Large Format Print Exchange Printing.

  10 prints of one negative for a print exchange at the Large Format Forum.  I finished off my France Negatives to look at them but instead picked a newish image, (last fall), from Shiprock.

  I've seen this scene several times.  You have to sleep up there to witness it, as it happens first thing in the morning.  I was up early and saw the shadow coming and going on the far mountain range.   It just flashed like this twice for about 10 seconds but I was set up and ready with the slide pulled.

  Easy to print negative with very little spotting- that's part of the key when doing an edition.  Some of my prints take a tremendous amount of spotting....which would be multiplied X10.  Exposure for an 11X14 paper image was 30 seconds with a ten second burn of the sky.  I printed it pretty soft but it has good blacks and a nice range of tones.  Now I have to flatten them, do the other work and get them in the mail.  Can't wait to see what 10 prints I get back.

Same shot from about 1995.

A gorgeous morning.  Just the second time I had been up there.

I love this scene but you have to spend the night up there to be ready for it.  Pretty sporty.  One night I got in position just as a storm rolled in.  The wind took my hat and nearly got me.  I managed to get around the corner and into the only shelter on Shiprock- the climber's cave.  Safe and dry back there....then the lip of the cave- fairly large, turned into a waterfall with me behind it.  I watched the lighting flash through the roaring water...but finally rolled out my sleeping bag cover and went to sleep.  

  Everything that happens..happens for the first time, the last time and the only time.