6.5 x 8 inches (16.5 x 20 cm)
Illuminated by Zone VI cold light, using Aristo V54 VC tube
* Printed on Oriental Seagull VC RP-F paper, Kodak D-72 (1+2)
Ilford MultiGrade VC filter #2, 21 sec at f/8 exposure
Digitized on HP ScanJet 6200C flatbed scanner, 604x750x24bpp

* RP (resin protected) = RC (resin coated). I regularly choose this paper
primarily for its dimensional stability. Since the final presentation for
all SI entries is digitally-based, this choice makes the physical scanning
of my prints much easier. Since the scanning limit is 800 long-dimension
pixels, the image quality in a hand-made, optically-rendered RP/RC print far
surpasses that attainable in the final submitted digital image.

Interestingly, I did carefully reprint one of my earlier submissions ("Old
Stuff") onto an Oriental fiber-based B&W paper. The qualitative improvement
in the photograph was dramatic. The early morning light only hinted at in
the RP/RC version just leaped out in magnificent subtleness in the fiber
version. A completely different viewing experience, actually.

Thanks again,

Ken