Welcome to my blog! Read about photography, film photography in 35mm, medium, and large formats, pinhole photography, about darkroom printing, alternative photographic processes, and more. Thank you for visiting!
Inviting for a Hike
Very hot and very dry but still so very inviting for a hike among the endless rock formations. Where does the trail lead? What's waiting around the first corner? And the second? The wonders of hiking and outdoor exploration.
Support this blog: Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph yet? Using my links (Amazon) to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them.
When I am in environments like this they trigger a sensory overload for me. A pleasant one but an overload nevertheless. The heat, the intense light, the warm colors all around, and of course, the red rocks and their formations. There are photographs to be made everywhere. It always helps to have enough time and not be in a hurry. Then I can head out for a hike, or even just a short stroll around to let it all soak in. And once the location feels a tiny bit more familiar, it's easier to make sense of it and capture its highlights, its essence.
Desert Trail, Valley of Fire State Park, Mojave Desert, Nevada
Enjoy the beauty that surrounds you (#etbtsy)!
Previously from Lake Mead and the Valley of Fire: Road Trip through Mars - Road through Fiery Wonders - Out of This World - Further Out of This World - Driving through Painted Mojave Desert, Valley of Fire in a Painting, Desert Colors - Inviting for a Hike
Did you enjoy this post and the included photographs? Would you like to see more of my travel photographs? Visit my Landscapes Faraway or Travel Photography galleries. Do you love roads running through beautiful landscapes as me? My favorite ones are in the On the Road Photo Collection. Please, let me know if you have any questions about any photo products offered, or not offered. Looking for a present? I also offer ready to hang solutions like canvas gallery wraps, prints on metal, and matted and framed ready to hang photographs.
Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph for your walls yet? Using my links to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them. And it costs you nothing. You just need to start your shopping by clicking on an advertised product or use the Amazon search box in bottom left. It does not matter what you eventually buy as long as you start here. I truly appreciate each purchase, no matter how small. Thank you!
Valley of Fire ColorsMojave Desert
Painted TreeMojave Desert
Painted DesertMojave Desert
Nature's Colorful PaletteMojave Desert
Intense Desert ColorsMojave Desert
Vintage Decay
Today I'm sharing a couple of black and white photographs I really enjoy coming back to. Several things came together resulting in photographs that I am really proud to share here.
Support this blog: Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph yet? Using my links (Amazon) to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them.
CadillacVintage & Decaying
My journey back into film photography has been about 4 years long at this point and I am still learning with so much ahead of me. There are so many different films that can be shot so many different ways and developed in different developers. The choices are truly endless. And it's very different from the digital world. There, you start with an as good of a photograph as you can and later play with it in software applying filters or different post-production techniques to get to the final output.
With film, it's a reverse process. Many of the creative choices are made before ever seeing the photograph. Color or black and white? What film? How to expose the film? Some films like more exposure than the posted ISO speed (box speed), some less. Further, does the situation call for pushing or pulling? Even after the shots are taken, there are additional choices before seeing the image, like the choice of developer, the agitation during development, and more.
And then there's the image, with its own unique look. If you like it, great, mission accomplished. If not, the process has to be repeated with adjustments made. It takes patience and a lot of time, but to me, the results can be very rewarding.
Such was the case here. The cinematic Kodak 5222 black and white film, now also sold by CInestill as BwXX, fit the subject matter perfectly. The film is sensitive to most of the visible light but is somewhat limited in the reds, thus heavily shifting focus to the blues. That results in highlights and shiny surfaces taking on a different look than with other films. While the theory of this can be hard to visualize, the pictures seem to explain it the best.
REO Gold CometVintage & Decaying
REO Gold Comet, Vintage & Decaying
Shot on film: Pentax Spotmatic, Cinestill BwXX / Kodak 5222
I hope you've enjoyed today's photo pair as much as I enjoyed the whole process from the choice of equipment and film all the way to digital presentation here as well as darkroom printing - but more on that in the future.
Enjoy The Beauty That Surrounds You! #etbtsy
Do you enjoy reading my photography blog? Would you like to see more travel photography type photographs? Visit my Travel Photography photo gallery and enjoy! For more black and white photographs click to the World without Color photo collection. Please, let me know if you have any questions about any photo products offered, or not offered, I will be happy to help! For a quick reference to all photo galleries and collections as well as all photo products currently offered through my site, please, visit the Products page.
Using my links to do your shopping keeps me sharing more photographs and writing the stories behind them and costs you nothing. You can also use the Amazon search box in bottom left for anything at all. I truly appreciate each purchase, no matter how large, no matter how small. Thank you!
