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| Woman with Basket, Sherbrooke, NS |
Equipment aside, for me, the three important things to look for while actually taking pictures are:
- interesting subject
- good light
- effective composition
When these three elements are present a good picture normally results. Pictorial photographers are always looking for good light. More often than not good light (sunlight bursting through an overcast sky for example] is fleeting/ frustrating and difficult to deal with for the film photographer, both with filter selection/ exposure and the possible need to make film processing adjustments in the darkroom later on.
Earlier this week I headed to a remote beach which I had not been to for a number of years and had never shot in black and white. Much to my dismay it was blanketed in a thick fog, but still quite bright. My incident meter registered 1/500 at f16 set at ISO 400. I waited well over an hour for the fog to clear. It never did. I shot a roll of HP5 with my Mamiya 220, the 65mm attached. Mostly beach stones, to justify my trip.
This happens to me all the time. Subject matter is located. Composition is fairly straight forward. Good lighting is usually missing. I have adjusted to this by mostly shooting under overcast conditions, hoping a good subject and a good composition will carry the picture. Avoiding good lighting altogether. My pictures may look dull, but I like them and in the end I shoot for myself anyway.
In the picture of a woman at historic Sherbrooke village in Nova Scotia, the strong s-curve composition and subject placement carries the image, even though the lighting is flat and overcast. The picture also has a good range of tones from the highlight on the woman's back to the blackness of the background.
The picture was taken with a Zeiss Nettar 120 folding camera and Tri-X. No data recorded. By cropping into the center of the negative it gives the illusion of a telephoto effect even though the Zeiss has a fixed normal lens.
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