In early spring of 2009 I went on a hike with my beloved Michele. Weather for Charlottesville had been forecast in the low 50s. But at Old Rag Mt. things turned out different. Instead of the partly sunny, mid-40s temperatures we’d expected, by the time we got halfway up the mountain, there was a stiff breeze blowing snow UP the side of the mountain, into our faces, with temperatures below freezing. At the point shown in the photograph, we were out on some rocky parts of the climb, relatively exposed, wind howling, like a scene out of Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air.” We’d forgotten our oxygen bottles so we turned around.
1/10 sec. exposure on FUJI RAP film in available light at f16 with Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. This is the original slide.
#36 – Sputnik – don’t remember the film or settings
#35 – Sputnik – f/4.5 Provia 400F
#34 – Stereflektoskop – Kodak Tech Pan
#33 Stereflektoskop – Velvia 50
This was taken a few minutes later. (See notes from previous image) By this time, the shadows have eaten up a lot of the closer depth cues, (and apparently my ability to see the bubble level in the viewfinder) but there is still some sense of being there. It will be interesting to see how the digital slides compare noise-wise to this one.
I was juggling the Heidoscop, and a couple of digital rigs hoping to get a set of digital->film comparison slides printed up for this loop. Hopefully the digital slides will catch up with the folio before the next stop is over.
It was an unusually misty morning, and I wanted to experiment with the back-lit dew, but I didn’t want to seem like I was being too nosy about “The drug dealer shack” on the other side of the field, so I had to settle for semi-backlit. A few years ago, this was an orange grove like you see in the next slide.
