Three days in the canyons with view cameras, film and iphones.

Hard to beat for a vacation as far as I am concerned.

Wish I had looked closer at this whole mass.  Was noticing the eroded cut-out at the bottom with Jackson turned into it.  Should have backed up a bit and looked at the big picture.  Looks like something there though it could be this beautiful afternoon light.

Jackson checking an image on my 5X7.

First shot of the trip.

Little Deardorff at work with a hanging polarizer.

Kids on the road.

Only one camera problem on the whole trip: my rebuilt 250 wide-field Ektar on the 8X10 wouldn't fire with a cable release.  None of the releases seemed to be long enough.  It worked fine in back home in the studio.  I fired it manually anyway, but worried about camera movement.  I sorted through the five or six I had with me and nothing worked.

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Light.

  I harp and harp on this to students and drive myself a little batty watching for it, but LOOK at the two different photos.....everything the same except lighting.  The canyons have spectacular light on the shady side...often aided by the light bouncing from the far sunlit wall, especially late.

Early in the day.  I'd noticed these trees on a night drive out of CDM.  The light was chattery and the sun would be behind a cliff in an hour or so.

Couple of hours later.  It kept getting better until the light came off the cliff to the right of the image.

Can't say this too much.  Same subject, different lighting: completely different image.

That's a little group of Navajo kids hiking the canyon going down the road.  They had come down off the rim and were walking to a campground.  Great place for kids.

Update.  5X7 HP5 negative just out.  On the meter I use, (Pentax 1 Degree Spot), I rate it at 600.  X-tol 1:1 for 9:20 @ 68 degrees.  Looks good.

Help from the iphone.

We were all iphoning like mad -with the camera functions. ( No bars and no signal in the canyons.) I used mine to roughly select lens length- (I figured out about where on the zoom my various focal lengths were), and also to preview shots and make notes.  Fun to have along.  We worked three 12 hour days in the canyons, twice on the Muerto side and once on the CDC side.

Hubbell trading post house kitchen- full of wonderful light.

Spider Rock overlook undercaves.  Kind of hard to find.  Whole series of caves under the rim to the right of the trail as you are walking out to the overlook.

First shot of the trip with view camera- this is my iphone note.

Stripes.

Martini-rock drive on Canyon del Muerto side.  Got to shoot this scene on two different days.

Standard stuff.  I don't remember if this is 12 inch, (300mm), or 450mm.

Hanging raincloud abstract iphone note.

Actually put this one in iphoto and did some editing.  It was way up on a wall in CDM.  Had to go at it with 450 on 5X7.

This tree, shadow and crack fit in the 8X10.  First time ever for that.  It's almost always a struggle.  I was shocked!

Jackson working a corner with Hasselblad.

Blue Bull Cave area.  

Stripe-hunting up CDM side..

Jackson and I waving arms at CDM.  Katie is doing the six things that happen in a photograph.....pretty dadgum well!  Subject, background, viewpoint, moment, framing, lighting.

Katie and I in front of a strand of wire anchoring a fence corner.  It was such a great set that I ran everyone by it.  The wiring was so rigged up that I entertained the notion that even I could be a Navajo.

Guide and I climbing old Navajo trail.

  I'm huffing and puffing.  Flatlander finding myself at 6000 feet.  I also was doing it one-handed with my little coolpix set on "movie."  Wonderful bounce light from across the canyon.  Mid-morning.  I took a Hasselblad up for some handholding.  Canyon del Muerto.

My Hasselblad shot is something like this.

Guide Thurman from Antelope House Tour company.

Climbing log shortcut.  Very old.  There was a little ladder up the crack at the top.  For this shot I am climbing up and holding my iphone way up and way out.  Very tough to get this shot with a real camera.

Now I wish I had hauled my 5X7 up there for the trail shot.  Not hard- it's basically a staircase with exposure, though if you fall there's no bannister.

