I've been on a self-enforced shooting hiatus. Looking at a
backlog of almost 900 images in Lightroom I felt that I was at risk of turning
into some sort photographic magpie, collecting images for the sake of
collecting them. So, over the last 5 weeks I've waded through them all and over
the next couple of posts I'll be sharing and commenting on them.
The first tranche is from a collection I call "Springtime in Alberta" after the Ian Tyson song.
While I was on stress leave, I had a hankering to head down
to Rosebud, Alberta. The shoot in Rosebud didn't amount to much. I did have one
image that I thought would work but after my 3rd pass through (I sweep through
the images multiple times in LR, narrowing down my choices) it just didn't
stand up. I headed on down the road to Drumheller and it just wasn't working
for me so I decided to head home.
Climbing up out of the Red Deer River valley I saw a spring
storm rolling in from the north. I pulled over to the side of the road and got
the cameras ready. Looking over my shoulder and out the passenger window I'd
drive a few kilometers and stop. One of my first shots was of farmhouse framed
in sunlight from the south with a roiling mass of cloud running out of the
north looking for all the world it was sent by God to some good old fashioned
Old Testament smiting.
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| Island in the Storm |
I jumped back in the truck and headed east. That's when I
saw the grain bins. The folks behind me must have thought me mad as I wheeled
off the road and jumped out of the truck with my Leica (I had it around my neck
as I was driving so I didn't have to fiddle around). In both colour and this
black and white version I had images of of those dust bowl storms that blew the
top soil across the prairies in the '30s.
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| Grainaries |
I've got two versions of this next image and I'm not sure
which I like better.
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| Maximum 80 |
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| Maximum 80 |
I think the black and white could use some more work. I
think I used SilverFX control point tools I could open up the road a bit and
create some more drama. My wife liked the colour version better right now I
tend to agree.
Technical Details
All images where taken with a Leica M-E and a Zeiss Biogon
35mm f/2.8. Inital processing was in Lightroom and then in SilverFX.
Upon closer inspection I can see I missed some dust bunnies
(quite a few actually). I had been changing lenses quite a bit in Rosebud and
Drumheller and I'd forgotten that unlike my Olympus gear, Leica didn't think to
add a dustbuster. Of course, with the way these images are laid out, it's hard
to find the dust. Every time I looked I found a few more hiding in the clouds.
I've found a technique that will give me a better chance at finding them so
I'll be going back into these to "kill the wabbits". It involves some jiggery pokery with the tone curve to highlight the specks.