Road, Pole, SkyRoad Trip
Historic Grosse Point LighthouseFilm Photography
A House Past PrimeDecay
Summer Greens
Alright, it's Monday morning and it's time for some colors. And this time, it's the endless palette of shades of summer greens! A few posts back, (Artifacts of the Past), I mentioned our base for exploring the wonderful Rock Cities of that region of the Czech Republic. This offers another glimpse into what that base looked like as this lake was literally within a stone's throw.
Support this blog: Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph yet? Using my links (Amazon) to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them.
Serendipity is a wonderful thing! And I was really glad I was ready for this one. Having scouted the lakeshore before I already had a few favorite spots. So when a hot air balloon showed up in the distance I grabbed my camera and knew exactly where to run. A few shots later, the balloon disappeared.
All in Green around ŠpinkaHot Air Balloon
All in Green around Špinka, Hot Air Balloon, Czech Republic
Ballooning above ŠpinkaČervený Kostelec
Ballooning above Špinka, Červený Kostelec, Czech Republic
Enjoy the beauty that surrounds you! (#etbtsy)
Do you enjoy reading my photography blog? Would you like to see more landscape photographs from places beyond Western New York? Visit my Landscapes Faraway or Travel Photography galleries and enjoy! Please, let me know if you have any questions about any photo products offered, or not offered, I will be happy to help! For a quick reference to all photo galleries and collections as well as all photo products currently offered through my site, please, visit the Products page.
Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph for your walls yet? Using my links to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them. And it costs you nothing. You just need to start your shopping by clicking on an advertised product or use the Amazon search box in bottom left. It does not matter what you eventually buy as long as you start here. I truly appreciate each purchase, no matter how small. Thank you!
Previously from the Czech Republic: Of Trains & Stations, A Stroll through Moravian Countryside, Sunset Stroll through Southern Moravian Countryside, Rolling Hills and Poppy Fields, There are as many pubs as there are poppy seeds ..., More Travel Treasures, Drying Garlic, Treasures of Travels, The Power of Simplicity (of the iPhone), Take Me Home, Country Road ..., Sound of Music Induced Moment of Nostalgia, Travel in Space & Time, Of Trains & Stations, Rock Cities, Mills, History, and More, All About the Rolling Hills, An Irresistible Urge to Stop, Czech Countryside, Trains through the Moravian Countryside, A Tourist in Prague, Back to the Land of Poppy Seed, Rock City of Teplice Rocks, Deep in the Rock City, Artifacts of the Past, Summer Greens
Chvalkovice Wind Mill at DuskCzech Republic
Path through Fields of GoldCzech Republic
Rolling Hills of Southern MoraviaCzech Republic
Pinhole & Trucks
The Lensless Zine 2019Pinhole Photography
It's two posts in a row now, I am on a pinhole streak! And not only that, these last two posts are indeed related beyond just being about pinhole photography. I have captured today's photographs on a mission to create my two photographs for the just published Lensless Zine 2019. No, they are not the ones that ended up in the zine as we wanted the paper edition to have unique previously unpublished photographs. As such, the only way to see the two that made it in is to get your own copy.
Lensless 4x5Pinhole Camera
Support this blog: Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph yet? Using my links (Amazon) to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them. Thank you!
Both of these photographs were captured at a location I like to return to quite often with different cameras and different goal in mind. This day, the goal was shooting for the zine, exploiting the wide angle abilities of the camera, and trying something new I have not done at the location yet.
In the first photo, I really wanted to work with the unlimited depth of field and selected the angle you see below while getting very close to the truck. I also wanted to get the exposure perfect. I metered the light and factored in the fact that the photo paper was only sensitive to blue light. The truck was dark red. While I did not mind getting the truck rendered dark, I wanted some surface details so I added more exposure. The background was also very bright and I added more for that. I think I am slowly getting the hang of working with this direct positive photo paper.
One TruckLarge Format Pinhole Photography
One Truck
Lensless 4x5" Pinhole Camera
Original Pinhole Photograph on Ilford Harman Direct Positive Paper
Why do I like using this direct positive paper that many don't? Yes, it is a rather high contrast paper that can render everything in almost two tones, black and white. But selecting subjects accordingly can address that. And no, it does not mean always shooting on overcast low contrast days. That is just one of the options. A blazing sun still works too though as long as the whole object is illuminated by it. Or, if I want to focus on light and shadows, the high contrast comes in handy. And what I did here today also helps, and that is realizing how the colors will be rendered by the paper. Blues will record, reds and greens won't. Knowing that and adjusting the exposure accordingly yielded better results on this day and I will certainly focus more on that in the future.
