Las Vegas! What a crazy town. Vegas is an amazingly weird place but what’s more amazing is that one of the most beautiful and serene mountain landscapes you can imagine sits just 20 minutes outside the strip. I always enjoy a little r+r and Red Rock park is a good place to reconnect with yourself after spending a week in Vegas. Plus, getting away from the strip gives your body time to recooperate and your credit card time to cool off…

We rolled out to the park and being a Floridian I dressed as I would anywhere else, jeans and a t-shirt. I failed to consider that my subjects were located in the middle of the desert and it gets COLD in the desert at night. The sun set, the beautiful colors came out, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped (to 40 deg)! By the time I took these photos my fingers were numb, it’s amazing they’re in focus. Anyway, it’s been almost a month since I shot these images but here they finally are, my first attempt at properly exposing slide film… The sky was brilliant shades of yellow and red that evening. The black and white is the first image taken, it was shot just before sunset. The next three are a series of chrome sunset photos that I shot just before dusk. I have to say, I really didn’t expect the mountains to turn out jet black but at least I was able to capture the colors in the sky.

We were in Vegas last month for an annual photography convention and at the end of the trip made some time to get away from the strip for an afternoon. We headed out to the red rocks where KT and I spent a few hours shooting the brilliant natural colors and landscapes. I shot a few frames of ektachrome and a few b+w images, all of which are still being processed. While I’m waiting to get my negatives back I figured I share a few photos KT took…

You can also see these images on KT’s blog today

I finally got a few negatives sent off to my lab and I’m excited to share the first to come back! Here is a shot I took at a swamp by our house. This is officially the 1st 4×5 photo I’ve taken.

Ok, I’ve had some time to play around with my 5×4 (read 4×5) camera and I’m comfortable admitting that I’m uncomfortable with my metering techniques. I’m a master at assembling the camera, getting it ready to shoot, framing and focusing, choosing an appropriate aperture, metering my scene, and then the wheels fall off….

I’d like to think that I’m a reasonably intelligent person with rather astounding intuition for the mechanics of machines and how they work. However, I do have ONE weakness (my wife might differ in opinion of quantity), reading directions,  which is currently being exploited by the workings of my overly complicated light meter. This meter is the only “tool” that I have picked up and not been able to confidently operate after fussing with it for a few minutes (hours, to be more accurate). Thank goodness for polaroid film, I can’t imagine trying to learn spot metering techniques on sheet film and waiting to process the negatives for feedback. Needless to say, I’m learning as I go and so far I’ve learned this:

1. Ansel Adams was a smart fellow. I’ve read his book The Negative (note: I don’t do so well with the whole “reading comprehension” thing, I blame my parents) to explore the Zone System amongst other metering techniques. I’ve found that this system does not work so well, or at all, with color film. So, thanks AA for the lesson on how to waste color polaroids trying to explore the Zone System. Some folks will say that I probably should have researched the net to read up on the topic before I started wasting film. Blah blah blah. Next.

2. Learn your meter: I am using a Minolta Flash Meter VI with a 1 degree spot. This is the same meter I have used countless times to take ambient readings for medium format shooting, however spot metering is a whole different animal. This meter is WAY too smart for me. It has countless functions to “help” the user determine an accurate exposure based on multiple meter readings and it will actually graph EV values for you. I don’t have enough experience with using the spot function to actually get any helpful information from the graphs so I’m just spot metering highlights and shadows to get a “feel” for the scene. It’s not working out so well. After shooting a few frames with my method I can tell you that I would not recommend a blasé approach to metering. So, I plan to spend some quality time with my meter (and manual) to familiarize myself with its functions and capabilities. Some folks will say that I probably should have learned my meter before I started wasting film. Blah blah blah. Next.

3. Watch how the light changes on your scene. Clouds are great for softening the light but man they can wreak havoc on your photos if you don’t pay attention to their movement. I did not pay attention to cloud movement between these next two photos and look what happened. The photo on the left is the first shot I took. I then re-framed and took another shot without metering. I was so blinded by my new framing that I didn’t take the time to notice the sun on the yellow building, whoops. It’s blown out and the photo is garbage. Again, thank goodness for polaroids (and yes I do realize that the color is way off in these photos, it’s old polaroid film). Some folks will say that a good photographer is always aware of the light. Blah blah blah. Next.

I like to poke fun at myself, I mean this large format stuff is just for fun and I really don’t take myself that seriously. However, I do consider myself to be a pretty decent photographer as I do it professionally for a living. It’s easy to get blinded by the vanity of a shiny new camera. I’m guilty of wanting to create images without really knowing what the heck I’m doing and I’m sure I’m not the first person to walk this road. I’m gaining a lot of respect for guys who proficiently shoot these cameras and who draw such amazing colors from their scenes. And really, I tell these little stories because I want you to learn from my mistakes and I hope it will save you some film.  Hopefully I can sort out this little meter fiasco and get some decent images posted on here for your visual pleasure. Until then, I’ll be filling this feed with my mumbo jumbo, rants, and explorations and I hope you stop back soon to catch up.

It’s been almost a month and I finally have an image to share. This is the view from my back porch shot on OLD polaroid film that has been at room temperature for years. It’ve very blue, but so is the water!

More soon…