For this roll, I went on a walk with Ronnie and his roommate, Josh Ostrander. Josh and I have the same camera (the pro-sumer AE-1) and luckily he had a 28mm lens. After running around with that on, I can understand why Kubrick was a fan of wide-angle lenses.
Shutter Speed: 500
F-Stop: 11
Lens: 28mm
This was on the journey to the train tracks. We went by this construction yard near a bunch of water domes. This is the first of two pictures. In this one I could see how a wide angle lens could really emphasize depth in conjunction with framing. The pipe and the construction yard allowed me to make this an interesting composition. Unfortunately, I ruined it in the exposure and that random white dot in the middle of the frame. I'm not sure if its from the scan or the development. Anyway, I waited around until one of the guys noticed I was taking a picture. If only his expression was a bit more visible.
Shutter Speed: 500
F-Stop: 8/11
Lens: 28mm
After we walked for maybe an hour and a half down a very long path, we finally found the train tracks. This journey proved to be fruitful because we found several cars left unwatched on the tracks. Of course we took advantage of the opportunity. To the left of the car I'm standing on, near the middle of the frame, you can see Josh Ostrander, owner of the 28mm. With this image, I was interested in how everything we pointing in one direction, from the trains to the treeline.
Shutter Speed: 1/500
F-stop: 8/11
Lens: 28mm
This was taken at the very edge of the last car. I noticed the basic line of the train and how it seemed to reach out into the horizon line and then I realized the graffiti could provide a good edge of frame, like a good place for your eye to start before it moved down the train and then along the tracks. The white on the ground is snow left over from the big storm.
Shutter Speed: 1/500
f-stop: 8
Lens: 28mm
When we were walking back, we took the same road and came upon a set of reeds (I don't know what you call these) that I had photographed earlier in the day. I was curious to see what might happened if I underexposed this, because the reeds had this great rim created by the direct backlight of the sun. I expected more like a bunch of floating, glowing ovals but instead I got this. This is the kind of photo that I find hard to categorize, meaning is it good or bad, specifically in terms of lighting and exposure. Personally, I would say its interesting, especially with the combination of the reflection in the water. To me, "interesting" is more important than a perfect exposure, but really I suppose both those words are basically synonymous.
Porta 400vc____________________________
This roll was taken on a separate walk with Ronnie and Robbie. This was actually shot on my birthday, December 9, and I considered it a bit of a birthday present. It was probably my favorite birthday, largely because of this outing, one of my first photo safaris.
Shutter Speed: 1/125
F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
This was shot near the beginning of our walk. As I tried to take this picture, these two dogs went crazy as did a whole bunch of nearby dogs. Robbie was afraid to stay, but I waited to find a good angle and then waited for them to quiet down. I wish the dog had a bit more information in his camera-left eye, but the heavy contrast on the face is interesting and kind of like what Deakins prefers (although not quite this heavy).
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
I know that with different shutter speeds, you can make flowing water look like droplets or clouds, so I figured with water moving from a fountain, I would go as fast as I could and try to capture the little moments of impact. I included Ronnie in the image to give it some interest, although to be honest its kind of a pet peeve when photographers include one another in their images for the exact same reason I put Ronnie in this one. I really should have just gotten right up close to the water, but a macro lens would have been ideal.
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
This was at the very end of a walk with Robbie and Ronnie. We were walking home and found this fountain and the sun was at a perfect place to light up the water. I tried to see what I could do by adding in the sun, although to be honest I just wanted that girl on the bench to be in the image, but to get close enough to crop out the sun, I would have been more creepy than I already was. The way the water lights up is interesting and the way she is positioned is interesting, but the shadows are a bit too harsh, the image is kind of washed-out, and there's a reflection on the lens (that purple aberration). Still, kind of cool.
Shutter Speed: 1/30
F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
This was shot inside a water dome on Thanksgiving break. A few of us who were still around took a drive out to this place and climbed inside and on top of this thing. We got a ton of interesting pictures and visited perhaps one of the most alien-looking places in Winston-Salem. When I was taking these pictures, I just didn't think about rating the film differently, so I got these terribly underexposed, grainy images. Still, though, I find the image interesting in its own sense.
Shutter Speed: B (approx. 5 seconds)F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
This was shot at the top of a parking garage just as the sun was going down. My first time trying to get light trails (technically my second if you count the exposure before this one). The rooftop let me get this interesting diagonal composition. I did not expect such vibrant colors. Kind of an accident of a photo.
Shutter Speed: ?
F-Stop: ?
Lens: 50mm
This was from when I finally finished this roll of Portra. Ronnie and I wanted to revisit the parking garage from earlier to get some long exposures and pics of the sunset, but since it was still light out we walked around this graveyard. What's interesting about this picture is that I looked at it for some time and wondered why it didn't completely work. I thought the composition was pretty good, the content was really interesting, why did it not come together? Then it occurred to me that the sky was way overpowering and destroyed the calm implied by the statue. If there had been more information in the sky, say if it had been overcast, then this would have worked better (although I would have lost the subtle edge on the statue).