Two TrucksLarge Format Pinhole Photography
Two Trucks
Lensless 4x5" Pinhole Camera
Original Pinhole Photograph on Ilford Harman Direct Positive Paper
The second photo is something completely different that I have not done much at all. It is a double exposure of two different trucks captured on the same sheet of paper. From a technical point of view, that seems to be another good way of taming the paper contrast. The second exposure serves almost as the infamous pre-flashing of the paper as it adds exposure to areas that would have remained very dark. That offers new future opportunities too!
Enjoy the Beauty that Surrounds You! (#etbtsy)
Would you like to see more pinhole photographs? Visit my Pinhole Photography gallery and enjoy! Please, let me know if you have any questions about any photo products offered, or not offered, I will be happy to help! For a quick reference to all photo galleries and collections as well as all photo products currently offered through my site, please, visit the Products page.
Do you like my free content but are not ready to buy a photograph for your walls yet? Using my links to do your shopping helps me share more photographs and write the stories behind them. And it costs you nothing. You just need to start your shopping by clicking on an advertised product or use the Amazon search box in bottom left. It does not matter what you eventually buy as long as you start here. I truly appreciate each purchase, no matter how small. Thank you!
Previously on pinhole photography: A New Chapter, a New Book - Pinhole Photography, Film Pinhole Photography, Seaside Pinhole Photography, Lake Erie Lakeshore on Pinhole, Erie Basin Marina on Pinhole, Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2017, The Final Six, Large Format Pinhole, Large Format Pinhole by Cargill Pool Grain Elevator, Large Format Pinhole of Orchard Park Train Depot, Large Format Pinhole of Green Lake, Cobblestone on Pinhole, Buffalo, NY, WPPD 2018, Seaside Pinhole Photography II, Seaside Pinhole Photography III, Pinhole & Trucks
TramPinhole Photography
FlywheelPinhole Photography
Crossed Logs - Take 2Pinhole Photography
Makawehi Lithified CliffsPinhole Photography
Shipwreck BeachPinhole Photography
The Lensless Zine 2019
The Lensless Zine 2019Pinhole Photography Showcase
For the third time this year I am excited to announce a new zine on these pages. And this one is very special! It's the result of a collaboration of 16 pinhole photographers around The Lensless Podcast who came together and provided photographs for this unique showcase of pinhole photography.
Pinhole photography provides the ultimate simplification. Instead of a complex camera, a pinhole camera is just a light tight box with a tiny hole, or pinhole, projecting light on a photo sensitive material like photographic film or paper. There is no lens and therefore no aperture control.
The pinholes are very tiny. Expressed as an f-stop they're often smaller than f/128. As a result, exposure times are in seconds or minutes instead of traditional fractions of seconds. When combined with a slow medium, like a slow ISO film or photo paper, they can often approach on a hour or even more. That opens up many new creative opportunities.
The aperture not only controls the amount of light reaching the photo sensitive material, it also controls the depth of field. The smaller the opening, the larger the depth of field. Since the apertures of pinhole cameras are so tiny, they provide an almost indefinite depth of field from front to back. That provides an interesting effect. While nothing is really in perfect sharp focus, everything is rendered with the same sharpness whether it's millimeters away from the camera or far in the distance. That creates another technical phenomenon often exploited by pinhole photographers.
The Lensless Zine 2019Pinhole Photography Showcase
Pinhole camera shutters are often very basic mechanical devices that manually move to reveal the pinhole. The brief camera shake is really not an issue with such long exposures. However, some more advanced pinhole cameras offer a way of attaching a mechanical remote release, like on old film cameras. Usually, pinhole cameras are used either on a tripod or laid down on whatever is available. Some photographers like to explore hand-holding as a way of adding more creative blur.
The Lensless Zine 2019:
- 8.5" x 5.5” Landscape Format Zine
- 36 total pages including front cover, intro, photographer directory, and back cover
- 32 previously unpublished black and white pinhole photographs from 16 different photographers
- All profits benefit The Lensless Podcast
- Available for purchase on my Zine Page
Get your own copy, and who knows, maybe you will join the passionate group of pinhole photographers who embrace the simplicity of the process and love capturing unique images of our world.
Enjoy The Beauty That Surrounds You! #etbtsy
Using my links to do your shopping keeps me sharing more photographs and writing the stories behind them and costs you nothing. You can also use the Amazon search box in bottom left for anything at all. I truly appreciate each purchase, no matter how large, no matter how small. Thank you!
Zine Issue 1: Road Trip 2018
Zine Issue 2: Chasing Waterfalls