Working the 8X10 in CDC

Photographing a half mile up from White House Ruin on the Canyon de Chelly side.  The road runs through an open spot and along the base of a huge North-facing wall.  Could photograph here all day. Using a gray card to make sure I wasn't getting fooled by the wall color.  I've had troubles in the West with running slightly overexposed on my film.

  Pretty cool in the shadow that time of morning.  While I was fighting little bits of Russian Olive the group walked up the road to stand in the sun.

Canyon de Chelly

Going for a long weekend at CDC and up the other arm, Canyon Del Muerto.  Driving 4 wheel drive with a guide on board so we will be getting pretty close to the subject matter.  We've worked out the logistics so that part ought to be easy.  Just the seeing and shooting.  Lenses back from Havel Camera in San Antonio.  I'm going to be looking at patina wall stripes.

  Old proof from Standing Cow Ruin.

Photographing the South Dike.

Last morning.  Spent a night on a big flat boulder in the wind.  Had a little packrat that kept climbing on me.  Very persistent.  Morning pretty still.

Climbers Cave ledge at Shiprock.

Pretty quiet up there.  Shows the ledge and my bedroll and cam.  I'm as far to the North on the ledge as I could go.

Short video on the second morning on the ledge, West Wall near the climbers cave.  I spent three nights on the ledge and in the cave.  One other night on top of a boulder around the corner.  Quite a strenuous climb to get up here with any equipment, though the climbers come right through here all the time.  Start to the ascent is up the roof of the cave.

Equipment details.

Chinese rubber lens hoods in 77mm and 67mm. Might help.  Always worried about vignetting. 

For a minute, we actually had FOUR Deardorff 5X7s in the house.  That's mine in the middle with an Ektar Wide-Field 190 on it.  Close one in an incredible rebuild by Ken Hough.  Far one just got a new bellows from Western Bellows in LA. (which is closing)  There was one more in a box going to Western Bellows for a new bellows.

Follow-up work.

The Black Giant.

Happily burning film.

  This reminds me of the fun, strategizing and long zen-like time-packages of deer hunting....then one shot and you are up to your elbows in hauling, dragging, cutting, buttering, cleaning.   Blood and guts.  The other part of being an artist.

  Absolutely worked at Shiprock for four days.  Camera, pack and careful footwork up, down and around, sleeping on the rock every night in place for the next morning light.  Back home and the processing and lab work starts.  120+ sheets processed, then proofed, now matching the negatives and proofs, sleeving, sorting, tossing.  The editing process.

  On my last Light Impressions 5X7 box.  Low on sleeves and envelopes.  There isn't a functional Light Impressions, any more.  Hard to know where the support and storage materials are going to come from.

  Putting the negatives IN ORDER of shooting.  That's quite a memory feat.  Then I'll look through them a few more times, check the tap water temp and start printing a few.

  Interesting to see the failures.  Some technical stuff.  Pinholes, light leaks in the holders.  Sweaty fingerprints from loading film in a bag in the daytime.  All those negatives and proofs go by the wayside.    I shoot doubles-both sides of a film holder, and return several times to the same subject in different lighting conditions.

  One of the main shots I wanted and worked on never came together.  I was shooting a photo of the main body of Shiprock from the South.  90mm vignetted like heck.  120 Angulon wasn't quite wide enough.  Never got the light I expected.  10 negatives shot in three attempts.  All gone.

  After I get them firmly in the box and in sequence it's going to be fun to work them out.  Might get one more quick trip to the rock and looks like we are going to Canyon de Chelly the first part of next month to shoot a bit.

  I'll never get caught up with printing.

Morning shadow to the West for 45 seconds.

Climbers Cave rockwork.

Update:  All in the box.  34 different scenes.  120+ negs cut down to aprox 90 due to pinholes in the sky, fingerprints, flare.  Always had a backup so I didn't lose a scene though a few didn't make it past the edit.  Just thumbed through looking for the hits and there are about 14 I would put in the portfolio.