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Grosse Point LighthouseFilm Photography Previously captured on film: Analog (Film) Photography - Film Pinhole Photography - Winter Jinx - Seaside Pinhole Photography - Theatre District at Sunrise, Buffalo, NY - On Main Street, Buffalo, NY - On the Road around Buffalo - Lake Erie Lakeshore on Pinhole - Erie Basin Marina on Pinhole - From Ohio Street - As the Names Change - Buffalo Classic on Classic Medium - One More White while Appropriate - More Winter in Hamburg, NY - Palace in Winter - A Shed - The Chimney - Road Trip 2018 on a Page - Road Trip 2018: The First Few Darkroom Prints - First Roll of Infrared Film - Road Trip 2018: A New Darkroom Print - Analog Colors - Cheap Shots of Sunny 16 - Darkroom: A Split Grade Print - A Drive-Through Nation - A Quiet Moment - Lighthouse Beach

For early November, the morning was thoroughly chilly. It was mostly overcast, temperature hovering around 18ºF, a slight breeze in the air. I stood on the shore of Lake Michigan in a place I had never been to before. I stood in the sand of the Lighthouse Beach just north of Chicago. I was hoping for a wonderful combo: a sunrise over a Great Lake, and a lighthouse. What would be not to like?

The not so favorite part of visiting a new place is assessing the parking situation, especially in the darkness of the morning. Quite often I am left hoping I will be in and out before the wrong people notice my car. Some places have parking reserved for residents, others are officially open dawn to dusk or even less convenient hours.

Lubitel 166BLake Michigan Once that formality is taken care of it's time to leave the car behind and head out to explore. The first thing I noticed along the beach were all the icicles on the rocks and trees. I did not expect those at all bug given the frigid temperature they really should not have been a surprise. I tried to find some angles to capture later but could not shoot them just yet. I actually gave myself too much reserve time for potential traffic and arrived way too early. It was still way too dark.

I walked across the beach to its other side looking for additional photographic opportunities for the morning. Then, I went back to the car for a little while and even turned the engine and heat on as I really was not ready for this level of cold. The sun was still not scheduled to show up for another 15 minutes or so. Since the engine was still warm I did not take too long to thaw and get ready for action.

Frozen Lighthouse BeachFilm Photography My camera of choice for the morning was the Lo-Fi Lubitel 166B from Lomography. Reasons? For a medium format camera It's very lightweight and rather small, which makes it a great piece of equipment to throw in a small briefcase for air travel. Yes, it's got it's problems. It vignettes pretty heavily, as you can see in the full square photographs. It if difficult, almost impossible, to focus on near objects. And the latch keeping it closed if very flimsy. It really should be secured with a rubber band around the door or taped up, as I learned this morning when it opened up on me. Fortunately, the backing paper of the 120 format film fulfilled its role and only the active and still blank frame was ruined, which I suspected and advanced past it.

On the plus side, when focused either at hyperfocal distance or at infinity, the Lubitel can turn out impressively sharp photographs. And since the 120 frame is fairly large (6 x 6 cm; 2¼" x 2¼"), some slight cropping can take care of the vignetting. After all, I believe that was the original idea behind inventing the square format - to allow for either vertical or horizontal crop from a single frame.

But enough technicalities. I have warmed up and the sun should be up any minute now!

Grosse Point Lighthouse & BeachFilm Photography So back to the beach I went. There was not going to really be a sunrise this morning, the cloud layer on the horizon was just too thick. But it looked very promising to get the sunlight later for some wonderfully lit beach and the lighthouse. I focused on the frozen beach at first. I wanted to squeeze the lake, the trees, and the ice into a single frame that would remind me of the ground conditions that morning.

After that, my focus shifted to the lighthouse. I walked to couple spots I picked on my earlier scouting walk.

At spot number one, I really liked the collapsed fence as if opening a path to the lighthouse through the shoreline grass. The light was beautiful as if per order illuminating both the lighthouse as well as the grass. I did not pack any filters but even without those, the sky was actually a notch darker than the foreground making it all work very nicely. I was frozen, but warm inside!

Historic Grosse Point LighthouseFilm Photography Lighthouse spot number two was not too far from number one. What drew my attention there was the different alignment if the lighthouse and the trees as well as the stronger focus on the fence and a whole different feel to it as the fence was all in order here clearly saying "Keep Out". Yet again, I really loved how the sun blasted the whole scene with low light and created some interesting shadows.

I mentioned the opportunity for cropping above. And for printing these in the darkroom, I selected the below 8" x 10" crops. More on the darkroom part at a later post though.

Grosse Point Lighthouse & BeachBlack & White Film Photography

Black & White Film Photography: Grosse Point Lighthouse & Beach

Historic Grosse Point LighthouseBlack & White Film Photography

Black & White Film Photography: Historic Grosse Point Lighthouse

Happy New Year to All of You!

Enjoy The Beauty That Surrounds You! #etbtsy

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