Stonewall and Woodstockade
It's all about the light! I couldn’t begin even to conceive how many times I passed this scene. Always finding the light flat and boring or too direct with many obtrusive, and unwanted shadows. I’ve always recognized the photographic potential of the local native sandstone and the beautifully aged weathered wood of these massive gates. Then one day there it was. The whole wall and gate were a glow under of all things the midday sun. I spread open the legs of my tripod as I approached the wall. My mind’s eye scanning the scene before me. How close could I get, what lens to use. A 50 or 85mm lens? I knew any wider lens was out due to the gradual slope I was walking up. I needed to keep the film plane as parallel with the wall and gate to avoid any distortion or ugly parallax problems by too much upward tilt of the camera. No sooner than mounting the camera on the tripod and glimpsing through the viewfinder and the scene began to dissolve back to full open shade, again.
I had a handle on the when and how long. I returned early the next day with my 4x5 field camera, and standard gear. I setup my compositions for the different format and watched as the sun peaked the high stonewall, skimming across the textured surfaces.
I exposed several frames in both 4x5 and 35mm formats, color transparency and Black & White negatives with and without color filters. Scanned the 35mm into the computer and messed around with the Black & White in the darkroom.
Not really excited with either digital color or black and white versions. I started experimenting applying a slight sepia tone, except for a section of wooden barrel which I kept true grayscale.