The Burning Bush
I was thinking about Moses going up to the mountain and seeing a bush that was burning, but was not consumed. What would that look like? Hiking in a wilderness area on the Arizona/Utah Border, the Arizona Strip, I came on this little portion of a much, much larger area. It reminded me, somewhat of what a burning bush might look like. Toyo 45A camera 150mm Sinaron lens with a #25 Dark Green Filter. Kodak T-Max 100 film, processed N++ in my darkroom to kick up the very low image contrast.
9 Comments
Nice work, Nathan. One the better ones in your recent series. The curves in the rock animate the image. The poetic title complements it well. You've done well with the contrast issue.There's a glow to the image, very appropriate.
I still marvel at you folks prepared to go to all this trouble with view cameras and film. That was my ambition, until I thought "No, digital is going to get there first" (before I manage anything wothwhile with a view camera), and I quickly sold off the darkroom gear I was slowly accumulating.
In fact it took a while before Nikon made a DSLR I thought worth buying, but I've been blown away with the virtues of digital ever since. Julian Ray said something like "I so miss Kodachrome, and I so don't miss film". Quite my sentiments!
Kudos to people like you prepared to make the effort.
Thank you. If I were entering the field of photography right now I might not take this path. However, after more than 30 years it is much more intuitive to me, therefore more creative to me, than digital. Though I have to do digital and be fluent in it for the commercial (paid) part of my work, and I am becoming more attached to the digital work flow. A part of that too is that darkroom paper has tripled in price since the COVID fiasco. But I keep soldiering on with my view camera. Even when I was using medium format film camera in my studio I had it set up so that I viewed things backwards since it caused me to see things I never would have seen, that would have been a problem. Re: view cameras. I am so used to seeing things upside down and backwards that seeing things in a normal orientation is actually a bit disorienting for the first moment or so. It's like speaking two or three different languages. the primary language will always be you default position.
BTW, I know a man named Patrick Jablonski, any relationship? He is a very fine photographer from Santa Fe.
If Patrick is a relation, Nathan, he's a very distant one. Jablonski is a fairly common Polish surname. And I'm in Australia. BTW thanks for your kind DM. It means a lot to me coming from someone as accomplished as you.
Okay. I met Patrick when I spent a week in California for Kodak working with John Sexton. Patrick was his assistant at that time. As to accomplished, thank you. I have worked very hard for a lot of years. You learn things by just living that long. BTW, I looked at your portfolio here, nice work.
Thanks again, Nathan. John Sexton is one of my inspirations. Some of his compositions sit in my mind constantly e.g. Rice Field and Pine Forest, Japan, and he has influenced me to start B&W.
I imagine you're correct, Nathan! this is a good shot. I love the "vignette" area.
The line game in this image is awesome! My eyes are pulled directly to the bush!
Thank you.