This week I am in Scottsdale, Arizona and it is hot even for this time of year: over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 C every day. Today’s image is the view I get when I step out of my hotel room, captured on my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app and “infrared” film. The “wrong” colours actually capture the feeling of being in this spot better than accurate colour rendition ever would.
I finally got around to developing a roll left from our trip to Italy in November of last year. It was a rainy day in Pompeii, but the rain did a great job of detailing the stones and textures on this ancient street. When I looked at the streets, I could not help but imagine how it would have looked, crowded with citizens and slaves, so many centuries ago.
Mamiya M645, 55mm f2.8 lens, Ilford Delta 100, developed in HC-110, Dilution B
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Italy was peering into the crater at the top of Mount Vesuvius. None of the pictures of took at the top in my mind capture the scale and terrible majesty of the site.
In contrast, this image of some worn steps on the trail up the side of the mountain really works for me, in a way none of the crater shots do.
My wife and I just returned from our trip to Southern Italy, so prepare for an onslaught of pictures!
I’m starting with Pompeii. Even though this image was made with a DSLR, to me almost every image of Pompeii needs to be monochrome, to capture the sense of history that exudes from this famous site. A truly incredible place.
This image is a cyanotype of an image I took a bit over a week ago at Niagara Falls, from a spot called Table Rock. I took this image on a Friday morning, very close to the spot where a couple of days later, a young woman would slip and fall into the river and over the falls, to her death.
Today’s image has quite a story to it! I made this picture in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2007 while on vacation with my family. A couple was getting married on the rocks, and everyone around got to be a temporary member of a congregation, although the little flower girl in the right side of the image spent most of her time dancing around the rocks instead of paying attention. At the end of the ceremony the couple kissed, people applauded and the ceremony was over. End of story until this morning. So why am I posting an older image, taken using a digital camera (my old Digital Rebel) and in colour?
Today I received an email from a man in Germany, who was the groom, who found the picture and was very happy to have it, as he did not have many pictures of the ceremony. Little online miracles like this make me smile 🙂
Sometimes you have to work very hard to get the shot you want.
Then there is the image below: taken in Victoria this week, all I had to do was literally look down from my hotel room balcony to see this interesting composition. To not take the image would have been an affront to opportunity.
At lunch on an island, a local hanging around the restaurant posing for photographs and getting free drinks. This image for me distills the experience.
I was struck by the way this boat jutted out, like it had been thrust onto shore. Originally shot in colour with my D90, I used Silver Efex Pro 2 with a heavy red filter setting to darken the sky as much as possible. This plug-in really helped me go from what the camera recorded to what I saw.
Back to digital for this one: one of the more interesting sites on Virgin Gorda is an old copper mine from the 19th century; on the top of a hill by the ocean, there are amazing images in every direction! This image was captured in colour, then converted to black and white with Silver Efex Pro 2.
My Third Eye 