changes

We are moving....

I am finding my posterous blog does everything I need at the moment so have decided to cease using blogger altogether.

And Bill's main blog is at wordpress. I'll be contributing there regularly too.

........

8x10 portraits, or the boredom of the large format photography model

Last weekend Kim and Nikhilā visited and I decided to try and take their portraits with the 8x10.

See the full gallery on posterous

I took Nikhi's picture out on our front porch using existing light. The light was failing and I had to spend a long time focussing on the very dim ground glass of the old camera. Depth of field is very limited with these cameras - which lends a special character to portraiture, but makes setting up the shot difficult. Nikhi was very patient but as the series of photos shows, it was a trial for her I'm sure. The final image is a full scan of the negative - with edges visible.
 
I shot Kim's portrait indoors. He was reading contentedly so the situation was ideal. "Just sit there", I said. The light was even dimmer indoors and I had a lot of difficulty focussing. I pulled out an old maggy-lamp to give some more light, and rigged up a reflector to cut the shadows a bit. That gave me an extra couple of stops. In the end it was an 8 second exposure. Got a little motion blur but it's only noticeable in larger sizes. The final image is a crop.
 
Kali, Nikhi's bearded dragon, watched on with interest. Helen took the colour photos.
 
Difficulties I have with 8x10 are mostly related to focussing. The ground glass on this camera is dim, and in low light my eyes are really struggling to tell what is blurry and what is sharp.

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